Water, water, everywhere

This upcoming weekend is the yearly Cambodian event known as the Water Festival! It's a huge cultural gathering of Cambodians from across the nation that takes place each August in Lowell, MA. Needless to say, all the Cambodian-speaking missionaries in the mission go and help out! I'm pretty stoked. We'll be heading up Friday afternoon/evening and spending all day Saturday at the Festival. We're going to help set up, take down, and do everything in between. Plus, we have our own booth to help spread the gospel! It's going to be awesome!

Also dealing with water - we have not one, not two, but THREE baptisms this Sunday!!! Esther, Arnold, and Atong are all getting baptized. We showed them the baptismal font yesterday after church, and they were getting all excited. I'm beyond thrilled. It's truly amazing to see people's lives change as they come unto Christ. I've said it many times and I'll say it again - being a missionary is the BEST!

We had a total of 29 lessons this week - 16 to investigators, 13 to members. That's the most I've ever had in one week on my mission! This week will be pretty high as well. We're just so busy...I count myself extremely blessed to be here. Serving here is such an honor. Not only that, but the ward is fantastic - I will forever love the Revere 2nd ward. I'm scared, because we'll find out about transfers this Saturday. I've been serving here for 6 months, and I really don't want to leave!!! I know the Lord has a plan, though, and I'll go where He wants me to go with a willing heart. We got a new Cambodian-speaking elder this last week, which none of us expected, but he's going to be trained in Lowell...that shook a few things up, so maybe I'll be staying here for another transfer. I certainly hope so!

We've been doing some detective work for our Bishop during our few moments of free time between appointments. It's fun to track down inactive members or members that have recently moved into the ward and haven't shown up to church after several months. I feel like a special agent of some sort - we stop at nothing to find out if these people are still living there!

We've taken on another weekly service project - we now serve at a soup kitchen in Lynn for the homeless. It was a great experience the first time we went this last week.

There's this guy named Rob who showed up at church yesterday - we've taught him once, and it was a totally random, unexpected lesson. We were waiting for Sergio, another investigator, and his mom to get home (he's 9 years old, and they were late for a lesson), and this 19- or 20-year-old guy named Rob walks by. We stopped him and talked to him a bit, and invited him to the lesson. He agreed! We watched The Restoration movie with him and Sergio, but the funny thing is, Sergio fell asleep and didn't remember much afterwards, but Rob loved it. I firmly believe that lesson was for Rob, not Sergio! Talk about being in the right place at the right time. We invited Rob to church, and he came! We also taught a couple of new investigators named Theresa and Howard - they're married, and they're about as ready for the gospel as anyone I've seen! They're excited, and they want to learn more and come closer to God. Good thing that that's our job!!!

Elder Castellano and Elder Hanberg have an investigator who's currently in jail. Elder Castellano was uncomfortable going to visit him, so we did an exchange and I went with Elder Hanberg to see the guy. It was an experience I'll never forget. I am so thankful for the gospel and for my Savior - He keeps me out of trouble and out of places like that! It was more sad and depressing than anything else, though. There was this one little girl, probably about 4 or 5 years old, who was visiting her father with her mom. She put her hand on the plexiglass window as she talked to him through the phone, and her father put his hand where hers was on the opposite side. I teared up as I realized that that's all she knows of her father. That's not how it should be, and that's not what I want to have happen in my family. Not that I was about to go and do something to put myself in prison, but all the same, it was a powerful moment.

We had an amazing lesson/conversation with Ed last night - it was a very special and emotional experience for me. Only the changes that Christ has been making in me can explain the amount of love I feel for this man and his family. Once you see someone the way our Heavenly Father sees them, you'll do anything to help them realize and achieve their eternal potential. It's truly an honor to be a servant of our Lord in this great work - Ammon in Alma 26 does a great job of describing how I feel right about now.

Godspeed!

Elder Justin DeLong