Letter from Josh Dated October 21, 2013

The Crosby family has been baptized! Yaaaaaaaaaay!  They are the most awesome people I have taught in this mission so far and I'm so happy for the decision they have made!  They have such strong testimonies of this gospel and they know that it will bless their family for eternity.  Both of them love the Valencia 3rd ward and the ward loves them.  We love them! They love us!  We have dinner with them and teach them every wednesday!  Both of their kids, Ashley and Mason so funny!  You show them a picture of Jesus and they yell "Jesus Christ!"  It's awesome!  Jason already has the priesthood and they both got their temple reccomends on Sunday!  They are so excited to do baptisms for the dead!  They love this gospel so much and it is the coolest thing to be a part of their growth!  Their baptism was amazing!  There were so many people there that we had to move it to the chapel!  If you can't tell, I'm so happy for them!  Aside from the baptism, this week was a lot of district leader work as usual but I'm cool with that!  My companion is such a good district leader!  The Korean Elders (Elder Kang, Kim, Qualls) car got broken into as well last Monday.  Me, Elder kang, and Kim were going to go get some lunch while my comp. talked with Elder Qualls (Korean Coordination Leader) about the boundaries.  We found that someone had smashed the back passenger window and that they stole their GPS.  We were so surprised!  Crime only happens in the valley! Not in Valencia!  Valencia is like the 6th safest city in the U.S.!  Well we reported it to the police and they got their window fixed. We went on two exchanges this week.  I went with the Valencia 2nd Elders in their area on Wednesday.  On Friday we went on exchanges with the assistants Elder Wright and Elder Kottcamp.  Elder Wright came with me to our area and it was such an awesome exchange!  He is such a good missionary and I learned so much from him!  We also got two new potentials that day and got to teach the Palomino family for the first time in 2 weeks!  We taught them the Restoration and committed them to come to the baptism on Saturday.  They said they would, but they didn't.  Ernie the husband got a migraine.  They did come to church though with their son Alex!  They came to gospel principles with us and the topic was Eternal marriage.  Ernie and Alex did not want to be there.  They were super uncomfortable, even though the ward was super friendly to them.  Leticia, the wife is the only one who has been keeping her commitments and reading the book of mormon.  She wanted to be there.  The Gospel Priciples lesson sounds like it should have been good right? Wrong! It went way to deep and was not investigator friendly!  The teacher who used to teach Gospel Doctrin is now the Gospel Principles teacher and this was his first time teaching.  Needless to say, Ernie and Alex wanted to leave after the lesson and Leticia wanted to stay.  They got into a little argument which was super awkward.  They eventually left.  I felt so bad, but there really was nothing I could do.  I think Ernie is turned off to religion all together and that he is only investigating because Leticia wants to.  We're going to try to make him see the blessings that come from the gospel in our next lesson and hopefully get him to actually have a desire to find out if the church is true.  Leticia, however, is golden.  She just needs the support from her family.  So all in all, it was a good week!  Our zone has been baptizing weekly for this whole transfer and I'm pretty sure that we are leading the mission right now with baptisms.  The thing about the work in Valencia is that it's really hard to find people who are willing to hear you, but when you do find those that will, they will get baptized.  It's surprising to hear from other missionaries that this zone used to be dead!  There is so much work to do and I love it!  I hope all is well at home!  I love you all! Thanks for the support!

Gawm-Sawm-Nee-Daw! (Thank you (in Korean))

Pictured: Elder Ehninger, Elder Chandler, Elder Holdaway, Elder Nelson

Elder Nelson