Elder Hayden May: Elder May

Holiday weekends are always tough for me when one of our kids are not with us. I realized though that this is the last 4^th of July without Elder Hayden and that helped bring a smile to my face. Crazy week in Clearwater with an Amtrak crash involving bikers and pedestrians. Thankfully, wonderful Clearwater members were able to let me know that Elder Hayden and his companion, Elder Swapp were okay. So grateful for ward family that looks after their missionaries. Love our missionary, so grateful for his service and oh, so proud of him! Enjoy!!

Chapter 61 and 62

I'm all for increased accountability.
Elders, can you help us move in?
Nick got baptized!
Zone Activity!
Brother Flake knows the way to my heart through the stomach
That's all I have to know to be baptized?!
I got two jobs!

Hi everybody! Sorry for the lack of an email this week but I will talk about it!

First off we can start with two weeks ago. June 19-25. This week our mission president encouraged us as "leaders" to increase our accountability and other missionaries. We made ourselves accountable for each day and how we use the precious time we have to be missionaries. It showed us a lot of what we do and how we can improve that. It was awesome and I love the eternal principle of accountability.

Second, I wanted to tell you about this family that moved into the ward. They are a young couple, he is going to school to be an airline pilot and she is a full time mom for now. OF TRIPLETS! He finished his mission in California, came home, got married, had a child and it turned out to be three children! They needed us to last minute because they had all three children asleep and that rarely happened. So crazy. They are awesome and his brother is apparently the Assistant to the President in the Gilbert Arizona mission.

Third, quite a few months ago, back in Hudson with Elder Sites, we taught a guy named Nick. He was really interested and committed and then he hurt his foot, we lost touch, he was moving etc. Apparently he was moving down really here to Clearwater. The sisters met him, he remembered a lot, they went through all the lessons and baptized him!

That is ours sisters, him, Myself, Elder Swapp, our mission president, his wife and our stake president. It was so cool to see him get baptized!

Fourth is the reason I didn't email last week. We got together as a zone to relax, bond, and everything and then had a testimony meeting. It was really good.

those two shiny guys in the back is us.

Fifth, a member in the ward learned that, although he can't make us dinner, he can buy it for us so he has taken us to Taco Bell twice and told us all his mission stories. They've been great so far. Also, life advice for after the mission!

The next comes from a lesson we had with a family we and the sisters are team teaching. They are teaching the wife, we are teaching him. While we were teaching he asked what he needs to know (because he has a lot of questions that aren't always very pertinent to being baptized) so we went through your questions. She was in the room too so she could hear and after he said, "wait that's all? I pretty much know all that already! What about the temple?" So we went through those questions and he said, "those are pretty much the same" then excitedly told his wife about it. He is ready to be baptized but we are not going to until his wife if baptized. We don't want a part member family, we want eternal families. If that takes a little longer than so be it.

Lastly, we met with Ochan and he is doing so great. He is in an English class every day to improve his English and because of that he is understanding everything very well. We went over baptism again and the Sacrament and committed him to strive to never miss a Sacrament Meeting. After that he said, "my job I have, that makes me work on Sundays, I quit that. I want to come to church so I quit. After that it to two jobs that don't make me work on Sundays. So I am going to choose the one I like more and then come to church." It was a pretty great moment and I lobed to see God bless him for his exercise of faith.

I know that God does miracles as we exercise our faith and do something that we know is right even if we don't know how it will work out. He will guide help and bless us.

I love you all and grateful for each of you - take care!

Love, Elder May