7-21-2008

...I have some interesting news that is for sure. Normally a trainer and his trainee stay together for 2 transfers, in almost all cases. Elder Fox and I are done for it seems! He is heading up North Trinidad Zone to be a Zone Leader and I am becoming a son to Elder Palmer, the same Elder who the can of tuna exploded on. I am pretty excited, he has been out for 3 transfers and is now being called as District leader and a new missionaries 2nd companion, it seems he is going to have some potential. I think he is a bit overwhelmed. I am not too hard to deal with though, Elder Fox always says he doesn't ever feel like he is training me. I just dive right in so they say. My trainer is considered my "Father" in mission terms, my 2nd companion is my "Mother". Elder Palmer's Mother is living with us in our apartment, so right now I live with my dad, my mom, and my grandma until Wednesday when Elder Fox moves out. Every morning Elder Palmer says "good morning beatiful" and I proceed to sing "how was your night? mine was wonderful with you by my side", it is pretty entertaining. So that is the big news.

Sahadeo Rambharose was baptized on Saturday, Elder Fox did the Baptizing and I did the Confirming, it was quite the experience. I had an amazingly strong feeling when I was saying the words, about as strong as I have ever felt anything besides when my answer to praying about the Book of Mormon came. Pictures will follow. He is already planning on going out teaching with us, we were #1 in our zone for member lessons last week which was good. They help a lot.

Mervin Rajwanth is our next baptism on Saturday, he is about as Golden as they came. He asks really good questions at every lesson, every time we give him a reading assignment he has read the chapter 3 or 4 times and tells us stuff that we didn't even know about the chapter. He came to movie night and church and Bro Rambharose's baptism. He already picked out who he wanted to speak at his baptism and everything is totally set, he is so solid.

Kewal Maraj will be next week hopefully, he has also been crazy solid. Considering that he called us to come over which never ever happens. He has taken right to every commandment and been totally willing to move on, he understands what we say and is very intelligent, but not prideful about it. He lives in a train container out in the middle of the bush basically. He has a crazy skin disease that is really rough on him. He didn't show up to church sunday for some reason, we will find that out tomorrow morning. I don't have many doubts about him being baptized though, he is real solid.

We are just about doubling the amount of Priesthood in the ward just now. It is extremely awesome. We have been so blessed by just working hard to get members to come and being obedient. Contacting like madmen and trying every day to become better teachers. The mission goal is to baptize every week, I have no doubts that it is possible after the last few weeks that we have had. It is definitely not easy, but I will be doing everything I can to keep it going. Don't let me use a hard area as an excuse when I get to a real hard one. Things are good, I am excited to learn from my next companion. He is quite the screwball, 6'5" and a farm boy. He says he is going to be president of the United States. You are getting somewhat jipped this week due to lack of things to reply to. Just remember that it is your own fault!

-Elder Risenmay

Pictures---
1. Random picture
2. Mervin who is being baptized saturday is on the right, Bro Rambharose and Mannies in middle.