Dear Family and Friends,
It's been a little while since I've had the opportunity to write a weekly letter. The library has been closed, so it's been a bit of a rush to email everybody. The construction is finished so now we finally have time to email our family and friends.
There's been some interesting weather here in Duncan. We have had some tornado watches, but nothing really critical. The weatherman keeps saying that we're going to have large storms but they always seem to divert their course before they reach us. Duncan is in a valley, so it's more difficult for a tornado to form, so I'm confident that nothing will happen to Duncan, but the surrounding towns like Marlow and Commanche are in a much flatter area. Tornado season is fun!
Unlike the unstable weather, our area is growing and progressing. Our investigators are making progress, and I'm pleased to say that they are doing well.
We had taught Sam and Louise the stop smoking workshop and we had left on a really good note. They seemed to be interested in our message and so we had set up an appointment for that Saturday. Unfortunately, they had forgotten about our appointment and it wasn't a good time for them. We had set up an appointment but it had fallen through again. Sadly, there were signs that they had picked smoking back up again. We haven't given up on them though, we've set up another appointment with them for this Saturday, and we will continue to work with them the best we can. I know that this Gospel can immensely improve their quality of life.
The Tuckers are progressing well. Rolene Tucker has had a baptismal date for a few weeks. We're planning on her baptism on May 11th. Due to their car breaking down, it has been hard for them to come to church. We are petitioning the ward members for help with rides, and it's been a bit difficult arranging a ride for them to come to church. Windell is coming along as well. He personally struggles with the concept of priesthood authority, and views that any baptism is good enough to be saved. We're planning on going over priesthood authority and we're coming up with some good teaching aides to help communicate the concept without bashing on him.
Miranda has dropped us, unfortunately. We believe that she showed the Book of Mormon to one of the pastors at her local church and she was Anti'd pretty hard. She's unwilling to meet with us as of right now, so we're seeking for other teaching opportunities.
We're meeting with Elaina on Tuesday. She's been reading the Book of Mormon and she feels like she needs to continue the lessons after praying about them. We're planning on having a baptismal date with her after Tuesday's appointment.
We haven't been able to help John and Sam progress. They haven't been able to meet with us due to John's busy work schedule as a rig hand, so it's been a bit of a trial on everybody's part to get with them and help them the best we can. He gets off work this Thursday, so we're shooting for an appointment after then.
Mable Bracken has been out of town for about three weeks; we have an appointment set up with her this weekend.
Jerry has been struggling a lot with his wife in poor health. We keep on catching him at bad times where he needs to take care of his wife. It's a struggle but he has already expressed a desire to learn more about our Church and the Book of Mormon.
We have four new investigators! One of them is Trish and we taught 3 of her friends. She didn't accept baptism because she wants to study out the Book of Mormon and pray about it, which is awesome. Keep her in your prayers as she searches out the words of the prophets. I'm confident that if she searches diligently, the spirit will touch her heart to Christ's message.
Other news in general for our area: Our phone broke. It decided that it didn't want to turn on about 6 days ago, so we have to use the other Elder's phone to set up appointments. We contacted the mission office, and they said that they might be able to get a new phone by the end of this month, so it's going to be a while before we get a new phone. We don't know exactly what happened, but the humidity may have gotten to it. We're going to Lawton today for Zone P-day, so we might be able to visit the Sprint store and we'll see what we can do from there.
I'm really grateful to be here on a mission. I have learned a ton about the gospel and about myself. I would advise all of the youth to begin to prepare spiritually for your mission and the rest of your life. I'm thankful for the many uncountable blessings that I have received for being here. This Gospel is true. Christ lives today and we must prepare to meet him once again. Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and Thomas S. Monson is our prophet here on this Earth today! Always follow the prophet. The Book of Mormon is true and it bears a testimony of our loving savior Jesus Christ.
Thank you all,
Elder Holbrook
