Monday, June 8, 2015

Baptism... Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!!! I hope you have a wonderful birthday!! You are amazing and such a great Mom!!!!!! I love you mom, you are the most amazing Mom ever!! :)

This last week was a full one. Lots of stress, excitement and many other emotions. We started out the week by doing 4 hours of tracting one day. We were really trying to find some more people to teach. The sun was high and the humidity was so terrible. We were sweating like crazy and Elder Ross was ready to turn back but we kept on going. We met lots of people. Some potentials, some rude people and some really crazy people.... This one lady was telling me that all you had to do was accept Christ as your Savior and you were saved. So I asked her about all those people that die without hearing about Christ. Where do they go?? She exclaimed "Well of course they go to hell!"... That doesn't sound like God. I got so mad, but I held back, bore my testimony and we were on our way. 

That same day we had a killer lesson with this lady named Monet. She is like 25, working 2 jobs and really wants to know more about God and wants to come closer to him. We had a great discussion with her and helped her know what she should do. She accepted to read a chapter of the B.o.M. and pray about it. She told us how happy she was that we met her, she told us we were going places and couldn't believe we were 18. She had to give us big hugs before we left, she felt the spirit and she felt good about us. Hopefully we can continue to help her with her spiritual progression!

We had Zone Conference this last Friday and it was great! It was President and Sis McDonough's last Zone Conference before they left. So it got emotional at the end. We learned a lot about missionary vision, helping people progress and having a fresh start with the new President. I am sad to see them go, they are such great people. I bet the next one will be good though. Every Zone Conference we have car inspections and Elder Bentley(senior missionary) chooses the cleanest cars and give the missionaries awards. Well he got away with the multiple awards and decided to come with one award for the best car and whoever won the award got 200 extra miles for that month! I really wanted to win, so Elder Ross and I cleaned our car the best that we could! Well all those times of cleaning the car with Mom must have helped because we won!!! It was so awesome, Elder Ross and I were so happy to see all our hard work pay off... We didn't even want the 200 miles, just the award :) The whole Zone Conference was great, just a start to a blessed weekend!

Saturday was the big day. We gave Will the tie that we bought him. We each signed the back and put the date of his baptism so he could always remember it and remember us! He was really nervous but also excited. To be honest, I was a little nervous that I was going to mess up or something but it went off great!! We had a talk by Sis Hill and Dalebout about baptism and a talk by Sis Jeffries on the Holy Ghost. As I entered the font, the spirit overcame me and made me feel like it was going to all be okay and all my hard work had paid off. All the phone calls, scheduling and meetings for the baptism had finally paid off. The water was shallow so I had to dunk him pretty low, but we did it right the first time. William gave me a big hug!! What a wonderful, spiritual experience. I will remember it forever. William said that he felt perfect and wonderful. After the baptism, we went to Dairy Queen and got some ice cream to celebrate. We had a great turn out at the baptism, he was so happy to see the whole room full. :) I can't thank God enough for William and how great everything went!!

Sunday we confirmed William and everything with that went really well. His father even came for all 3 hours! There may be some potential there in the future? I don't know for sure. Well the baptism happened, we helped another soul come closer to his Heavenly Father and we are eternally grateful for Him. William loves us, I can't wait to see him continue to progress in the church. I know he can!! Thanks for all the love and support y'all. I hope you enjoy the pictures! It was a great week! The search is on to find another person ready for this step! I know we can! Have a wonderful week, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is TRUE! Till next time :)

Love,
Elder Mason Rankin :)

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