Suit Coats, Baptisms, and Ward Goals

28 June 2010

Dear Dad,

We had our Zone Conference for the transfer this past week. It was really good.

We have a new mission rule that we have to wear suit coats throughout the whole year! And that is not an excited exclamation point. We have to wear suit coats after 6:00 PM during the summer. It is so incredibly hot wearing them. We are constantly just dripping with sweat. On the first day Elder Duffin and I were talking to a lady outside and she said, "Aren't you guys hot in those coats? Oh, you're sweating pretty bad aren't you." But we will be obedient. "Willingly because we have to...Willingly because we want to!" Maybe we'll get to that point.

I'm glad that youth conference went well. Where did they go for the pioneer trek? It sounds like a ton of fun. Do you think the church is going to do a giant pioneer trek on the 200 year anniversary like they did at 150 years?

That is really good of Aunt Jenni and Aunt Denalee to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Call. I hope and pray that she can make it through this difficult time.

I think it is pretty cool that you are doing all of this work for these different businesses and organizations. People ask us frequently what our parents do for a living.

Two of our investigators were finally baptized on Sunday. Everyone was holding their breath that it would go through. It was a pretty good baptism. Their non-member father really liked it and was excited for his kids. Hopefully we can help him get closer to baptism and activity in the Church also. The talk on baptism was really good. It was given by their home teacher, Todd Hillam. He is also a seminary teacher here at IF High School. I suppose that is a plus in his ability to deliver doctrine in a simple, clear, profound manner. I think it helped the father see the eternal significance of the whole thing.

We are collecting the goals for the month of July from the wards. I had no idea something would be so hard. A couple of wards want to have half a baptism each, one ward wants to have a quarter of a baptism, another is going to get a quarter of a prospective elder ordained. But these are goals that the wards are setting for themselves, so they need to achieve them.

Hopefully things will pick up here.

Thanks for the email this week. I will continue to pray for you and the family.

Love,
Elder Call