Caitlyn's First Baptism!!

November 30, 2009
Hi !!!!!!

Oh man! This week was way awesome! First and foremost I experienced my first baptism! Lauren and Alex (Melissa’s kids) were baptized November 28. They had so much support from the ward there! The whole Relief Society room was packed. Our ward has been really helping us out, we appreciate it so much. It’s the best feeling, having been working with investigators and seeing them grow in the Gospel and then be baptized! Lauren and Alex were so excited too! Up until it was performed, Alex would tell me all the time, “Hermana Murphy, Im so excited for Lauren and my baptism.” They are the cutest kids! We had kids in primary participate in the program. Joseph Lee gave the opening prayer and Ian gave the closing prayer. Meg gave the talk on baptism and Melissa, their mom gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. While the kids were changing from their wet clothes, we had the Restoration play in Spanish for the Spanish investigators we had there. Eddy. Angel and Amanda came to the baptism. We have a baptismal date set with Angel and the other two are really close so it was great that they were able to come and see what its like. They really enjoyed the experience. The Spirit was so strong the entire time. It was fabulous! I took some great pics too so I will be sending those to Jilly to put on my blog and Arly to put on facebook.

Thanksgiving was so much fun! We had 4 dinner total! So much food but full of love. We went to the Memmot’s, the Flory’s, the Kay’s (member families in our ward) then to the Gomez family (our investigator from Guetemala). All the food was way good. My favorite was Amanda’s because she had never made Thanksgiving before. We helped her find some traditional recipes like green bean casserole but she made 4 different styles of turkeys! I liked the spicy one that had chiles and hot sauce. That was a neat experience for my taste buds. J We invited our ward mission leader, Ignacio and our investigator Eddy to Amanda’s house. We are all like family. Its great! We also went to two nursing homes and sang hymns and gave people company. That was really nice. One of the members in our ward is the manager of one so she asked us to sing and help pass out food. The sister of another member, Sister Brown, loves for us to see Spanish hymns to her even though she doesn’t understand..so we did that and Elder Richards played the violin. I made a raspberry jello salad that Bompy had sent me the recipe of. I took it with me to all the houses. Everyone loved it! Amanda had me give her the recipe to make. She wants me to show her how to make it. She is the best. Probably my best friend here, other than Jenny ofcourse.

Now that thanksgiving is over we are listening to Christmas music! We have the new motab Christmas cd in our car right now. I think Jenny and I are going to make a xmas card too. Then next few weeks that Jenny has left (she goes home Dec 18) we are going to be SO busy! Zone conference is this Thursday in Des Moines. We are way excited for that because it includes 6 zones and we are having a pic slideshow and a talent show. My zone is putting together an act for the talent show; we will probably wing it. Somehow it will involved me hitting a volleyball. We will see. We are working with the Lovejoy family really intensely right now. Sonya is out of the rehab facility and is doing at home treatment. We are getting her involved with the addictive recovery meetings at the church every week. Also a member of our ward works at a free clinic for people without health insurance…so they will get a program going there too. Sonya and Bryan will be taken care of! We are also helping them plan their wedding; the Bishop is going to marry them at our church. We are having the Relief Society do the food. I never thought I would plan a wedding! Bryan, Sonya and their two daughters, Kianna and Brianna will be baptized Dec 15. We love them so much and have seen the changes in them since learning about the church. They have much more happiness! We have many other progressing investigators working towards baptism. Our Wednesday night Gospel Principles will help the Spanish in our ward a lot. Last Wednesday was our first one and we had a few less-actives and also a few investigators (Rosa, Omar and Angel). We will continue to be having the class every week and having a different Spanish member teach the class to get them involved. We also have our ward xmas party this Saturday! That will be a hoot.

Church was great yesterday because all the lessons were based around the family. During on of the talks given in sacrament, I cried because I love my family so much!!I felt the Spirit strongly testify that I am where I need to be right now. I am growing in ways I couldnt have without serving a mission. I I am so thankful to have my family's support. This love I feel for them is what Heavenly Father feels for us. This is why He gave us families, to feel that Godly love and to work together as a family to be the best we can together. I am excited to have my own family someday and have my family centered on the teachings of Jesus Christ. J haha Don’t worry mom, it wont be for awhile. It’s exciting to think about though!!

I love this area so much and my companion. We are going to work really hard to get all we want done before she leaves…then ofcourse I will continue to work hard after she leaves..But we have an intense few weeks. Wish us luck! We love doing the Lord’s work and are blessed for it everyday. I love you all very much!

-Hermana Murphy