Well we have a baptism on Wednesday!! It is an 8 yr old who is part of a recent convert family. He is awesome. He has autism. This will be the third time they have attempted baptism, because he doesn't like the water, but I think they're doing it in a hot tub this time, so it should be fine. :)
We had exchanges with the zone leaders, and I had the great privilege of serving with Elder Watts here in Carpinteria. I learned so much. He has an INCREDIBLE ability to show love for the investigators. It blew my mind how he just connected so well with everyone we talked to (in English... I was kind of on my own for Spanish. Haha). I definitely learned that I need to focus more on really listening more than speaking. We had a lesson with an 18 year old, and the nicest way I can put it is he is kind of an emotional wreck. He just has no self confidence and lets what other people think of him determine his happiness. Everyone at school says that, "only girls talk about their feelings," and call him gay if he talks about it. Elder Watts handled it about the way I would imagine Christ would handle it. He handled it waaay better than I could have. Haha. It tears me apart, because I realize that I was the person in high school telling people that stuff was girly, making fun of things because they're "gay" and all that. I would say that's one of the biggest lessons I have learned on my mission so far, to see people the way our Heavenly Father sees them. I realize that I am nothing, less than the dust of the earth. No one can determine someone else's unhappiness. Going back to who I was before the mission is not even an option, I can't. It would be like spitting in God's face.
We had our first District Meeting of the transfer! I'm not gonna lie, I was a little nervous, but I thought it went really well. We had a talk on obedience by Elder Mackay that was really good and then elder Sorensen and I did an edpep on the importance of kneeling prayers and getting the investigator to pray kneeling for us at the end of the lesson. It came to my attention that it was an issue as I have done Call-ins for baptismal updates on Wednesday nights. For the questions in the 2 boxes- "Reading in the Book of Mormon" and "Saying kneeling prayers"... The first is almost always a YES, but the kneeling prayers is almost always a NO.... It seems like it's a pretty vital piece of whether or not they make it to the waters of baptism or not, otherwise it wouldn't be on the paper. So my goal for the edpep in district meeting was to make sure that both of those boxes say YES. I feel like it is the little things that are going to make a difference. It is just like when Namaan went to the prophet Elijah to be healed of his leprosy, but was almost offended that such a menial task was required. Something as simple as washing in a muddy river 7x to be healed from leprosy is comparable to investigators saying kneeling prayers. It may make all the difference whether or not they receive an answer and keep their baptismal date.
Yeah, we had an earthquake this morning. It was pretty cool! I just finished reading the New Testament this week, and Revelations is quite the trip.... we're in for it - hahaha- signs of the times!!
I am so jealous of Marshall playing indoor football... that's sick.
Love,
Elder Parrish
