We went from last Monday being the worst day on my mission to Sunday being the best day on my mission so far! When we got to church, we got word from President Brown that him and Sister Brown would be at the baptism right after church, so that always freaks you out a little bit. But then we went through all of church and it was so good! One of the talks in Sacrament meeting was just amazing for everyone to hear, and the speaker used to be the stake president, so obviously it's gonna be good. Then all the really good stuff happened right after church. Since the baptism was after church and the entire ward has put so much time into the Fisher family, mostly everyone just stayed after church for the baptism, so there were a ton of people there. The Stake presidency was there, the stake patriarch was there, President and Sister Brown were there, probably like 70 people were there. Kind of a big deal for the Fisher family having a day like Sunday. When we went into the other room for the baptism, we could see Cassidy freaking out a little bit because they had to wait for everyone to file in, and she was already kind of freaking out before. The baptism was a normal baptism, but then what happened after the baptism is what made it amazing. As soon as she came up out of the water, she turned to her dad and gave him the biggest hug in the world. She was crying, her dad was crying (and Brother Fisher is the most unemotional person I know), and the Spirit was so strong. I turned to look at everyone else in the room and just about everyone was crying as well. All the women in the ward and Brother Fisher's mom were all just crying. It was such an amazing moment for everyone there to see it all happen. As Brother Fisher was walking up the stairs and out of the font, he turned and looked at us and gave us a thumbs up, still crying, before going in to change. All it takes is a moment like that to see how much the Gospel truly means to a family like the Fishers to make everything on the mission so far worth it. Every slammed door while tracting, every person chewing us out, every 5 degree day in the winter on a bike, every car crash was all worth it being there for the baptism. Everyone there felt the Spirit as they hugged after the baptism. Never going to forget that moment.
The rest of the week was amazing as well! We were able to be blessed with 7 new investigators from last week, and it really wasn't anything that we did. We were able to teach a new family in our Ward Mission Leader's house and have dinner there with them. They are a super cool family with a few kids as well. Good food+good people=good time.
Brent and Aimee were on vacation with the members in our ward that introduced us to them, so they weren't at church on Sunday (which we were bummed about because the talk in sacrament meeting and the baptism would have been amazing for them), but then we met with them on Monday and had a really good lesson with them. They had slipped up a little bit on the Word of Wisdom, and we read through the Family Proclamation with them and talked about each of their roles in the family, and really focused on the Priesthood with Brent and being a worthy male to have the priesthood and to be an example to his kids. It really hit him and then we committed him to live the Word of Wisdom fully, and committed the whole family to be baptized on August 12th. And we talked to them about going to Kirtland on Saturday, so as of right now, we are going to Kirtland to take a tour this Saturday. Good stuff.
One of the new investigators we picked up has been at church for a while, is engaged to a member, and they are getting married this Saturday. He's been taught in the past by other missionaries and so we met and talked with him for a little bit and had a lesson with him and committed him to be baptized. He already knows that it is all true and is just needing to quit smoking, and he will be good to go!
Matt is still reading a ton in the Book of Mormon! He has finished up to Helaman in two weeks and is still going strong with it. He is a super awesome investigator that really wants to learn and know if it's true, and reading is the first part in that! Still just trying to help him to know.
We've started meeting with one of Brother Fisher's good friends, Brad Arp. He was coming to the baptism for Cassidy, so we figured this might be his time. We've met him a few times before but never had an official lesson with him until Monday, the day after the baptism. He said that on Sunday, it was the first time in the last 24 years of his life that he has felt happy. 24 years! He's made some dumb mistakes, but being at the baptism and church all day he truly felt happy. We went back on Tuesday to see him and he said that since he's been reading the Book of Mormon, he hasn't been able to put it down and it's the first time he's really been happy about life. We honestly weren't too sure about his interest level but now he has turned into one of the most promising people we are teaching and loves meeting with us. Good things are coming with him.
Obviously by the subject line we got a new car last week. It wasn't supposed to come until the end of last week or the beginning of this week, but they didn't realize how bad the crash was until they called us to check on our health and realized we were in a ton of pain and biking wasn't helping at all, and when they saw pictures of the car they realized that it was a pretty bad accident, so they pretty much emergency shipped a car out our way. It's almost brand new, we just hit 2400 miles on it, and it's a 2017 Rav4, so super nice. And it's really really bright blue so now there's no way that people don't see us when we are stopped in the middle of the road. It's really easy to find in a parking lot because nobody has anywhere close to the same color of car as we do, but all is good for us. No more biking while in pain for us! Speaking of, we are getting a lot better. Just little head aches here and there, but not anything too bad for us. Just taking lots of pain medicine, but getting better. There are definitely good things coming this next transfer!
Love Elder Woodward
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