March 30

My questions for Matt:

1) How are you doing? 
2) How are all of your investigators doing? 
3) Where will you watch General Conference? 
4) Have you received a dinner invitation for Easter Sunday? 
5) Have you been able to visit any of the nearby sites on a P-day? 
6) About how many members are in your ward there? 
7) How far away is your Stake Center? 
8) Are you getting used to the larger community and driving on an interstate? 

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Mom,

1) I am doing pretty well! I was sick a bit last week but I am feeling a lot better today. 

2) Doing well. We were able to see Thomas again yesterday and he is doing awesome, he's on baptismal date for May 16th! He has been reading the Book of Mormon and already has an answer that it is true! It's pretty amazing, he told us that he already feels like this is the right thing for him to do so he's going to come watch conference with us this Sunday. He went to a place to go get lunch and they have free books there and when he went to the bookshelf the first book he saw there was The Book of Mormon and took that as a sign from God (it was a hardback copy of an older edition). It had been marked up by a member (in preparation to give to someone) and the portions of the book that were marked up were things that he had been praying for answers to (there was Nephi's Psalm in 2 Nephi 4, Alma 32, 3 Nephi 11, and Moroni 10 all marked up with explanations written out on the side of the page)! When we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon (the paperback ones we usually give out) he asked if we could get him a hardback and we said we would look for one haha, but God provided! 

3) At the church building most likely. We might watch a session or two at a less active family's house or an investigators house if they don't want to join us at the church and we want to give them some extra "encouragement" to watch it, haha. 

4) I think so. I'd have to check the dinner calendar when I go home, I can't remember. 

5) We went to the top of Mt. Taylor last p-day and we met a less active guy who said he'll take us out pretty much any p-day because he's always off and likes to do stuff like that anyways, so that's awesome! 

6) Probably about 200-220 active members, but I think there's like 600-800 on the roll, but I'm not positive. 

7) It is in Gallup which is about 60 miles to the west 

8) Yeah, I'm getting used to it haha.

The General Women's Meeting sounds pretty awesome! I have been to Hatch's Chocolates a few times, it's pretty good. I got the hot chocolate and a truffle or something. That's awesome that she mentioned the sister from Chinle! I'll have to look up her talk one it gets published online, hopefully by next week or something. I doubt she's related to President Yazzie, Yazzie is a common last name like Smith or Johnson. The big last names here are Yazzie, Begay, and Benally. those names are common throughout the whole reservation, but there are other names that are more area specific. Like in Steamboat there was Tahy, Pete, Bitsoie, and in Bluff there was Maryboy, Bigboy, Yanito, Redhorse, Lameman, etc. 

I actually haven't seen the new Easter video yet, we hopefully will be able to watch it today at an investigator's home or something. It should be really awesome! He Is the Gift from Christmas time was awesome. 

I'm glad you are reading the everyday missionary book!

I LOVE THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. That is why I am preaching the gospel for two years, because I don't want the sacrifice of His Atonement to be in vain by not letting every single person to know of His true gospel that has been restored to this earth. I've never served around other Christian denominations much because I was on the reservation for so long, but we've been running into a fair amount of anti-Mormons here in Grants and it's only strengthened my testimony of this Gospel, because how people believe we are cleansed and receive salvation is pretty confusing and doesn't fit together as perfectly and beautifully as the doctrine of Christ taught throughout the standard works. 

Love, 

Elder Schaelling