Jared Wednesday Update - 12/17/08

Elders Gibby and Myrvang with Jeff
Elders Gibby and Myrvang
The Mission District

Jared is still serving in Cullman and loving it. It sounds like he will have a baptism for a birthday gift. I am happy to see him having success since he has been working so hard. The following is an excerpt from his letter yesterday:

"Everything is great in Cullman, Alabama. Jeff is still getting baptized this Sunday. I’m super stoked for that. He has been taught all the lessons and is keeping all his commitments. Basically, he is already a member. He did service with the Elders Quorum last Saturday all on his own. He’s a great guy. He asked me on Sunday if I would be the one to baptize him. I said, “yes, I would love to!” He said that him and I have a special spiritual bond. I taught him most of the lessons. Elder Myrvang did some teaching but he is more quiet and I end up teaching at least 80% of the lesson. He’s really excited about his baptism. Also it’s the Ward Christmas program and I’m playing the piano in it. I’m pretty excited about that. Jeff took us up to the Christmas Festival in Huntsville Friday night. It was really fun. We had a blast. They had, nativities and quilts in the gym, a live nativity, free family photographs, and the wonderful stake choir and orchestra. The choir is amazing. It’s pretty much like a miniature MOTAB. Jeff liked it so much that he ended up taking his mom Sunday night. The missionaries had to be up there all three nights to talk to people and share the gospel if there was any opportunity. I really enjoyed it. I ended up talking to a ton of people and one person I think might be baptized. It was a younger guy with his girlfriend and I just walked up to them and started talking. He said that he wanted to join this church but had to talk to one of us. I’m like yep! I found out that he was barely outside of my area but that was ok, I gave the referral to the other missionaries and they took it from there. I hope that he gets baptized. There were a lot of nonmembers at this deal and I think they had a lot of success. It was really fun."