GOODness Gracious and Prophets

Heya, you lot!

It's your favorite Jersey missionary! At least I better be. Back with more news and adventures from the best island in the channel! This place is on fire right now, both in terms of temperature and missionary work. I love writing these emails after an awesome week, but sometimes I get so excited as I type that I end up going too fast, which probably results in a lot of typos. Apologies if that's the case!

As most of you know, Elder Ferreira and I both finish 2 weeks from today. Those of you who have served missions will understand that the final stretch of the mission is a very interesting time! There's a lot of mixed feelings and a lot of emotions. We're both pretty sad that our missions are coming to an end, but if anything that is making us work harder and more effectively! We've really just tried to step up to the next level and figure out exactly what the Lord wants us to do in this area. As we've done that we've seen great changes in ourselves and in our area. I know the 4th of July has come and gone, but in the spirit of Independence Day God is giving us a grand finale! Our faith and the faith of our investigators is skyrocketing and things are just good.

Ripped another pair of trousers on the bike this week.

As of right now, we have 3 people on date for baptism. We taught Gary again last week and he is back on date, this time for September 9th. It brought peace to my mind to see him commit to a later date because I think it shows that he really is becoming converted to the gospel and not to us, as we won't be there.

Lucia is a beast. When our lesson began, she started asking questions about a vineyard. I grabbed her Book of Mormon and saw that she had read all the way up to Jacob 5 in 1 week's time...1 WEEK! Couldn't believe me ears! She felt the Spirit and accepted September 2nd as a date for baptism. She plans to come to church this Sunday.

Paul is also solid! He came to church for the first time last week and loved it. He's being interviewed for baptism this Saturday, coming to church on Sunday, and then getting baptized next Saturday. I really like Paul! We have serious lessons with him but we also joke around a lot. He was going to leave after sacrament, but agreed to stay another hour after I told him that the next meeting was held in the filled baptismal font. That didn't actually happen, but he did stay! Then in our lesson on Monday we taught him about tithing. After we stopped talking, he sat there for a moment to process what we had taught. We asked him how he felt, and he said, "hmm...that makes complete sense to me. It's cool to know that the church is a non-profit organization." Thinking he meant "non-prophet organization", I stopped him in his tracks and began to reteach about prophets and how the biggest difference between our church and others is that we actually do have living prophets. Elder Ferreira realized that we were on different pages and he then stopped me in my tracks. Eventually we both realized what had just happened. It lead to some hysterical laughing and an awesome memory with Paul! What a champion. Sure hope he takes the plunge.

Allison is a legend! She's reading the Book of Mormon everyday, praying, and recognizing the Spirit. We invited her to be baptized, and she said she'd pray about it. We will follow up this Saturday.

The Goods are so good you guys, I cannot emphasize that enough! We saw their car in the car park as we pulled into church on Sunday, and our hopes were confirmed when we walked in and took our seats next to them in the chapel. Man, it was a sight to behold! There's not many sights better for a missionary than seeing a family of investigators sat in church, ready to hear the word of the Lord. They really enjoyed church and want to come back next week. I actually can't believe they came, and I'm so happy about it! They will miss us when we go, and I'm really going to miss them. Hopefully the next elders will continue to teach them because they are good! Thank you so much for your prayers in their behalf. I'm here to tell you that the Lord is hearing and answering them. He is blessing us so much right now and I'm very grateful for that and for all of you. I love the people of Jersey so much!

You guys have an awesome week and we'll do our best to keep the fire burning here in Jersey! Love you loads!

Love, Elder Thomas

ELSM