November 9, 2009

Dear Family, (letter received Mon. Nov. 9th)

I just had probably one of the coolest experiences happen to me so far on my mission. So let me start from the beginning. Elder Tabor and Elder Robison (the Elder I took the place of) had a lady drive up and say “Hey come over to my house sometime.” This was before Elder Robison left, so then Elder Tabor and I go over there and finally set up an appointment with her. So we go over and she had heard about Joseph Smith, but knew nothing about him except his name. So I decide to show her “Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration.” While she is watching this movie (the natives are really in tune with the spirit) she is saying how remarkable the things that happened were. And saying, God gave him the power to head people, etc. By the end of the movie this lady (Rosella Archdale) says her heart is overflowing with emotion. We then we tell her there is a way that she can know for sure that these things are true. So we pull out a Book of Mormon and she has never heard about it before. So we spend about 20 minutes explaining the background of it. We then tell her that if she reads and prays about that book she will receive an answer from God that it is true. She then says “I already know it’s true! The feeling I have right now is unlike any other.” We then tell her that the child she lost at birth she would see again and live with. We found out she lost her oldest son when Alvin Smith died in the movie. She said, “I lost my oldest son to death also.” By now something kicked up in me and said to commit her to baptism! I’m like hey hold on now, this is the first time we have taught her and it told me again “commit her to baptism.” So I did. And she said YES. I then start telling her that she has to come to Church consistently and we have 4 lessons to teach before the baptism can happen. Then something kicked up in me and said “set a date” so I was like alright, I flip open my planner and it lands on Sunday , Nov. 22. I think to myself we usually have baptisms on Saturday. Then it kicked up in me again and said, “ask her if she will be baptized Sun. Nov. 22, so I did. She then is taken back and says “Oh my, I would love to, that is my birthday and that would be the greatest birthday present ever.”

How flippen cool is that?????? It was way awesome, oh ya, we have it scheduled to teach the rest of the lessons and have the baptism interview with 2 weeks. It was a way cool experience. It was way awesome. I love you all. Thanks for the Halloween package.

Love, Elder Hinton