January 5, 2009

Dear Family,
Finally the holidays are over, now we won't hear lame excuses from everybody. Now nobody can say their too busy. Now a common excuse is that it's too cold to go to church. It surprises me that people won't go to church because it's too cold. The baptism for Erick went very well. His mom his older brother and younger brother was their. It was a good service. His mom warmed up towards the end. Elder Jacobson baptized him and I confirmed him a member. It was a neat experience. This past week a member took Erick and got him some church clothes. So Sunday morning when he came to church he looked like a future missionary. He will receive the priesthood next week and pass the sacrament the next week. It will be good to hear and talk with him.
Hadi is the guy we are teaching, he is from Iraq. He doesn't believe in the Muslim religion and says that out of all the christian churches ours is the best. But he is lacking in some areas. For example he believes in the book of mormon and in Joseph Smith, but has a hard time accepting Jesus Christ as his savior. He is a very smart guy and has good questions. But little by little he will come around. On Saturday he said he was going to fast for 3 days to see if it's something he wants to do. So we'll see. Thanks for sending the scriptures for Erick, me and Elder Oliver put our testimonies in them too. We'll give them too him tomorrow. The jerky was good it lasted about 5 minutes also the snickers were good. They haven't given us more miles, so we sometimes walk. It's a small enough town it's not bad. They don't plow the roads, so everybody drove over them, then the sun came out and melted the snow and the past weeks it has been cold so it's all ice. So we can't use our bikes much. Elder Oliver is a good missionary and he is helping me with my spanish. He can teach very well. He will be a good missionary. Love, Elder Garrett