Hello Everyone!

This week was another great one!

We went on two exchanges and they were both awesome!

On Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Ruiz on bike (which was awesome) in Lodi. We had a really cool miracle. We went to an apartment complex to look for a name/address we had and they weren't home so we decided to knock on the other three doors. We talked to a girl who was kind of interested but we wanted to wait to teach the whole family instead of just a 17 year old girl. We knocked on another door and a guy opened up without a shirt and and started talking to us in a friendly way. After about 2 minutes of talking he said he was going to put a shirt on and invited us in. He told us he is a welder and normally would have been working but got out early that day. He told us how he doesn't believe in any church but believes  in the bible.  Has found things that go against the bible in every church he's known. He mentioned that he had heard a little bit about our church because he had a brother in law who lived with a Mormon family somewhere in Colorado for a long time and the only thing he heard about them is that they had a really good, happy life. We told him about the great apostasy after the times of Christ and then about the restoration and really liked it. He especially was interested in the book of Mormon. When we challenged him to be baptized he accepted! He is going to be a really solid investigator for the Spanish elders in Lodi. Throughout the rest of the day we had some other really good teaching opportunities and had an awesome day.

On Friday Elder Torres came up to be on exchanges with me. I was really excited because some of the best days of my mission have been when Elder Torres and I were on exchanges in Stockton and Elk Grove. It followed the pattern because we had an awesome day. We found two new families that seem to be really interested that accepted the invitation to be baptized. We saw a mildly less active family that Elder Torres baptized a year and a half ago when he was starting his mission and put a new fire back in them and they are coming back to church again! Things went really well and we had an awesome day together as we always do.

We continued teaching the Barajas family the regular lessons that we have and now we are focusing on getting them 100% ready for baptism on August 10th. They are doing great on their reading/praying but are still not 100% sure about getting an answer. They all came to church this past week except Grace because she was on a Future Farmers of America retreat from Saturday to Tuesday. We are having a member family take them to the Oakland temple on Wednesday so they can see the visitor's center and feel the spirit there. We are also going to take them to the Sacramento temple on Saturday as well while the rest of the branch is doing baptisms for the dead. We are really excited for this family and are continuing to help with everything that we can so that they become truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Last night we met a really cool couple named Alex and Brenda. They were sitting outside their apartment while we were going to visit another family but stopped to give them a card and ended up teaching about the restoration. The husband seems to be prepared because he used to be 7th day Adventist but stopped going to church a year and a half ago. He believes in the possibility of prophets and loves everything we shared. He already liked missionaries because about a year and a half ago when he lived in Fresno, some missionaries helped him cut down a tree in their white shirts and that really impressed him. The unfortunate thing is that he is about to start working a second job for about 2 months that will keep him busy from 5am-12pm every day for the next 2 months. We are hoping to have a miracle with them so we can keep teaching them.

Things are going great here and I hope everyone is well at home as well!

Les Quiero,

Elder Gaskill