After the trial of our faith comes the success of the faithful

It's going pretty good out here, we still plan on having a family baptized on the 24th we were also going to baptize a marine but he is moving soon and his family is interested in the gospel in Southern California, so we won't be baptizing him but someone else will. Our investigators are progressing slowly but surely. Anti-mormon stuff is everywhere here, so we often have to spend significant parts of lessons correcting garbage they have found online or a "friend" told them about. But I have yet to lose anyone because of it and we got 7 people out to church and taught 13 lessons with investigators this week ( which is a ton) !!

While I have found some people I have yet to find anyone the traditional way. One investigator talked to some missionaries in the Chesapeake mission and he waved us down when we were biking by past him. Another we received a referral to a man and when we knocked on his door his girlfriend answers it and informs us that he up and left her randomly that same day while she was at work and this is after they have been living together for years and had a child but she is willing to listen to our message. We find stuff like this all the time. The person with one of the strongest testimony I have ever seen is a felon who is not allowed to be baptized yet because of his felony (we hope to be able to baptize him when his parole is up in October).  

The weather here is ultra unpredictable it may start sunny without a cloud in the sky in the morning and rain like crazy in the afternoon.  However those are the only types of weather they get here.  I am doing well there is nothing I really need expect for a GPS .The companionship has a cell phone that we are always using. The GPS we have dies really quickly and none of the roads are straight run, nor run north/south east/west and the road names are random and there are trees everywhere!! And they cause everywhere to look the same. 

I did get the package on Saturday it was pretty beat up, I'm guessing that they lost it for a couple of days, but the food was still good. I didn't get anything for my birthday, although I did my buy me a small discounted cake.

Elder McHan knows a Tyler Egbert who may or may not be related to the Egberts I know. And speaking of Egberts do you know where Andrew is serving right now? We have a Marine who is ready and willing to be baptized and he has been writing to his family and they want to hear about the gospel. The Marine is moving to a different base in September and when he does, the Marines may allow him to spend some time with his family or if he is station in Camp Pendleton he may be able to live with his family who live in Downey in Southern California and about half the city is in Andrew Egbert's mission.

Duck Creek sounds like it was really fun I have been in an ice cave before but never a lava tube. It is weird to think school is starting soon it seems like graduation was yesterday. 

I like that quote too (“After the trial of our faith comes the success of the faithful”).  I heard a talk yesterday where I learned that gratitude precedes a miracle. 

Here in the South you have soooo many different views of god, every church is different. One thing that really surprised me about the South is how many Jehovah's Witnesses there are they are everywhere!!! Many of my investigators have friends or family in that faith but none of them belong to it. In fact many people think we are Jehovah's witnesses missionaries.

Thanks for the birthday wishes I'm sure the packages will show up soon. And I will email you next week again.

Love, 

Elder Lakey