The Work Is Progressing

Hey Yall,

So this week was a pretty good week. There are several people we are teaching that are coming along really well. Dominique and Amelia are both set on getting baptized on the 27th. They are a mom and her daughter and the mom has been meeting with a senior couple at the temple visitor's center for a few months and then finally decided she wants to get baptized this month, and when she decided she was going to get baptized, her daughter decided she wanted to check it out and maybe get baptized on the same day, so that's what's happening. They are both really prepared and have been living very closely with the teachings of the church, so it hasn't been much of a switch for them. Now they just want to get baptized before the senior couple leaves at the end of their mission, which is like, this month. Adrian is a guy we are teaching who has been dating a member for a while and just recently decided to check things out. He is way solid and is wanting to get baptized the 27th as well! Also a very well prepared person, and has already seen the love of God in his life. So things are going pretty well. The work is progressing. 

 

On the down side, when they split our area and brought another set of elders into Maricopa, they gave our car to them. So me and my companion are on bikes full time.....so that's kind of a bummer. But we'll get used to it I guess. 

 

Hope things are going well back home! take care and God bless,

Elder Hiatt

Heatin' Up!

Heatin' UP!

Well Arizona is getting hotter. We got switched to all bike last week so that is going to make the summer a little more painful. I'm not sure how I like the idea of biking around all day in 110 degree weather. But I guess that will make me enjoy the cooler season - right? I guess we'll see....

This week was good though. We had a few people get baptized, which is always exciting, and we have a couple more working towards it. Dominique and Amelia got baptized on Saturday, and that was a little stressful. Dominique is pretty much deathly afraid of attention so we had to make sure that almost no one showed up. So there were 11 or 12 people there and she still was soooo scared, she almost didn't want to do it. Then the font didn't get near full enough, it might have barely reached her knees, but for some reason we decided to go ahead and try it....it didnt work. after the second try she decided she couldn't do it, so she walked out and me and Elder Hartung were freaking out!!! So we turned the water back on, waited for about 45 minutes or an hour, then baptized Amelia in front of everyone. Then we closed the doors to the font, me and elder Hartung went around to the back to witness and baptize Dominique with the doors shut so she didn't have to worry about everyone watching her. So everything worked out and they got confirmed on Sunday. Sunday evening we had a baptism for Adrian, and we made sure to fill up the font all the way....no mistakes this time. Its a good thing we did too, cause his foot almost came up out of the water, but it stayed under just long enough. So that went well. They are all really good people and will make solid members, so I'm excited to see them keep progressing. 

Well I hope things are going well at home.

Take care and God bless,

Elder Hiatt

                                                        These are Dominique and Amelia and Adrian

Well things are slowing down a little bit here in Maricopa. Since our area is splitting soon we have probably been focusing too much on the area we will have and not enough on the whole area; but things keep kind of changing on us. We are still in a trio, which is interesting. It makes it a little harder to talk to people on the street when there are three of us walkin' around, but its all good. The people that are receptive don't care too much about how many of us there are.

On the bright side, good ol' Linda got baptized this weekend. She was a very golden investigator who basically came in to church with her friends and told us she wanted to get baptized. So its been a quick and easy road for her, but she has such amazing faith already, and her testimony is so strong, its unbelievable. 

Things are going well here. I hope things are going well for all y'all at home. 

Take care and God bless, 

Elder Hiatt

All it Takes is an Invitation

Well it's been a fun week in Maricopa! Things have been going a little slow but they are looking up. We are about to have our area split, so we will only be working in two wards instead of four. And the two wards we are keeping have been the ones with the most work recently, so that is way exciting. We started teaching three new people his week, Zach, Adrian, and Amanda; all of them are way solid and can't wait to learn more. They have all had great experiences with the church and have good examples to look up to in the church. Its amazing how easy it is to share the gospel simply by being a good example, but it is also pretty cool to see how ready people may be, even when we don't really realize it. All it takes is an invitation to learn more about Christ and people begin to recognize the reasons why they have such good examples. Like was said so many times in General Conference this weekend, coming to Christ will bring people more happiness and joy than they could ever know, and the restored Gospel gives them the ability to draw closer to Christ than ever before.

Well, we are looking forward to another exciting week and some great new experiences. best of luck to everyone at home. Take care and God bless,

Elder Hiatt

Hello All,

Another amazing week in Arizona! The weather was pretty awesome, we had a lot of good lessons, saw an amazing Easter pageant, and had several baptisms! We gained an Elder to our companionship for a short time, Elder Smith, who is waiting for his companion to come down from the MTC....not sure why he got held up there but I guess we'll see in a week or so. We got to go to the Mesa Easter Pageant: Jesus the Christ, on Thursday, and that was a truly amazing experience. We went with our friend Mardi and her mother, along with a couple members of the ward and they absolutely loved it. We had a long talk with Mardi the next day about all the things it meant to her, and how she is coming to understand that Jesus really is our Savior and loves each and every one of us.

Last Saturday was also a great day. We had two baptismal services, one for Emilio, Neveah, and Milani, and then one for Tiffany. I was honored to be able to baptize the three kids and then to confirm two of them, so it really was a great weekend. Its awesome to see how the gospel is changing all of their lives, and bringing their families closer together. The gospel really does bless families and gives us so much peace and hope in a crazy world.

I hope everything is going well back home,

much love and God bless,

Elder Hiatt