March 3, 2014

I am pleased to announce that I safely received the goodies from home, and have since been engaged in munching Jelly Bellys at every possible moment. It's awesome.

Also, remember how Mom and Dad are in that Mormon message? We were watching it the other day at our branch mission leader's house and everybody instantly knew who were my parents. They're all just curious at how Dad is "built like a tank" and I'm so small. So, after seeing that, and then receiving a giant tub of Jelly Bellys, my companion and the other two elders send their love.

This past week was pretty awesome. We messed around on the beach for P-Day. However, we forgot to bring any kind of ball, so we ended up just throwing rocks and being lame. I saw a sea lion though. I was climbing around on the rocks, since it was low tide, came around into this alcove thing and almost had a heart attack. The thing was massive and sleeping about five feet from where I was. Last thing I wanted was to wake up a big animal from it's nice nap when I was only a few feet away.
Then, from the awesome P-Day onward, it only got better.

We have an investigator that is set for baptism this month and he is awesome. The first thing that surprised me about him is that he's 86 years old. It's not too often that old people want to talk to us, let alone listen to and accept our message. We taught him the law of tithes and offerings this past week, and he fully accepted it. Since he's diabetic and living on the pension, we made sure to stress that he doesn't have to fast if he can't handle it, and the church isn't expecting some exorbitant amount of money from him. Come Sunday, we weren't sure if he would even be coming to church, since his knee had been playing up when we went around on Friday, and that usually means that he can't make it. Much to our surprise, about twenty minutes early, in walks Noel. We greeted him, and as I was walking with him to a bench in sacrament, he said he had been fasting, and that he wanted to make a contribution. What a legend! He's not even a baptized member yet, and there he is following the commandments, fasting and paying fast offerings. Not to mention that when we taught him the Word of Wisdom, he was following it the next day. For the most part, this work is pretty hard, but then the Lord sends someone like Noel that is totally willing to commit. Times like this sure help me to put things in to perspective.

We've got transfers coming up next week. I reckon I'm staying here, so I'm not worried at all, but I guess we'll see.

Love Ya!
    Elder O'Neal