Todays letter.....a marriage AND a baptism ???

"Great News. Brother Hunter, from Rexburg, went with us to teach Kim and Richard (Jewish couple) on Tuesday. It was a great lesson. After we taught them about baptism and the Holy Ghost we read Mosiah 18: 7-9. We asked if these were the desires of their hearts and they quickly exclaimed that they were. Then we read verse 10 asked them if they would be bapitzed. They're going to be baptized on the 7th of December, hopefully. We were unsure if they were married, but they had us over for dinner on Saturday night and it became evident that they are not married. I'm pretty sure they will be. It looks like we'll be holding both a baptism and a marriage. Nobody ever once told me that I was going to be set apart as a wedding planner. They came to church on Sunday and the ward just absorbed them. They loved it there. I'm so excited for them."

"Everyone wants me to start teaching free beginning piano lessons as a typeof finding effort. The Spanish and Chinese elders teach free English classes and its worked pretty well for their teaching pool. I guess they want me to use my talents."

"Thats my big news from NYC. Transfers are next week. I hope I stay, I love it here! There is so much going on in the ward and in our teaching. But President Bennion knows best. How does the song go, "I'll go where you want me to go..."

~Elder Maughan

Last weeks letter FINALLY came!

"Hey Everyone! Staten Island is doing great. I can feel the flood of baptismal water making its way around the corner. We're going to invite the Jewish couple to baptism this week after a lesson on prayer and baptism. Richard told us last night that he's trying to build up to prayer. He's so sincere about everything. It's one thing to convert from one Christian denomination to another, but its entirely different converting from something like Judiasm or Islam. "

"Elder Godwin and ZL Elder Hales (we were on exchanges) visited another one of our investigators on Friday, Virginia McDaniel. She teaches at a catholic school preparing kids for "baptism and confirmation", I think its called Catechism . She's very sincere and really wants to know the truth. She is such a sweet lady. She told the Elders of a sweet experience she had a few years ago when she was in the hospital. She had just had surgery and for a few days she was having a very difficult time sleeping. Then a nurse named Mike (kinda funny) told her he would wait with her until she could fall asleep. He said that he would have to step just outside the room and take care of few things but he promised to leave his foot just inside the door so that she could know that he was there. She was able to get two great nights of sleep. The hospital then transfered her to another room on another floor and she asked the hospital to send the nurse Mike down to her room. The hospital told her that there was no nurse named Mike at that hospital. Virginia is adamant that Mike was an Angel sent from God. She believes so much of what we tell her and wants to believe everything, but she's having a difficulty with a couple things. She keeps watching the Restoration DVD and can't get over Joseph Smith seeing the face of Heavenly Father and not dying, as the Bible teaches. We'll have to give her a lesson on transfiguration. Moses saw God face to face and I know that Christ, Peter, James, and John were all transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration. Pray for us. Hopefully we can invite her to be baptized soon as well. We'll have to get her Hollands Conference talk on Angels."

"Our teaching pool has grown so much this past week. We've been tracting, train fearlessing, looking up former investigators, looking up other potential investigators, delivering media items, the whole sha-bang-a-bang. We've found a new family on the train and we're going to start teaching Abraham, Earnest, and Shanik this week. We've got a full, busy week ahead of us. I'm excited"

~Elder Maughan

It's a good thing there are only 7 days in a week!

Well, we got SKUNKED this week!

As any of you know who have a missionary out, there is almost nothing more disappointing than anticpating your weekly p-day email, only to receive NOTHING! Zero, zip, nada! We got a small response to some random email we'd sent early in the week, but that was it! I'm thinking what happend was that he had an email all written and ready to send and then got booted off the computer. The library he goes to boots them off when their allotted time is up. Atleast that's the theory I'm going with. It's happened before and when it did, he wrote us an actual pen and paper letter. I'm hoping if that's the case, he includes his memory card because I'm getting tired of all these google images! I want the real thing!

The Priesthood

"Shawn Fernando was given the Priesthood and ordained to the office of a Priest last week. That's pretty exciting. We're teaching him tonight at about temples and church organization. He's one of those "golden" investigators that just soaks everything up. Yesterday, Brother Griffeth, 1st counselor of the Bishopric, asked me and Wes Carter (his home teacher) to give him a blessing after church. He's been sick and is having surgery today. He's pretty scared. He's one of the coolest guys I know. He's one of those guys that just wants to be friends and have fun with everyone. He played basketball for Ricks back in the day. It's always humbling to be asked to serve a faithful member as a priesthood holder."

~Elder Maughan

A Catholic, a Jew, a convert and two Mormon Missionaries....(Sounds like and intro to a bad joke, but it's not!)

Wherefore, I the Lord ask you this question—unto what were ye ordained? To preach my gospel by the Spirit, even the Comforter which was sent forth to teach the truth.

Doctrin and Covenants 50:13-14

"We have couple of other investigators that are doing great. One woman is about your age, maybe older, she's really busy with her children and work, she teaches at a Catholic school, scary. She's way nice though. Her name is Virginia. We started teaching a Jewish woman last night. Holy cow, am I glad I've been studying abouth the tribes of Israel last week. She had some good questions about the relationship between the Twelve Tribes and the Twelve Apostles, what happened to the priesthood that was held by the Jews when Christ came. Tough stuff. Marty Oostreicher is a Jewish convert of about two years. He knows his stuff, Judiasm and Christianity. He works for BYU-I doing something, I'm not sure what. He said he'd go with us to teach, but if he can't that he'll visit with us and help us understand Judiasm a bit better, I can't wait."

~Elder Maughan

He's staying on Staten Island

Justin's letter today was upbeat and happy, as usual.

Elder Maughan and Elder Godwin are staying together and staying on Staten Island for atleast one more transfer. He seemed happy about this.

They had a baptism Sunday. A young man named Shawn. Shawn will be confirmed next Sunday.

A few words from today's letter

ABOUT THE WORK: "Everthing is great on the Eastern Front, as Grandpa refers to it. We've got people being baptized, people to teach, and ward that loves us."

~Elder Maughan