An Exciting Week

Hey everyone!

This last week has been exciting and some great things happened! We had a good amount of lessons and we were able to keep plenty busy. There was plenty of service to do. We helped with some grounds-keeping around one of the chapels we covered. We mostly helped with picking up trash and trimming some of the plants around the property. We also got a call from one of our Bishops saying a family was moving in and needed help moving. We jumped right on it and got to work. On Saturday, we helped set up some chairs and tables for a dinner after one of our baptisms, then helped to take them down afterwards as well. All of these service opportunities were spontaneous and we weren't completely prepared, so we ended up doing it all in our proselyting clothes (white shirt, tie, slacks, etc.). When you're serving a mission, you find that you'll do just about anything in a white shirt and tie.

We also had two baptisms this week! One of them was Brandon, he's been meeting with missionaries for quite some time and finally decided to get baptized. The other was Taylor, he kind of just reached out to us and asked to take the discussions so he could get baptized. Both of them are awesome guys and it was a great day overall, of course! The best part is they both live in the same ward, so their confirmations were during the same sacrament meeting. I'm excited to see their continued progression after baptism and to see how they grow further in the gospel.

Another exciting thing that happened this week was that we met for the first time with a new "Golden Investigator". He's been attending church and reading the scriptures on his own for a few months now and agreed to take the missionary discussions. He's a pretty quiet guy and has a good sense of humor. I can tell its going to a great time meeting with him and helping him grow in the gospel!

I'm trying to do better at taking more pictures and typing a bit less, so forgive me as I work to make the transition. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words! I'm grateful for everyone's support and prayers and I hope to hear from some of you in the coming week! Have a great week!

Elder Orchard