An Amazing Place

Fam & Friends!

The time is ticking and we're staying busy out here. I have a short week or so left in the field and I am going to miss this amazing place. If you would've told me that I was going to call Iowa 'an amazing place' when I opened my call over 2 years ago, I would've assumed that you were absolutely crazy. But change is real and you gotta be here to believe it. My mission was completely taylormade just for me and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way or in any other place. Enough with the cheesy stuff though, let's jump into business.

The work is poppin' right now! People just keep showing up to church and are ready to be taught. Yesterday, a man named Emmanuel came to church. He had been taught by missionaries in the area a little over a year ago but left to go back to Africa so lost contact with the Church. From Africa, he spent a good chunk of time back home in the 801 for work but somehow never came across the Church there... Probably didn't even realize the Church was everywhere. He came back from SLC and decided that he just needed to come back to church so there he was waiting for us outside of the Chapel to introduce himself. He stayed for the whole time and told us that he would be looking forward to meeting with us along with his wife and children. My whole mission has consisted of planting seed after seed with little "harvest". But it's a rewarding feeling to be on the other side of things, even this late in the mission.

A couple Sundays ago, we had the chance to go on a ministering visit with one of the guys in the ward. We stopped by a LA family who also happened to be a part member family. So we dove right in to get the "in" with this fam. We had the chance this past Monday of helping them move. It was super last second so we and they couldn't get a group from the ward to come help out. We got them all settled in and scheduled a lesson on Wednesday. And they are just so genuine! They're starting to come back to church now that the mom's work schedule has changed, and in our lesson the mom, Angela, invited her 9 year old son, Kyandre, to be baptized! "It's really only fair that he gets baptized too since we all have been baptized already." Yeah I would have to agree... Our man Huayong is still going strong as well. He is sooooooo close to grasping everything. He finished the Book of Mormon this week and had a powerful lesson with him on David A Bednar's" Patterns of Light". He will get baptized and will be an example for the rest of his family back in China. It's going to be a gooooood day when that happens! I'm happy to leave the mish with so much stuff going on. Yeah it would be awesome if we could've squeezed in a baptism sometime in the past 6 weeks but Clark and Richardson will finish it all off! Over 18 months ago, Richardson and I wanted to have a baptism together so badly. That was our dream. That dream will become a reality here in a couple of weeks with more to follow. What a blessing.

TEAM JESUS STAYS WINNING

See you all very soon ;)

Elder C

Epic Squad

Just a dad & his boys

Hermano Gallvan!

a new Amigo

My girl Twix