May 26, 2013

Hey family,

Yeah dad I got the packages thanks so much! I loved the ties, and I"m still munchin on all that food. Mac and cheese was the greatest meal i've had since i've been here! It was so good to skype all of you as well! Seeing you all was just the best. Drake really had me laughing. Way cool school's out, I'm sure the kids will have a good time! Also that's way good for Dave! BYU Idaho will be a blast. Nope, Elder Iloa and I are still together. He's my favorite companion by far, he is so funny, and he is teaching me a lot on how to just relax and not worry about stuff, he's the best!

The work is great! We are trying SO hard to find more investigators, right now we have about 9 or 10 pretty stable investigators that we're teaching, but we really need to find more to invite more to the waters of baptism. We have 1 potential family we are going to try to teach this week, so we're very excited! Brother Anjo's baptism was a success! I'm trying not to cry while i type this, but i love that man so much. I don't want to choose favorites from the people we teach, but that was the first baptism that I've had on my mission when I've been there from the first lesson until the time  he was baptized. He's so amazing, he was SO prepared by Heavenly Father to recieve this Gospel, I can't even explain the miracle it was. His testimony of the Book of Mormon is fire, so strong and pure. And when he bore his testimony at his baptism, he said, "I'm so happy to have recieved this Gospel. And I promise that  I will share it." How amazing? It's just like Lehi, when he tasted the fruit of the tree of life, he wanted to share it. That's exactly what Anjo said! I was talking to him after, just me and him in the church foyer, and I asked him if he had a desire to serve a mission. He paused.. thought for a second.. and said, Yeah, i think i do want to serve a mission. I just have such a testimony that Heavenly Father loves us so much, He's preparing people to recieve this Gospel, and we won't know they're being prepared unless we talk to them. I'm also really trying to find more out about the Book of Mormon, how to use it more effectively. I've just been losing myself in Preach My Gospel, completely. My studies have been so amazing, feeling the Spirit so strong and recieving so much from the Holy Ghost! I found out this last week we can teach the whole message of the Restoration from the first chapter of the Book of Mormon, the entire thing just from Nephi's record about his father. How amazing! This Book is so true. I love it. I love you family! Until next week, hopefully I'll have many more miracle stories to share with you! Thank you for all your support and love.

Love you all,

Elder Doane