May 26

Mom,

Seems like you have had a lot going on this past week! I'm glad you survived it.

Jacinta is doing great, she is going to be baptized on June 6th and confirmed on June 7th (#holla)! One of several miracles that I need to tell you all about is Jacinta bringing a friend of hers to our lesson last Thursday. She had a friend, named Velvet, who had just moved back from Farmington to Grants earlier that day and she asked her if she wanted to come to Bible study with her that evening, and she agreed. When we heard (about 10 minutes before the lesson) that her friend was coming we were planning on teaching the law of chastity and we were thinking, "Should we teach about chastity still since it'll be her first time meeting with missionaries or should we do something else?" and we just decided to go with chastity and eternal families anyways. So, we did that and she loved it! Haha. She came to the next lesson on Saturday and we taught tithing and fast offerings and she told us about how she feels like now that she's meeting with us she now believes that God is really listening to and answering her prayers! So we invited her to be baptized on July 4th, and she accepted.

In addition, we invited Austin to be baptized on June 20th (we'll see if he makes the date, he has to quit smoking so it might not be that day) and he accepted! Also, we went to go teach him last Saturday and he was talking to his friend Cody who has been thinking about and looking for religion who is 17-years-old and invited him to come to our lesson and so we taught them the plan of salvation and he also invited the invitation to be baptized on July 4th!

My last big miracle to report from this past week is that a really nice Tongan lady named Leah showed up to church Sunday morning. We got talking to her in Gospel Principles, because the relief society president talked to her after sacrament and took her to that class, and she is a non-member. She told us that she was visiting some family in St. George and attended a Polynesian ward there and she has been living here in Grants for a while and she has been praying to God and telling him that she's not sure where her life is supposed to go but that she had faith that he would take her in the right direction. She then took a test to get into a nursing program in Gallup and she had just found out on Saturday that she got accepted and felt like she should join us at church! She sounds pretty amazing.

1) Great! 

2) June 5th, so we'll be celebrating your birthday that way down here haha. I hope you have a great time with whatever you end up doing up there! 

3) Nope, transfers happened on the 19th. 

4) He's doing great! We're having a good time together. 

5) Nope. As a matter of fact, don't send me stuff. Tell the rest of the family that too. Like I said, it would be easier if we just chose some day after I get home to celebrate my birthday or whatever so that way I don't get any packages with stuff that I just have to figure out how to fit into my suitcase for the plane ride home. If people want to send me something for my birthday, just a letter or a card would be greatly appreciated. 

That's so awesome that the temple open house worked out so well! Keep up the good work. Even if she doesn't join the church, you've done your part. Just like in The Power of Everyday Missionaries, he said a lot of the people whom he has had the missionaries teach in his home or invited to do things have not joined the church, but each time his personal testimony and the testimony of his family has grown and he has become better friends with those whom he has invited.

I hope that Nick does okay! I'll keep him and their family in my prayers.

I guess I'll actually see Idaho Falls and their house and/or cottage for the first time when we go up for President Batt's mission report because I've never been up there before. (I'm sure I went there when I was younger or something, but I can't remember anything about it.)

I hope you had a great Memorial Day! We didn't do anything too unique. The college was closed so we couldn't email yesterday.

I love you all!

Love, 

Elder Schaelling