Week 63 - Jacques and Skype crazies

Interestin' Fact #63 - You really got only two types of cars here. 1, the wondrous jelopy, and 2, the super expensive sports car. It's really rare to see a "middle-class" car, whatever that may be. You still see a lot big, old soviet army trucks driving along. Oh, and washing a car is not just a once a week, or once every other week kind of thing. It's an everyday thing here (if you want your car looking clean). 

This week, we really focused on helping Jacques find his testimony. His baptismal date is on the 12th of May, and we are working incredbily hard for him to be ready by that date. It's really hard for him to come to church because he works Fridays and Saturday nights from 8 pm to 10 am in the morning, all night. But he was determined to come this Sunday. He had worked Saturday night from 8 pm - 10 am, and then had work again at 5 pm to teach someone French, and then he worked again from 8 pm - 10 am Sunday night as well. He knows that if he really wants to find an answer and his own testimony about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the fullness of times, he needs to really seek and do all the commitments that we give him. He was determined to come on Sunday, and he came! He was dead tired not having slept in a few days, and slept a little during Sacrament, of which I tried to keep him awake via loud coughing and shuffling my legs. But he absolutely loved Sunday School and it did an awesome job getting him to understand the purpose of the restored Priesthood. With Jacques, I have been calling him every night to talk with him and help him find his answers. Jacques really is a special guy, and he is so incredibly close to being baptized. We had an incredble lesson with him with a member in our branch named Kirrel Aninich. It really helped him understand a lot of things. The Spirit was incredibly strong. I am just praying that he will baptized by the 12th, but if not by the end of this month. I remember the day after we found him, we thought his name was Shaq. Close ha

This week, I did a lot of organizing for the Skype calls for the mission. It's really interesting how many things we have done differently or new here in this Mission with President Clark. It's been awesome working with him and helping this mission grow and it really is an awesome experience seeing the effects of our efforts to lift and inspire the mission. Granted it's pretty difficult balancing assistant responsiblities and missionary work here in our area, but the Lord blesses us anyway. We have been seeing a lot of success in small doses in our area. The mission is seeing a lot of success all over the place. Some of the quote-on-quote "dry" areas, which I fail to believe is true, are baptizing a lot. Why? Because of a change of attitude, heart, desire, and their obedience to the work and to the Lord.

That's pretty much it for this week. We were invited to go to this presentation for a kind of emergency prepardness thing in the Office on Saturday. It basically turned into a sale pitch at the end, which was absolutely hilarious. One of the funny highlights of the week. It somehow went from Emergency Prepardness to what to do before an ambulance comes, to "here is this cool product, let's buy it!". 

Anywho! We had a good week this. This is really the work of the Lord. This is His harvest. And for this mission, the harvest is just about ready to collect our sheafs. I love you all! The Chuch is true! 

Love,

Elder Tekulve