Jared Wednesday Update - 06/03/09

It is hard to believe that Jared is on the downside of his mission tenure. Only 11 months to go. I used to calculate out the exact number of days and percentage of time that he had been out. Now he will be home and even married before I know it. WAIT - I'm not old enough yet for all of this. Now that I've vented a bit. Jared continues to love the South. I don't know that we will be able to get him back west again permanently. Maybe living in Tennessee and Oklahoma as a young child made him into a southerner.
"Jonny Williams on the left and Wayne on the right." (I'm not sure which right he is referencing.)

"The most exciting news from this past week is the baptism of Wayne Williams. Everything went really well with the baptism service and he is preparing to receive the Holy Ghost this Sunday. Jonny Williams baptized him, his second cousin, and his grandfather is confirming him so that's wonderful. I played a pretty small part in the baptismal service, played the piano, said the closing prayer, and witnessed. He had a great day and the refreshments topped it off."

Jared has been traveling around with his assignment as a District Leader.

"Wednesday night I went down to Gardendale to do a baptismal interview. His name was Trenton and he is 9. His mother and him are getting baptized this Sunday. He is really excited and loves the gospel. He told me that he wants to go on a mission too. It's so fun giving baptismal interviews. I really enjoy getting to know them and hearing their pure testimonies. The best is when they pray. I love hearing non members pray. It's so sincere.

"Friday night I had to go to Trussville and give an interview for the zone leaders investigator. They don't have the AP's do it, instead they have one of the district leaders do it. Since Wayne had his interview in the afternoon they came up for it then Heywood and I went back down to their area together. It was fun."

Here are a couple pics of me playing ping pong. We played some intense games. I lost once to this guy who was pretty much professional.


"Saturday while we were going around trying to visit different people we stopped by Janice and her neighbors. They were playing ping pong outside on their homemade table so we decided we would join them and play along. We ended up playing quite a few games and had a blast. It was really fun. We're going to go back and play again and teach them too. I'm excited."

Finally, based on some covert info, Jared believes he might be transferred this next week. I would be sad to see him leave Gadsden. He has experienced a lot of success in this area and has a good teaching pool with a number of sincere investigators progressing through the lessons. However, he seems excited for another challenge. As for myself, I think that he will probably be transferred also and that is all I will say at this point.