Joel

Joel's Family

If you want to send Elder Tingey a letter send it to : spencer.tingey@myldsmail.net

February 28, 2011:

Things are going really well here. A mission is a very strange break from the rest your life, and it really gives you time to think about, well, everything, but I've been thinking a lot about how my life has gone and what I'd like to improve, and setting a lot of goals for what I'd like to do after. It's funny, I've heard quite a few missionaries mention how much they want to read when they get back. We don't realize how good things, such as culture, are until we're outside of them. But there's a whole lot of other stuff filling that time that we could be sitting on a couch watching Lost.

We set up a baptism for an 8-year old kid whose mom is a member on Sunday. It was really fun, and we had some of our investigators stay after church to see how a baptismal service is. The kid that was baptized, Joel, was completely crazy. He came into Priesthood meeting about half an hour earlier and said something like, "Are we ready to baptism me? My class already finished, so I'm ready." He was jumping up and down in the font and I had to kind of fight him to get him in the water because he was so excited. He wouldn't plug his nose, so once he came out of the water, he said, "I almost died!" I mentioned Angie in an earlier e-mail, we've been teaching her in English for two weeks, which has been very strange. She was at the baptism of Joel, and as it was starting she came up to us and asked if she could get baptized! That was a really cool experience. She's left to Phoenix today, so we told her that it would be a lot better if she gets baptized there. She was pretty bummed, but it is a lot better for her this way. Her family will give her a really hard time, so she wanted to just get baptized here without them influencing her. Now, she'll have to be a lot stronger if she wants to follow through and be baptized, which will make her a much stronger member in the end. And she'll get to know the members and the missionaries there a lot better.

Greetings,

Elder Tingey