Good morning everyone!
Just wanted to let you all know that I am alive and well.
This first week in Richmond has been long, but it has been awesome :)
The members here are super missionary minded and within the first few
days we got a huge list of referrals that we have been working on.
We went to visit a woman who hasn't been very active, and she
was very nice to us. We got to talking and she asked if we
wanted to meet her boyfriend, so we said sure. Well, it turns out her
boyfriend is not a member, and he wants to learn about the church! So we
are going to start up lessons with them this week :)
We were driving to visit some referrals and we noticed a man
painting a trampoline in front of his trailer. We decided to stop and
offer help, which he accepted. We got to talking while we painted
and once we were done, he told us that we were the first missionaries
to actually help him with something. He then told us about how
he has been thinking about getting active again, and he told us to
drop by the next day and teach his son, who wants to be baptized. So
we came back and met his son Raiken. He wanted to be baptized, so we
set expectations with the both of them about the things they
both need to do in order to gain a testimony throughout the teaching
process, one of which was coming to church. They both committed to go to
church and they actually showed up yesterday! We are excited to be
working with them :)
We were out introducing ourselves to the ward mission
leaders, and when we knocked on one of their doors, he answered and said
we were just in time. He then proceeded to usher us into his car and
he drove us to a house. We got out and he introduced us to the owner
of the home, who is a recent convert. We were talking and the man
asked if we would come teach his family the new member lessons, we said
of course. He then told us that his two boys were not baptized and that
if things
go well, he would like them to be baptized. We are meeting
with them tonight.
A similar experience happened with another ward mission
leader. We showed up to introduce ourselves and he took us to a lesson
that we were right on time for. It was also with a family where the
parents were recent converts. They have a girl that wants to get
baptized, but there are a lot of things that make it hard to teach her.
The parents expressed that they feel lost, especially about how to teach
the gospel in the home. We offered to teach them how to do
family home evening, so we are going over tonight to do that.
On transfer day, I got to go to see my recent convert, Dani
Goodwin, who was baptized a year ago. She had invited me to go with
her to receive her endowment and to attend her sealing. It was an
amazing experience being able to see her be sealed to her husband
who passed away a few years ago! I am so happy for her :)
Anyway, it has been a good first week of the transfer! I
really appreciate all of your prayers and I am praying for you
also. I hope you are all seeing success in your efforts to share your
testimony
with friends and family. I love you all and hope you have a
great week!
Elder Walker
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| Elder Toon and Elder Walker at Easter dinner |
