Hey there again. It feels like I just wrote but once again, preparation day is here. The weeks seem to fly by every week and I feel like I won’t have a lot to say. It sounds like it was a very successful week for you all. A lot happened. I cannot believe Alex is home. That just surprises me. I remember hearing about when he got his call. I was there when he was set apart as a missionary as well. I had the Priesthood then. That seems like it was just yesterday when I was there. Now he is home. Life moves by quick. I am glad to hear that his homecoming talk went really well and that he was a good missionary. He had a strong testimony before he left for his mission and I bet it is even stronger now. It was great to hear about him. I miss Alex. Wish him luck at Idaho for me…. It was also cool to hear about Brad and Bryce Bishop. Bryce is in Florida? I didn’t know that. That is way cool and that they are both spanish speaking. That is cool too. I like hearing about other missionaries. I feel out of the loop with everyone and where they are on their missions. I don’t want to go home. School does not sound fun to me… Work sounds like it is going good with the preparation for Creative Escape. Heidi is going to teach? That is awesome. Congratulations Heidi! There is a lady here in San Pedro who uses Bazzill. Her name is Sister Kimball. The Kimballs are one of my favorite families down here. She told me to put in a good word about her to you. haha. She deserves free paper for sure haha. They are a really funny family. I miss the chicken crescent rolls. I am glad that you are feeding the missionaries. Missionaries need to be fed every night. Has there been any baptisms in the Allen Ranch ward lately? I am glad to hear that dad got his car. I can’t wait to see it in person. It looks good through picture. It will be a fun one to drive in and it doesn’t surprise me that people look at it when he drives by. Dad finally got his dream car.

Well Trinity was baptized yesterday! Woo hoo! This was the first baptism in the ward all year. San Pedro ward was in a drought. Most of the wards in the mission baptize at least one a month. The spanish wards baptized almost once a week. Down here in the Peninsula zone, there are a few wards that have a hard time baptizing. The people aren’t as humble down here. There are always baptisms though, we just need to find them. Trinity’s baptism went really well. It was scheduled at 3:00pm. We were waiting for everyone to come and no one came until 3 o’clock, including Trinity and her family. It scared us really bad. We had 1 person there at 3 o’clock and then we had like 70 people there by 3:10. It was funny. So we started at 3:15 instead of 3 but all was well. It was well attended, everyone just came late. Elder Tanner came back and baptized Trinity so that was cool to see him again. I still see him at least once a week when the zone leaders pick up the mail so its kinda nice. Trinity was excited and the baptism went well. Her whole extended family came and there were a lot of nonmember family members there. We tried to get their addresses afterwards but they all avoided us and changed the conversation. We left with one referral given to us. So that was good but referrals are the best way to find people down here in San Pedro. So we are always looking for referrals. All and all the baptism was good. At the end of it, one of Trinity’s aunts brought a cake that was decorated with a cross made up of icing on top. So that was really funny but it was a good service.

This past weekend we found this really cool guy knocking doors. His name is Tony. Tony opened the door and he is about 40 years old, in really good shape, and looks younger then he is, but he opened the door and immediately wanted to give us bottled water and food. He was extremely nice. We began talking to him and he had had lots of struggles in his life. Most of his family has passed away. It is only him and his sister now that are still alive from his family. He has experienced a lot of death in the home. He still has high hopes and wants to be with his family again. We talked about how families are eternal and that he can see and live with his family again. He was really receptive and wants a copy of the Book of Mormon. We have an appointment with him on Wednesday and hopefully everything goes well. We are trying to build our teaching pool because all we had were people that have been investigating the church for tons of years so we need to see some fresh faces. Tony has been the freshest face we have seen here in San Pedro for a while. We are really hoping he turns into something good. I think he will.

Tony, Karen, and Arlene came to church yesterday so that was good. We are still waiting to here on the news of his mom finding his birth certificate in Mexico so that he can be married and baptized. Hopefully she does because Tony really really wants to be baptized. He wants to have a happy family in the church. He just needs that birth certificate so keep praying for him…. Dominic is doing well as well. He is one of those that has been investigating the church for like 5 years. I love Dominic. He is so cool. He justs needs to be baptized but he has to get married first before doing so. I think we are seeing a change in his progress though. He put a deadline for him to figure out if he is going to marry Krystal or not by June 1st. If he gets married, I am sure he will be baptized in the next month or so. He just struggles a little bit with his desire to read and go to church every week. He goes like 2 or 3 times out of the month. So we are really trying to help light the fire to start off his progression for baptism. Elder Brady and I both feel that he is on the verge of committing to baptism. We will see what happens after this week.

Well this Wednesday we have zone conference again and Elder Brady and I are training at it. We are really focusing on finding as a mission. The mission is in the wilderness right now and we aren’t dropping investigators that aren’t progressing anymore and we aren’t finding new investigators so therefore we aren’t having as many baptisms. So we are trying to redirect the focus as a mission to find all the time rather than visiting less actives and teaching people that don’t progress. So Elder Brady and I are training on the importance of finding and how to find. It should be good. I am excited to do it. The mission is going to have a missionwide goal that each companionship will baptize in the month of June. I am excited. Hopefully it happens.

Well that was my week. Nothing to special. We had Trinity’s baptism and that was great. We are hoping to find a lot more out here in San Pedro. For some reason I feel hungrier for success more now than I ever have had in my mission. My desire has increased a lot and I really want to find more people that are ready for baptism. Baptism is the gate to eternal life and everybody needs that. The church is so true. I not only have a testimony from the Holy Ghost but the church just makes perfect sense. It is so perfect. I wish everybody could see it like that. I love you family and excited to hear from you next week.

Love,
Elder Kevin Jones