HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

Hey all, 

Happy Birthday and all that. You're pretty much the best mom ever. I love you so much. 

I'm glad you liked the last email. I guess I didn't think much of it, but I guess that's where the spirit's smarter than me. That really sucks that Boo's getting his wisdom teeth pulled, I really won the teeth lottery. No cavities, no wisdom teeth, barely needed braces. Lucked out. Also, I hope the weather's good enough for you to go down (to St. George). We're getting pounded with a storm right now, we have to push back transfers another day. (But we still need to drop Elder Willoughby off, so looks like another trip to Halifax :)) 

Also, that's cool you've been getting more out of your prayers! I really recommend two talks by Elder Bednar, they were back to back, April and October of 2008 I think. The second one's called Pray Always, and it's really helped me get more out of my prayers by making it more of a continuous conversation with God. 

So transfer news. I'm getting a new companion here in Moncton, his name is Elder Holman. He used to be here in Moncton too, he replaced me here when I left, and then I replaced him when I came back, now we're going to be together! He's a really funny guy, I like him. He LOVES Mountain Dew. If you want to get him stuff, he's like addicted to the stuff. It would be cool if you did. 

Yes, Troy did get baptized! It was really awesome. It was a pretty crazy week but it all came together. I'll try to cover it all with the recap of the week. 

So after p day we drove down to Halifax for exchanges with the assistants, Elder Olsen and Benson. It was really fun, good to spend time with Elder Olsen again, catch up. 

The next day we drove home and went right into our first exchange with the Bathurst elders, (Elder Smith and Fields). Elder Smith did Troy's baptismal interview and got him all ready to go. They had something Saturday so they couldn't stay for the baptism unfortunately, but it was good to have them there. 

Saturday was the baptism. We went over in the morning to get it all ready and start filling the font. We had turned on the hot water last night so it would be warm, and then that morning turned on the water. Everything was going great till I realized they never fixed the leak that we had found at Deji's baptism! And after thirty minutes rolled around, the hot water ran out. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, cause we planned to have enough time to turn it on and off after it heated up again, but because of the leak we had to just keep filling the font with cold water! I had to go down into the water and try to plug up the leak with some sticky tak we found, and we were able to fill it up enough, even though it got colder. (It was warm compared to pools, so I didn't mind.) The service was really nice. Troy picked out the speakers and the prayers, and we were able to get a less active there that we've been trying to contact forever. Lots of people came. I almost messed it up though, I forgot to say his name at the start of the ordinance, fortunately Elder Willoughby caught it before I dunked Troy! It was smooth sailing from there. 

Second blessing of baptizing Troy was being in the water again. Man I missed that. I totally would have started doing some egg beater, but... I guess I didn't want to make it TOO much of a spiritual experience. ;) (@shawn)

Jeff and Terri-Lynn are doing OK. They had a scary week. They went for a check up on the baby, and found out that the baby was going to die soon, but if they delivered it too soon, the baby's lungs wouldn't be developed enough. So they had to wait as long as possible. The worst part of it all was that it was the 2 year anniversary of the death of their son Tony from the same thing. They were able to safely deliver the baby, and she's in the ICU right now, but really scary. 

Brendan wasn't able to meet, I had set up a Skype lesson with him, but he rescheduled. The sisters told me that the Bishop set up a time to meet with Brendan, and he's going to bring the stake president, and the area president Elder Bennett. He's coming for stake conference, and he wanted to meet with someone. Literally it's such an answer to prayers, cause one of the things Brendan was struggling with was a testimony of the current prophet, and having a chance to meet with someone who's been with him is so rare, that it would only have been possible with prayers. Now just keep praying that he'll listen to the spirit testify to him that the prophet is called of God! 

We dropped Ryan, he kinda just wanted free stuff from the church, and when we told him he couldn't get money from the church, he messaged us talking about how he's learned how to recognize a cult from Wikipedia. Not interested right now, even though the gospel would help him work harder and have a better life. Oh well. 

For a package, I don't know what I would want. I'm sure you'd think of some good stuff! I figured out how to get some BYU talks online now, so that's nice. You can definitely give me some recommendations for talks to read. You can figure out what to send. 

I'd probably just send it to the mission office, but if you want to send it right to me, it would get to me faster. My address is 180 Mapleton Rd, Apartment 83. 

Soup's great. 

Love you all so much! Have a happy birthday. Hopefully this is a good enough present for now...  

Love, 

Elder Marsh