This Place is Awesome!

Hey Mom, This past week and a half has been the most exciting of my mission, starting with Nicole's baptism. This week Elder Stephens and I worked really hard and had tons of success. We taught a lot of lessons this week (well, a lot to us was 4). We were able to teach all of our investigators, and had extremely good lessons with all of them. We got a couple new people we're teaching this week too so we're excited. On Thursday we were having a lessons with two of our investigators about authority. It was the most spiritual lesson I've been in, and I was starting to get a little emotional. We taught them about how we can trace our authority back to Jesus Christ, and I got a little teary eyed when I realized how powerful of a statement that was, and how real it is. This whole week has just been awesome.

Yesterday we had a lot of investigators and nonmembers at church, and it really got the branch excited about missionary work. Everyone has been really willing to help us out lately, and we are having a lot of success. Today Is going to be just a normal p-day. I get to go play a member's drum set again. It's weird to have not played for so long, but it's pretty awesome too. I'm really growing to love Whitehorse, and it's awesome to be able to help people come closer to the gospel. We have more work to do here than I've had in any other place so far, and it's great.

I heard some really good news a couple days ago that made this week even better. There was a lady in Wasilla that had been taking the discussions with the sister missionaries years ago, and Elder Vailea and I found her and started teaching her again. She told us she wanted to be baptized, but wasn't ready yet. When I got the call to come to Whitehorse, I didn't have much notice, so I didn't get a chance to say bye to her, or see her baptized. I was pretty frustrated because I knew she was close to being baptized. Elder Smout just got transferred from Whitehorse to Wasilla, and when he got there, he interviewed her for baptism, and she was baptized last Saturday. I was so excited to hear that she had been baptized. I was really frustrated to have to leave when I knew she was so close, and I had been wondering if she was still talking with the missionaries. Even though I wasn't able to see her baptized, I knew that the Lord guided Elder Vailea and I to her so that we could prepare her and teach her. If we hadn't found her, she wouldn't have had a second chance to hear the gospel and be invited to be baptized. Well, it has been an amazing week, and we are excited to see what lies ahead here in Whitehorse. This place is awesome! Love Mat