Week 25-Rock Springs, WY

The calendar was very thoughtful Mom thank you! It will definitely lift my spirits and probably make me miss you guys :(

This week I don't have too many stories! It seems as though everyone goes to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving! Few people stay for Thanksgiving. In the white handbook, we are instructed to spend as much time proselyting as possible on weekends and holidays. Since no one was here for Thanksgiving normally we plan for the week on Thursdays. We decided to pray and ask God what we should do. We felt like we should walk. So we went out and saw a member family walking and they dragged us into their home! We shared a message with them and continued on our way to our first of two dinner appointments. While we were walking, there was a man cleaning his side of the street gutters. He started talking to us and we had a nice conversation. During our conversation, He mentioned that he had Mormon neighbors that moved that he really appreciated. He said that we were free to stop by! God literally put him in our path the exact time that we would walk by! Truly we are blessed for keeping the commandments of the Lord whether we understand why or think that it may be illogical and not apply to our situation. It does, so just do it and open the windows of heaven for our Heavenly Father to bless you.

Speaking of the white handbook, we recently have been striving to be exactly obedient. During studies one morning, we decided to go through and anything that we were not doing or had to rationalize we wrote down on a list. Elder Hanks and I thought we were both pretty obedient but we counted over 40 things that we had to work on or fix! It's pretty amazing how much we have to work on! Our goal is to be exactly obedient by the end of this transfer which is DEC 9! Hopefully we can make it! Already we are seeing an outpouring of the spirit in our lessons and even as we walk or drive from place to place. I know the Lord is pleased with our efforts. However small they might be compared to what he does for us.

We had the privilege of holding Mark's baptism this week. He is 11 and he is a stud. He wants to be a missionary and says he wants to help other people the way that we've helped him. It was really awesome to hear him say that. His fellow-shippers and his parents figured out if they each saved $15 a month from now until he was 18, they would have enough! He will be an amazing missionary! His baptism was amazing and spirit-filled! I'm so happy I've gotten the privilege to have known him!

Edna's baptism will be this coming week. We are planning to have the service completely in her native language of Portuguese! We found people in the ward who speak her language and asked them to participate in the program. It will be really amazing and we won't even understand a word that is spoken! I feel like my chapter of service in Rock Springs is coming to a close. This will be an epic conclusion for that service!! The Lord has blessed us so very much! We have baptisms for those we are teaching for each of the next four weeks and probably more to follow by transfers. We've lined up dinners with all of our favorite families this week! It is amazing to see God's work hastening.

I love you all so much and am so very grateful for your love and support!

-Elder Bass

Later Notes: We had a lesson with nyes. This lesson we testified boldly of priesthood authority and that he would need to be baptized again for it to truly count. He got upset about that and said that he wasnt interested. I remember that all of a sudden he got super dark and closed off. He didnt talk much the rest of the lesson. We closed with a prayer and tried to leave on good terms