Baptism

Dear Family,

YES! We did have a baptism yesterday! Grandma got baptized. Her daughter was the only member of the family and she was baptized about a month and a half ago. Grandma is awesome! I will most likely be confirming her next week. Elder Gardner baptized her. It was awesome! In her service a recently re-activated member, who is awesome and still very young in the gospel, gave a really well written talk. Then Grandma's daughter gave her first talk and it was great! She used about 6 or 7 scriptures and explained them very well. Elder Gardner and I did a special musical number, "I Feel My Savior's Love". I love that song! Good 'ol Primary. It was pretty bad though. Elder Gardner started an octave too high, which kinda ruined it...I even played the starting not for him! (Yes, I have learned how to read music for the piano. I still suck playing with multiple fingers though. However, I can play the WHOLE first line to Joseph Smith's First Prayer with all the fingers and whatnot. Pretty cool, huh?) But, the baptism was great. We have another baptism this coming Sunday as well for Michael. He is going to get married on Saturday and then baptized on Sunday. I will be the one baptizing him. He is HUGE - about 6'2" and 260-270 pounds! It'll be interesting. He will be the first baptism that I actually perform. It'll be a day of firsts because I will be confirming Grandma that day too. I love being a missionary!! Grandma and Des (her daughter) have 3 kids living with them. One is De's son and he is 8. Then she has 2 nieces living there - Safron (15) and B'do (11). Safron and B'do really want to be baptized too, so now. This will be a good transfer.

Speaking of transfers today - nothing hardly happened at all in my zone. We have 5 companionships in the zone, including Gardner and I, and only 1 of those companionships were changed. They were "whitewashed" out, and sister missionaries are being transferred in. I know who one of the sisters are because she was in my district in Napa when she was a greenie. I am still a zone leader with Elder Gardner. So, we were both expecting a lot to change, but nothing did - haha!

Well, I am happy to hear that my puppy is still acting like a puppy! I love that boy. I have to find some pets here that can equate to him, but that's impossible. Grandma has a 2 year old rotweiler who is just the biggest sweety ever! Her name is Luna and she's a good dog. Although, she doesn't give kisses which is a set back, but when we're over there, she follows me around. I actually got her to come out to the truck with me one night after teaching grandma (Luna is grandma's dog) and I got Luna to hop up in the passenger side of the car and I drove up by the house while everyone was saying goodbye. Grandma had a fit! It was pretty funny. Luna was happy to take off with me. They have 3 dogs (Luna, 1 very calm and sweet chihuaha, and 1 wierd dog that is also chill) and 1 kitty that the found. We named her Garfield Scott Gardner. Garfield is Elder Gardner's nickname (because he's a redhead) and Scott for my middle name and then Gardner's middle name because they love him. That cat is the most chill cat I've ever met! I love him.

Which reminds me of a very sad kitty story -- Mom beware! This made me cry. We were up checking on one of our investigators in the hills and we went down to his house (it's kinda hidden and it smells TERRIBLE down there). It smells everywhere in Clearlake, but it smelled way bad there. And we heard this very very faint "meow" and we looked and it was this tiny kitten - not more than 4 months old - with an orange and white face and really green eyes walking toward us. The only thing was tht this poor kitty's 2 back legs were broken and black. She wasn't walking on her paws, she was walking on her whole leg. This was the second time we saw this cat. We saw her a week earlier and we freaked out and left because we didn't know whst to do, but this time was different. I couldn't stand seeing that kitty like thts. So this guy's house is a huge mess and there were some empty boxes around. I got one with some newspaper on the bottom of it and there was a gross towel there too and I scooped up the kitty and put her in the box. She tried to get out at first but I just stroked her head, and as soon as we got in the car and started driving she calmed down and didn't try to get out - it's almost as if she knew what was happening. I was crying on the way back. I just stroked the kitty's head and she was purring a bit. There was some blood streaks on the newspaper because her back side was very messed up. We got to the animal hospital and the vet looked at her immediately and she took her out of the box. She just said, "this is unfixable." She said she would take care of it. It was very very sad and left me tearing up like that cat was my own...I'm a sucker for kittens - any small cute animals really. But yeah, that was the low part of the week.

Well, that is kind of a downer to leave ya'll on. Sorry! But that is the life of a missionary sometimes. We find wierd things. But, I love you all! Thanks for all the encouragement you give me. It helps a lot!

Love, Elder Edwards