Working towards Baptism

Letter #69
December 22, 2014
Area: Trinity River
Companion: Gamez

Sorry my email won't be very long, I don't have much time, but I will be skyping you on Christmas.  I will call Dad's phone at about 11am or a little after to give exact details, we will skype at about 11am or about 11:40am depending on who goes first. (note: Elder Dye did call, and it was enjoyable...the time was definitely Texas time:)

This week we both felt like the main thing that we did well was how we worked with the Chavez family.  Again, they are working towards baptism hopefully this weekend, the one problem is them getting married. They said they would try to go to the courthouse today to at least get the information necessary and set a date to get the marriage license. This is a challenge that we are trusting in the Lord, so we went over there four different times to visit them in preparing them by teaching them the commandments of God.  The first day we taught the Word of Wisdom, and when they read that drinking coffee is bad, they said "It looks like we're not drinking coffee anymore," then we found out that Ernesto was a smoker, but he threw out his cigarettes and gave his word to his wife, and to us that he wouldn't smoke anymore, and so far, he still hasn't! The next time we went over the baptismal questions, the only problem was that they weren't legally married, so sadly we had to move their baptism back a week, once again. We then got to talk about the Law of Chastity and the true reason we have it, that being-- to protect the family and prepare the family to be one sealed as an eternal family. During that lesson we shifted their focus from baptism to the temple, and they seem to understand what is necessary to get to baptism, and then to the temple. Then the fourth and final time we visited them, we decided to do a "He is the Gift" lesson and sadly the video didn't load, but we got to talk to them about The Gift of Christmas - that being Heavenly Father's gift of His son, Jesus Christ, and how we (as God's children) can discover, embrace, and share it.

Love you