I hope your week was been super duper!! :) I have had a few crazy weeks so I have not really been able to talk to you all about the people we're teaching! So first off, there is C.. Elder C. and I found her back in December. We were visiting people for a Christmas food drive and delivery thing for the ward and we met C. in the foyer of an apartment building where we were delivering food to someone. She was carrying some soda upstairs and we asked if we could help her. She accepted and as we talked more she was interesting in learning more from us. We taught her for a while and she even had a baptismal date! Sadly then some hard things came up in her life and she basically disappeared! :( Her phone was disconnected, her car was never home, and her apartment lights were never on. The ward members had met her and really liked her, and our Bishop said that we should keep praying for her, and he would ask us about her every so often. After about a month of no contact with her I started to give up.
So fast forward another month and Elder Branch is still loving life, but he is sick of not seeing any awesome people blessed by the covenant of baptism for two transfers. I started praying a bunch and had a fast for the opportunity to help another person receive the ordinances of baptism and confirmation before I left Exeter. I was staying here for a sweet 5th transfer, so there must be more the Lord knew I could do here!
That brings us up to the week that I started getting sick. On Monday night as we were driving back to our apartment I was feeling just horrible. I was just focusing on driving home safely while feeling bad, when I had the feeling to look left. I didn't really want to cause I felt so bad, but I did it, and we were just passing C.'s apartment building, and her light was ON! The next day we called her and were sent to her answering machine, but the phone was reconnected! We left a message and she called us back later that day! We have been teaching her again for the last two weeks and today she passed her baptismal interview! :) She asked if I would baptize her since I've been there ever since she started learning cause we carried the soda for her. :) I am just so excited for her; it is hard to contain!! Elder M. will be giving her the Holy Ghost as well, which is SO cool! Her baptism is the 25th, two days before her birthday! :)
So other awesome people we're teaching include E., one of the coolest 9 year-olds in New England! Her mom lives across from a member, M. We have become really good friends with them and have been teaching E. and S. for a while. They are both super cool. S. (the mom) likes us but doesn't want to come to church or really make commitments, but E. is killing it! She comes to church BY HERSELF every other week (cause she is with her dad on the other weeks). M. drives her and she comes and loves it!! She is such an inspiration, it is so cool to see her determination to come and learn! She is the cutest ever! E. has told M. that she wants to get baptized, and also that she wants to be a missionary like Elder M. and I are when she gets older! :) The problem is that we can't really baptize E. until we get a bit more fellowship from the ward members, cause while her family isn't against it, they probably won't go out of their way at this point to help her in the gospel and staying involved. We are planning some things to continue to help them, last P-day we changed up our schedule a bit and went out and taught during the day so at night we could go bowling with S., E., M., and the G. and C. families! :) It was really cool and we hope to help them all continue to build relationships!
So those are some of the really cool and good things going on right now! We are doing really well and have lots of other things going on with other people, but those are some of the main ones. Hopefully you all can make it thru all that writing! :)
One cool thing I have started trying to do is memorize a scripture a day, it is hard to remember, but I know it will bless me as I keep up on it!
Sure love you all and hope you have a great week! :)
Know that you're all in my prayers!
-Elder Hunter Branch :)
-Elder Hunter Branch :)
She's awesome!
Our new District
