Oct 10-17th

Family,

This weekend we had the baptism of Rowell Santos! Wow it was incredible. Rowell is married to a member in the ward and has been coming to church consistently for the past two years and meeting with missionaries for the past four. He was literally a dry Mormon, living all the principles just not opening the door to receive all the blessings. His baptism was one of the best baptisms I have ever attended. The spirit was so strong and the support from the ward was incredible. When emerging from the water Rowell looked through the glass and saw his two year old son staring right at him and stood there for literally a solid thirty seconds just staring at him. It was really great because he loves his family and I think knowing that he can be with them forever has been a large motivating factor for him.

I don’t know if I told you before or not but his parents were both killed in a car accident when he was only 10 and so he has had a rough start to life. However, he now has the gospel and knowledge of how he can be with them again. Also, his wife’s family is incredible. They have been praying and praying for this day to come for a long time. They are all from the Philippines and his mom was one the funniest loving woman you will ever meet. You catered his baptism like it was a wedding and gave one of the nicest prayers I have heard. So humble so loving.

Okay things are going really great. We still have six investigators dated for baptism and Lorna (grandma miracle number 2) is going to be baptized soon. It might be this weekend if not it will be next. She had to run to London last minute for a family emergency, so we may push it back a week so that we can announce it. However she is so ready it’s unreal.

This weekend we had a mission home fireside and zone leader council. They were both really great. President Preston does it so that the fireside is just about 6 recent converts who tell the conversion story and then we close and eat cookies. It’s great. There is a really strong spirit and all the converts did an amazing job. Sister unsworth was there and is still looking forward to meeting you.

That is sad about Steve jobs. I heard he gave an amazing speech right before he died? How was it? Also, that is exciting about mitt Romney. That would be great to have a Mormon is presidency. That will be exciting to see.

Hope all is well.

Love, Richard

Ps. You can find elder eliasons blog on the web it should be under Elder Cody Eliason on google. You can get double time!

Pps. I got the saddest letter from the sayles saying that they are planning on getting sealed FEB19th!!!! I am going to write him today and see if he can push it up a week or two. I will tell him we are planning on coming up in early feb but if someone could get on fb and talk to him that would be great!!!