Monday, December 16, 2013

Troy and Bryson Outlaw Baptism


           Transfer planning this transfer was quite a bit different than it has been over the last few. Things were a lot crazier this week than normal. We usually have time set apart to plan things out from about 10-4 on Tuesday through Saturday. With all the meetings that President Morgan had and all the appointments that we had set up, we missed out on a lot of that time. When we rolled around to Friday we still had half a board of empty places to fill up with missionaries. But thankfully we were able to make it through and get everything worked out. It’s looking like it’s going to be a good transfer. And of course because its transfer planning week I had to get sick. Me and Elder Wunderli both had a rough couple days in there but everything worked out alright and we’re feeling better now so that’s a blessing with the craziness of transfers coming up. 

            Saturday this week was by far the best day. It started with us coming into the office and finishing up everything with transfers and that went really well. Then, right when that all got done, we headed back to St. Louis Hills for Troy’s baptism. It was so cool! Troy was baptized and so was his son Bryson. A bunch of cool stuff happened that day at the baptism. We knew that Sister Outlaws dad was the one who was going to baptize Troy and Bryson. She had told us his name a couple times but it never really registered who this guy was until I saw him. He came to the baptism and I recognized him from Oakville because we went and visited him when I was there and his son was living with him. We taught his sons girlfriend and started to reactivate the dad. I know there was a lot of other factors involved but it was cool to see someone that I helped teach almost a year ago be able to baptize his son in law and grandson into the church. 

            Right after that baptism we headed up to Edwardsville Illinois for another baptism. Elder Wunderli found this girl a few months ago and she was getting baptized now and had requested that he come back and give a talk. I had met her once before and she’s super cool. It was amazing to see how many people were at her baptism. She had the support of the entire ward behind her. There were like 8 or 10 missionaries there who had all had a part in her conversion and it was just a really cool experience to see all the hard work finally pay off. I got to talk to her for a few minutes after her baptism and she told me something that was really cool for me. The time before when I had met her it was right after general conference. She was kind of thinking about baptism but had a lot of things in her way still. It was a really relaxed conversation not a lesson or anything but we started talking about President Uchtdorf’s talk and his quote "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" and almost as a joke I just looked at her and said "So ya. You should probably just do that." We left and I didn’t think much of it after that, but at the baptism she came over and talked to me about that experience and thanked me for saying what I said and the way that I had said it. She said that was something that had helped her out for the next few days to get her through some of the trials that came up. I love learning about the little things that missionaries and members of the church do or say and it turns out to be just what someone needed to hear.

            Saturday night we called out all the transfer news and then headed home. We got home at about 11:00 just totally exhausted and still sick with our colds. I hit the bed and about 30 seconds later had to go to the bathroom and got hit with some great food poisoning. I finally got out of the bathroom and got back to bed at 5:00 am and tried to get a couple hours of sleep before church. Both of us were feeling pretty awful but we were able to make it to sacrament meeting to see Troy get confirmed so we were glad we were able to make it to that. We spent the rest of the day sleeping in the Morgan’s basement haha. But we feel a lot better today than we have for a while. We’re really thankful we got sick a few days ago and were getting over it now cause we have tons of stuff coming up this week. The departing missionaries are all coming in today so we have to get them on the road and then new missionaries come in tomorrow. We have 3 baptisms scheduled for this Saturday but because we missed quite a few lessons due to sickness we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to get them ready by this Saturday so it’ll probably have to get pushed to next week.

Overall everything is going amazing here. I love the opportunities I have been given and am thankful that we have been able to take advantage of the blessings that have been put in our path recently. Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Matt!! Hope everyone enjoys their holiday season. 


-Elder Banks 

 

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