March 5, 2012

Dear Family,

The name of the river we baptized the Garcia's in is called the Salt River, which I believe stretches across a good portion of the valley, but is completely dry in Phoenix.  That's why we had to go all the way out to Mesa where it's still pretty big.  

This week was pretty good in terms of the work we got done.  We weren't able to teach the Rosario who currently has a baptismal date.  It's kind of hard because we don't teach her in her house (her family members aren't very receptive so we always teach her in a member's home).  We want to make cookies and drop them off while they're eating in hopes it might lighten the reputation we have with her children that live there.

We found a really cool new investigator who was actually a referral.  It's another woman (so many of our investigators are women!!) who recently divorced her husband and is going through some rough times.  She's very humble and appears to be quite receptive to the Church.  She'll be coming to a Family Home Evening tonight with one of the families in our Branch.

We wanted to find more investigators but we're having good success with less-actives.  One came to church this past Sunday for the first time in a year.  Even though a re-activation doesn't really carry the same numerical manifestation of success as a baptism, it feels very rewarding when I can help someone be re-activated in the Church.  I truly realized that when I was working with the Torres family in my last area, which was one of the greatest blessings of my entire mission.

Elder Nielson is doing awesome and his Spanish is really improving.  This transfer has gone by really fast and I am excited for another one here in the Monterey area of Phoenix.  Elder Hiatt and I want to take an American Heritage class together at BYU after the mission, but I've heard the one they offer in Salt Lake is way easier.
 
Love,

Elder Kinney