Baptims galore

Hello:

Hope everything is going fantastic back home.

News: Baptisms, baptisms, baptisms! Our entire district has been on fire this transfer with baptisms! (This usually happens during the first few months of the year, but I'm still excited.) We baptized Crystal in December, and we will be baptizing a mother and her son this Saturday, the 29th).

Unfortunately, this third transfer in the foothills ward is drawing to a close. I will be sad to leave this place-- it has so much potential still, and the ward is amazing. But likelihood is that I will be headed out on Feb 8th to a new area (feel free to surprise me, President! ).

I'm so grateful for the amazing opportunity I have had to come out here in Colorado and serve the Lord. I can't believe I'll hit my 6-month-left mark so soon! Almost half of this district is from my MTC group, so our impending departure looms ominously over us all the time. I feel frantically obsessed with using every spare moment that I have left to be as effective as possible.

And here's a fun tidbit... I've been having some fun with my camera:

1. Me daydreaming-- I'm obviously only half there =). Elder Money is obviously worried.
   
   
2. And, as I said, our house is obviously haunted.

--
Elder Watkins

Colorado Denver South Mission

999 E. Tufts Av.
Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113

First real snow

Hello all:

No entry last week. Sorry-- no time last week. Almost no time this week, either. Here's a quick report:

1. New elder living here-- a ZL from my MTC group-- Elder Eric Smith from Pink Hill, North Carolina. Pres. now has both NC elders living under the same roof. Can't wait to send "y'all" a voice recording of him-- he and his accent make me feel like a Yankee. =) I've started to pick it up a bit, too-- yikes!
   
   
2. Snow! Snow! Snow! The first real snowing that we've had all winter has finally happened. Makes the work a lot harder when you're not allowed to drive anywhere.
   
   
3. Zone Conference: It was today and it was great, as always. Sad, though. The sisters from my MTC group bore their testimony because it was their last one. Gah! People from my MTC group are going home really soon! It's Elder Mooney's last Zone Conference, too. Aye! I feel so old...
   
   

Not much else to report. Hopefully I'll have pictures to send to y'all soon. I did want to address one subject of great importance. The church, as many know, have a fantastic website,Mormon.org. It is such a great missionary tool, and has been extensively renovated. The Church has started a new ad campaign (see Elder Russell M. Nelson's most recent conference address). It's called 'I'm a Mormon." It allows all adult members to create online mormon.org profiles (think like a blog or facebook profile) where members can share about their lives, and a bit about the gospel. We are visiting the site with every member in the mission and helping them set up profiles. I ask every member who reads this to set one up for him/herself this week, and link their mormon.org profile to their facebook, linkedin, myspace, blog, or whatever account to it so their friends can see it. Let me know the results, too!

Well, love you all. Have a great week!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Hello all:

Hope all is going well. Good news-- our members had a tree ready for us to put up (see pic attached).

We also had an interesting dinner last night:

We're teaching a part-member family here that reminds me a lot of my family. The Mom got married right out of high school, is going to school full-time (stressing over finals), has four wild, crazy little boys ages almost 2 through 8, she enjoys scrapbooking, and hates that her house gets trashed every 30 minutes or less. Gee-- is this my family?

Last night. watching the kids fight, quarrel, and play with uncontrollable energy was a HUGE trip down memory lane. The youngest dumped sprinkles all over the floor, and the gingerbread houses they were making ended up all over the walls. After the mom cleaned up the youngest one (almost 2, named Joseph), Zachary (age 6) came in with her expensive lotion all over his hands. Zachary tried to blame the older child, Christian (age 8, who was at the time jumping on Elder Mooney and trying to feed their puppy to their blind monitor lizard).

After cleaning off Jacob, little Jacob (age 4) came in with an unwrapped (*cough cough*-- "female hygiene item) in his hand and was playing doctor-- pretending to give us all shots with said item. Then, Zachary pushed little Joseph off the chair so that he could get into the raw meat and piroulines (we were having fondue). After being expelled from the chair, young Joseph screamed, and came up to receive consolation by wiping the frosting off his hands and onto my slacks.

This was all a big trip for me, and it felt very nostalgic to see/ hear/ clean up so many of my childhood memories. I got a big kick out of it, and definitely enjoyed the visit.

Well, gotta go. We have a baptism Saturday-- yay!
--
-- Elder Watkins

Colorado Denver South Mission

999 E. Tufts Av.
Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113

Mission rule changes

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Hello all:

I decided to get a little festive with my text above-- forgive the 80s style, but without access to any other website, I'm relatively limited in my decorative abilities. =)

I can't believe I'll be calling home in a few weeks-- has it really been 7 months since Mother's Day already? And to think I only have one call home left after this one! Gah! This whole mission time vortex is starting to annoy me.

The transition of the mission under direction from the Lord continues on. Almost all mission rules that aren't specifically in the White Handbook are gone. Pres. Monson said:

When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates (See Ch. 8 in PMG).

But at the same time, Pres. Packer and other general authorities tell us that (can't quote it exactly):

To the degree that your mission is regimented, to that same degree will the Spirit be absent from your mission.

I guess it's all about finding that happy medium of responsibility and accountability.

I've found that having that much freedom and opportunity is both liberating (we can be more personable and happy with everyone when we're not stressing over numbers), but it's also more difficult, because we have to get more creative with our work-- we can't just "do as told." It takes revelation and the Spirit, both of which are extremely hard for me to obtain and recognize. Well, we'll see how it all goes.

Also, we've been really pushing our "Give the Gift" member missionary program. And we've been seeing some success! It's interesting-- I've found that the Lord's ways truly aren't our ways. it's not a "Keep a commandment in category A and get a blessing in category A" sort of thing-- often it's "Keep a commandment in category A and get many blessings in category N." As the members have been praying for missionary opportunities for themselves, the Lord has been giving more to us. We've been finding more results from inspired tracting.

A member also referred his son's fianceé for us to teach. She quit smoking and coffee before she came to the US. We had a fantastic 1st lesson (The Restoration). We issued the baptismal and prayer invitation, and she prayed out loud at the end, asking if the Book of Mormon is true. After that question in the prayer, there was a long pause, and then, "and now that I know it is, please tell me Lord if I can get baptized next Sunday." She opened her eyes crying, and described the warmth she felt.

It was pretty cool. We explained that she still had 3 lessons, a time or two more at Church, and an interview to accomplish first, but that the Lord certainly must admire her enthusiasm... as do we =). Anyways, she has committed to be baptized on December 18th. The Spirit was palpable-- definitely one of the more powerful experiences of my mission.

Anyways, there's my rant. Hope you all have happy holidays.


-- Elder Watkins

Colorado Denver South Mission

999 E. Tufts Av.
Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113