Hey everyone,

This was probably one of the best weeks of my mission!!! The past few months have been pretty slow for work. We try to do our best but lately the baptisms just haven't been coming. I know I shouldn't complain because I have been really blessed to see a lot of success during my mission, but we've been wondering when things will start to turn around. This week we had some awesome stuff happen. We were able to see three of our investigators get baptized which was awesome. It felt like we had a million obstacles to overcome before everything got worked out. I swear that Satan does everything thinkable to stop people from getting baptized.

First off it rained, and if you know anything about the Philippines you know that spells trouble for getting people to leave their house. We also had problems with members not showing up to the baptisms including the person who was supposed to baptize our investigators. I usually bring baptismal clothes for myself just in case of emergencies but this time I forgot. I ended up baptizing one of them anyway and it all worked out good; the Lord took care of everything and the baptism was a success!

This week we've also been receiving a lot more referrals than normal so we are starting to get some really awesome investigators. But by far the best part of the week was when we started teaching Jessie. Jessie lives with a member and takes care of the member's kid while he is at work. For some reason, she started coming to church with him two years ago but has never been taught! When I first got here, I didn't know that she had been going to church that long; I felt strongly impressed that we really needed to teacher her. The problem was she was really busy and didn't have time to be taught. Last Sunday however, Elder Taylor was able to set an appointment with her.

One of the first things that she said to us during the first lesson was, "I'm Catholic." She told us that she just wanted to learn more about our beliefs because she was kind of confused about our doctrine. We had an amazing lesson with her about the restoration of the gospel. I taught her about Joseph Smith and then I told her that the spirit would tell her that it was true if she listened. It was obvious that the spirit had touched her so I asked her what the Lord was telling her right then through the spirit. She replied "It's true." I've never met someone so prepared for the gospel!!! People say that they have a golden investigator but Jessie is platinum or something. We had taught so much in the first lesson that we decided to wait for the following day to give her a baptismal date.

The next day we taught about baptism and during the whole lesson she was pushing us to invite her to be baptized. She would keep asking questions like, "what does someone have to do to prepare for baptism?" or "how can I know if I'm worthy enough?" We've been teaching Jessie just about every day and the the only problem is she wants to know everything so we can't ever stay on one topic. We gave her a Book of Mormon and a reading assignment in Alma 32. Alma 32 is a long chapter but she read that and 1st Nephi 1 through 1st Nephi 15 in one day and wished that she could have read more. It's been great seeing her receive answers to questions that she has had for a long time and how much she loves the gospel. It's really been a testimony builder to me of the converting power of the Holy Ghost.

Love, Elder Smith