Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Haydee Barajas Baptism

Hello Everyone!

This week was a great one as they all are but very different.

It is different being in English work but I'm doing the best I can to remember all the English I used to use.  You wouldn't think that it's weird since I spoke English most of the time anyway, but it really is a big difference.
Elder Baryshnikov and I are doing great.  I'll tell you a little bit more about him.  He is the same age as I and is from Sandy, Utah (just as many other good missionaries I've served with).  He was born in Russia and came to the United States when he was young but he speaks Russian pretty well because his mom always spoke it.  He's pretty tall (probably about 6'3") so I feel short again being around him.  He likes snowboarding.  He's a really nice guy and I'm excited to be his last companion.

This week has been pretty good, doing a lot of things to get to know the area better.  The zone is doing really well and our area is doing really well but we don't have any investigators that are really really close yet.  We have an investigator that has been taught for over a year working towards getting baptized on September 21st.  We'll have a crucial lesson tonight to help us know if he'll be ready for then.  We have another investigator named Immanuel.  He is from Nigeria and moved here recently and moved in with a less active lady.  He wants to get baptized but needs to move out from where he's living since he doesn't want to get married to that lady.  This past week we found him a place to leave and he's moving in on the first of September and he should be able to be baptized shortly after that.  We have plenty of other people that we're beginning to work with, so we'll see in the next week who sticks out from the rest.

The highlight of this week was when I went back for the baptism of Haydee Barajas.  Grace and Andres didn't end up getting baptized with their mom but that's OK with me because when they're ready I'll get to go back for another baptism in Lodi (: The baptism went really well.  Elder Lee and I were the lead missionaries for the 2 that got baptized but since we got transferred the week of the baptism things were organized by the younger missionaries and could have been better but were good opportunities for them to learn.  I was really happy to see that the whole Barajas family came to the baptism; even the husband.  We talked a lot and he was really sad that I had left but made sure to let me know that anything I need in the future he would love to help me with.  The Barajas family is also excited to meet my family someday down the road.  We also have it worked out so that they can take me to Mexico with them in December 2014 (they go every December during winter break but that will be the first one that I'm home for).  I got to baptize Haydee and it was a great experience.  I didn't get to witness the confirmation but I'm sure it went great.

Today I got to go to Coloma (where gold was discovered) with a bunch of missionaries.  In the California Sacramento Mission they always take the missionaries to Coloma 1 Pday before they go home so a lot of the missionaries I came out with and I got to go to Coloma and it was a lot of fun.  We didn't find gold but it was a good time.  I won the horse shoe throwing competition with my companion though!

Well I'll try to find some more things to talk about in my new area next week!

Les Quiero,
Elder Gaskill

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