January 31, 2011

Dear Family,

Today is a very weird p-day.  It is usually on Tuesday, but this week it is on Monday because there are leadership training meetings from 9am-4pm from Tuesday to Friday.  Unfortunately, we don't even get a lot of time to do p-day like things because we only found out about this yesterday and we have appointments scheduled all today.  That means that I don't really have much time to write but I will try and get as much in as I can.

This past week was really awesome.  Elder Ralphs and I tore it up and taught 34 lessons and we have 6 baptismal dates.  We are excited for what this upcoming month will bring as we strive to be completely obedient and work as hard as possible.  We also had the baptism of Steven Moreno which was really great and such a miracle.  It almost didn't happen because he got pretty sick two days before, but we fasted and prayed and thankfully everything went as planned.  Elder Ralphs and I gave the talks.  Mine was on the Holy Ghost.  I am trying to send you guys some pictures from the baptism but the computer is taking too long downloading them so maybe next week.

One other really cool thing that happened was one of our investigators, Eddie, came to church for the first time this week after he was able to move his schedule around and he loved it.  Not only that, but he participated in every class, even in the 5th Sunday lesson.  Everybody was like "who is that guy?".  He is seriously what you call a golden investigator.  He wants to be baptized so badly, but we need to wait for his wife to get some documents from Mexico so that they can be married.  He is literally working 18 hours a day for awhile so he can pay all of his bills.  The good thing is all of his jobs are really good and pay really well.  He does work with horses and there are a ton of horse ranches in this area of Phoenix.  Anyway, he will definitely get baptized one day along with his family.

I can't believe the news I heard about Erik and Christoph Guynn!!  That sounds terrible.  I hope Erik will be able to recover soon and return to the mission field and that Chris's injuries heal quickly.  I can't imagine being jumped by some Russian thugs.  I always keep a knife at hand, which I usually use for other things but I guess it would help if I were ever in that situation.



As far as the Nick and Chris' situation goes, I really don't know what to think.  I wish I could talk to Chris to see what he is thinking but really, I am still in awe that he took the step to be baptized. At the same time, I'm worried that he didn't fully grasp what this decision and covenant requires of him.  To tell you the truth, I didn't until just a few months ago.  Nick has always been the type of person who is very inquisitive about everything.  That is one of the reasons I gave him a Book of Mormon back in 8th grade.  I hope he can grasp what it really means to have another testament of Jesus Christ, but without seeing them I can't really tell whats going on.

Anyway, I wish I could write a lot more but I have to go and teach.  Congrats to Dad and the show that he wrote for Glenn Beck!  Be sure to save that one for me.  I will try and answer your questions more in depth next time.

Love,
Elder Kinney