Two Baptisms, the Branch is Growing!

Two Baptisms, Branch is growing!
Hello family and friends,

This past week we were able to witness the baptism of the couple that got married. That was awesome to watch them both make covenants with our Heavenly Father and to watch them, the following Sunday, received the Holy Ghost. Elder Oleson confirmed the man, in full sign language, which was really neat to see. What a great first real experience signing a special prayer! Also, another one of our investigators showed up to the baptism, a little late but the fact that he was willing to use the bus to get over to the stake center was amazing.

I think there are miracles waiting to happen. We have some good people to focus on. We have another male to help him try to progress toward baptism. The problem with him is that he only know a few signs and doesn't know english that well. So it's going to be a slow process for him. We've met with him a few times but mostly our lessons will be trying to help him understand one principal at a time. We gave him a copy of the book of mormon in both English and ASL as well as the picture book versions. He's watched a little bit of it. The problem is his father is against the church and I think he abuses his wife. The mother doesn't care for the church but is allowing him to be independent. He's willing to come so we are having the one of the branch families, recently moved in, help support him through giving him rides.

We are going to focus also on the couple right now. The sister needs to be taught about the Ordinances now, such as Temple baptism for the dead, as well as missionary work and family history, etc. His next goal should be Priesthood, since he doesn't have it yet. So we will work on that with him. We also have a young man, doing what I did before my mission, to help him prepare for his mission.

The work is going along! We also had a Temple trip this past week which was great. And we got to attend a youth vs missionaries dodgeball game again.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Gardner.