Letters from Gene : It's a gift

Hello people of not CA. Except some of you on my email thread... Oh well.

So I had a day dream the other day that we had a misison reunion. Like 10 yrs down the road and I showed up in a black Lambo pulling a huge drift Into the parking lot. It was neat.

Well what a week. What happened? Idk couldn't tell yah.

Let's start Tuesday? Maybe Wednesday? Mid week. So this lady needed help moving about a hundred succulents. Those cool plants I like. So we loaded up the truck and did 2 quick runs of plants and shelves. Putting the truck to work. It was awesome. She is kinda out of it tho so teaching her is a maybe. Sad day. I have pics I'll attach. Right before the service we said goodbye to our old ward mission leader. He moved to mesa AZ. His wife is from Calgary and knows some Spackmans. Including Jeff! Haha. It was fun. Well our WML is named troy. So troy is into deep doctrine. And it's very fascinating what he shared with us. But the Important part is that he gave me his tie!!!! It was the cool skinny tie. I have a pic. It's beautiful.

Thursday is the highlight so I will focus here. We had 3 lessons set up back to back to back. One fell through but all good. The first was with Mardal. Mardal was someone with a baptism date for August 4 but since I got here we never taught her. How sad!! But she pulled through, fixed some things and we taught her about commandments. And the spirit was so strong! She said "I'm ready, I know I need to get baptized, how soon can this happen?" Well she vapes so there is a slight set back but we committed her to keep all commandments on the spot. So that she could be baptized exactly 3 weeks in advance. 3 weeks is the code for people to keep commandments. So we gave her a blessing to quit vaping and set her date for August 23. Exactly 3 Thursdays from that one day. BTW she only vapes 3 grams of nic so she has got this!! It was one of the best moments of my life. What a day.

We went from that and zipped over to Luannes place. She is in her 70's and has come to church 8 times. We finally taught her the Restoration and she loved it. Gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to learn. Sad thing is that she is getting kicked out of her place in 2 months so she doesn't really want to commit now. She wants to stay in SLO tho! Wahoo. It went very well and the spirit joined with us to help us meet her needs.

Then last night, our last wonderful moment, was really cool. We stopped by a referral from the YSA sisters and he showed a lot of interest in the Book of Mormon and our beliefs. He studied philosophy so it's interesting teaching him because he is very knowledgeable. But we went from the doorstep into the living room and had one of the best presented messages of the restoration ever. Good testifying and good questions. We invited him to learn more and he said he needs to wrap his mind around it because it's such a bold claim. So pray for Justin!!! It was amazing tho. Seriously.

Some really good lessons this week. And we set Mardal with a new date. What a spiritual experience to be a part of. 2nd lesson I've been in where someone decides to get b aptized. I know baptism is the first covenant of many. It is what begins our process back to our Heavenly Father. It is a huge blessing because we also receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The gift is really a gift. The power of the Holy Ghost only manifests himself so often but the spirit can be with us always. What a goal to strive towards. It's beautiful.

Oh lol we had MLC Tuesday. Just about forgot hahaha.