Monday - May 27, 2013 - "Twilight of My Years"

Hola Mi Familia! Well this week has been absolutely AMAZING!!! It is super crazy that we have already completed a change! Today is the day of transfers. It has gone by super duper fast! I can't believe it! It would have to probs one of the best weeks of my mission. We really tried to work hard this week and have all the desires to work that we could, and it really paid off! Just a quick overview....we found a ton of new people to teach and received even more references to visit and...we placed 9 baptismal dates! That is the greatest! We invited 9 people that if they felt the truth of our message, that they would be baptized in one of the Saturdays in June! I have felt pretty good about this past week, but know that we can do even more! I am quite excited to move on this week! Our sweet lady is just the most precious thing ever! Like always she just keeps us going in every lesson! We can't visit her without having to make an extra effort not to laugh with her comments! This week she told us something really special though! She said we were just talking and she asked if older people could go on missions and we said yes and she just got all happy and said that she was going to start saving and preparing NOW to serve a mission! She hasn't even been baptized yet and she is already wanting to serve a mission! She is just something special! We were able to put a definite baptismal date for her this week for June 15th. So we are hoping and praying that will go well. We have been visiting with a couple who have young kids. We found them one day while out in the street. We passed their house and their daughter came out and handed us 2 copies of the Book Of Mormon and said that her parents don't know what these books are and that we needed them. We told the daughter to keep the books and to tell her parents that we would stop by one day to teach them about those books. So one day we did stop by and began teaching them. They have a lot a good questions and we taught them about the Restoration and they seemed quite interested. Unfortunately they didn't come to church yesterday, but they are 2 of our 9 dates we have so we will work on them. Our sweet lady gave us a reference this week of a friend she knew in the other church she attended that was apparently baptized in our church quite some time ago. We went with her and had quite a pleasant conversation. Her older daughter was there, who was really young when her mom was baptized, so she didn't know anything. We taught them about The Restoration and quite frankly told the sister what her baptism means and that she should come back to church. They older daughter seemed really interested and wants to learn more. We also had a short of difficult lesson. We found 2 youth and one of them is studying like science or something in College. So he is all based on facts. He believes in God, but not religions and feels like he needs evidence to know his answers. He doesn't believe that God will answer his prayers. So we will really need to focus on the Spirit when teaching them and making sure that they can have a spiritual experience to be able to receive answers to his prayers. I have never really dealt with anything like this so I am not really sure how to respond to rejections that has to do with science. We will just have to see how this goes.... I am trying to think of something significant that happened this week or something really special, but apart from our 9 dates that we set, I can't really think of anything. I feel like I am really in the highlight of my mission...the best time of my mission! I am really enjoying myself and feeling like we are seeing the fruits of our labors and are able to help people that need to our help. I am so grateful for this time that I have in the mission and for all the experiences I have had and people I have met and known. I love being 20 years old! I feel like I am in the "Twilight of My Years" loving life and recognizing all the blessings from our Heavenly Father! How fantastic is this life! I love and miss you all tons! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder Joyner