Waterford Branch is growing quickly

Today is the 10-month mark of our 12-month mission. We are astounded at the way our work with the elders and sisters is being blessed. This coming Saturday we will see two more investigators of the Church here be baptized, and Sunday confirmed. Their names are Krystal Rusine (from Congo) and Patrick King (from Ireland). It's interesting how often the sisters are working with the men and the elders with the women. Of course, that always makes it nice for us because they then need us to come on joint teaches with them.

The most amazing new investigator we have now is a Syrian man named E*. The sister missionaries first met and spoke to him about three months ago. He was interested immediately, but couldn't have the lessons then because of a relationship he was in. The relationship ended, however, and then he began trying to find them again. His girlfriend had discarded all the information he had about the Church, so he didn't know how to get in touch with the sisters. In the meantime, a close friend of his, Zacharie, had joined the Church. (See past issues of this blog.) Then one day, very recently, Zacharie came to see E* just "out of the blue". They had a nice visit for about half at hour and then Zacharie told E* that he was now a Mormon! E* was amazed and asked Zacharie if he knew how to get in touch with the sister missionaries. Zacharie said, "Sure, I have their phone number in my phone!" So E* called the sisters - this was on about April 2nd or 3rd - and they went to see him the next day. They taught him a lesson and then told him about General Conference coming up on Saturday and Sunday. He came both days and listened to a total of six hours. And in between times he got on the internet and learned everything he could about the Mormons in his native language - Arabic! He is excited to get the scriptures in Arabic and wants to get a Bible in Arabic as well, but we have been unable to find him one of those. He's just an amazing investigator and we have been going to see him every day with the sisters to teach him about the gospel. Since he needs to attend church three times before he can be baptized, they are going to suggest a baptism date of late April/early May. We are very excited and happy about this.

The flying elders on the bottom are Zander, Johns (Zone Leader), Evans (District Leader), and Davidson (Zone Leader, heading for home within the next week). You can also see them in the picture on top with Sisters Montgomery and Henkel and us. What fun it is to spend this time with these wonderful young people!