Justin & Jacie

Fellow associates, First of all, I'd like to apologize for not sending an email last week, but now you get the pleasure of getting not one but two emails today! How exciting! This email covers what I would've said last P-Day, and my other email is the report for this week. Last week, Elder Schumann-Curtis and I were mainly focused on Justin and Jacie (the couple we're getting ready for baptism), and we were pretty busy, which is always good as a missionary haha. On Tuesday, I gave a lesson about diligence at district council: what it is, how it's a Christ-like attribute, and why it's important to always be diligent. I was told about it the night before haha, but it was still good, my lifetime experience of procrastinating my assignments prepared me for this last minute assignment haha. We later threw a football around with Aiden (Justin/Jacie's eldest son), and then we answered Jacie's questions about temple marriages, the Spirit World, priesthood and its blessings, etc. She told us that the day before, she had all these questions and an inner conflict about her baptism, but when she was talking with us, she felt peace and reassurance. We testified that those feelings of peace were from the Spirit testifying of the truthfulness of our words (see Galatians 5:22), and then Justin said that he had been praying that morning that she would understand our message and have her concerns resolved, which was awesome, the Spirit was very strong there. On Wednesday, we were mainly traveling, trying to contact people. Not much happened until the evening. We talked with a woman who has a Jewish background; Elder Schumann-Curtis has been meeting with her for a while, and she's told him she likes meeting with him for "intellectual curiosity" ("I won't try to convert you, you don't try to convert me"). We talked a bit about the plan of salvation, and we gave her a Book of Mormon, told her what it is, and next time we'll probably determine if we'll keep meeting with her or not. We then took Aiden to a youth activity and started talking about the Restoration and premortal life as we walked him home afterwards. Thursday was my first zone conference. It was about an hour traveling there and back, and the conference was three hours long, and we got lunch afterwards, so that was the main thing we did that day haha. But it was good, and later we met a guy named Edwin for the second time. He's young, super humble, always thinking/pondering as we talk, so it's always a good lesson with him, he's willing to learn. On Friday, we had lunch with a few older women, one of which was a member. We felt like we were at a tea party or something, they were fun to be with haha. We then traveled/street contacted for most of the rest of the day and had a couple dinners with members. We did a lot of service on Saturday, lasted for quite a few hours. Later, there was a block party that we were invited to, and I was completely in my element haha, especially when my companion had to leave me to use the bathroom. But it was good, we met a couple agnostic/atheist guys who were willing to talk with us and discuss God, so that's nice haha. Sunday was very busy. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting (I've attached pictures of what I had written down if you want to read through it), had a couple ward mission meetings, and stopped by a few houses. My companion and I were devastated that Jacie and her kids didn't show up to church becuase it was such a good meeting. Justin had work, so she and her kids would've been more comfortable to go if he was with them (he's been a few times before). Since we want them to meet the ward and learn about how church operates before they are baptized, we are going to push their baptism date to next week instead of this weekend (plus a requirement for baptism is that they attend sacrament meeting). But that might mean that they could be baptized right before General Conference, which would be so cool (so excited for Conference by the way). We later stopped by that evening and talked about priesthood, covenants, and Church organization. They then suggested that they go visit the temple grounds this weekend, which was exactly what we were planning on asking them, and they invited us before we said anything, so that'll be exciting. I hope life is going well and that my emails aren't too boring. If they are, then....I don't know what to tell you, I'll just keep sending them anyways. I'm having a great time here, and I love being able to serve others and bring them closer to Christ, it's been the best. Best wishes, Elder Enger