Centerville Baptism, March 30, 2010

Hey!!
First off Tyler's baptism was great!! There were less people there than they thot, but there were still about 60-70 there to support him which is very good. The bishop asked him to bear his testimony at the end. It was great. His cousin baptized him and his grandfather confirmed him the next day at sacrament mtg. The spirit bore testimony so strongly that this was right and that the gosple is true. It doesn't even make sense to me how people can deny the existence of God. There are evidences all around us that he loves us and that he blesses us. Would we have anything if he didn't? I don't think so. He wouldn't care to give us families or the trees around us or even a living prophet to guide us. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and that he is ALWAYS mindful of what we are going through. He just wants us to show our faith to ask seek and knock and he will answer.

This last Sunday we went with two of our investigators to a Southern Baptist church. It was very interesting and was fun to see how another faith worships. It was weird because the first thing I noticed when we walked in was the smell of coffee. We went to the young adults class and the teacher wanted to call us by our first names because it was more personal, which was totally cool. It was just really weird to hear my first name being used. He was a very good teacher tho. The most interesting part of the whole experience was that I could actually feel the spirit testify, and not testify, about each principle that was taught. Like he was saying "yep thats right, yep thats right, nope....nope... yeah thats true" it was so cool. There was a lot of singing, about 5 hymns that I didn't recognize, they were a little more pop sounding. The very end of Pastor Mike's sermon he said that we need to try to be the best we can and make sure not to be hypocrites in being followers of Jesus. But then he used that one scripture in Ephesians 2 I think, that says by grace we are saved and not by our works lest any man should boast..... that doesn't make sense. Just read James 2, it explains it pretty clear.

We've had some crazy weather the past week. It's been warming up (around the 60s) but then dropped to 50s and snowed all day...at 50 degrees!! then the next day was sunny...I dont understand... the earth must be bipolar.

Anyway, yesterday was zone conference and Pres Olson said that over the past year our area is the least baptizing area in the mission so it's a possibility that our area is merged with other areas like what happened in Kaysville. But he said that's why me and Deming are here, to get the area moving. I assured him it's moving, just slowly. But we need to really step it up so we can keep the area, we need more investigators! Right now we are trying to teach 20 lessons a week so that we can reap the blessings of elder Perry's promise that if we teach that many lessons consistantly then our teaching pool will double. So please continue to pray for us to find investigators. I love yall!! Talk to you later

Elder Hale =)