Week 19

Hello!
I have some great news and some not so great news,
The good news is that I LOVE my new companion!!!!! He is so great! His name is Elder Lumogdang he is Filipino. I will tell you all about him in a little bit, also we should have 6 baptisms this month! YAY! :)
The bad news as you probably have noticed that I didn't send an email telling you I am online. It is because my mission President made a new rule that we can't chat. This rule is SO HARD!!! And I don't understand why. BUT- I have decided to be exactly obedient. I am going to obey this rule even though I don't want to. I prayed so hard that I would have the desire to be obedient to this rule and that I would be obedient with a willing heart. I also prayed that I would trust President's decision and inspiration for our mission.  I asked Heavenly Father to give me the strength to do this hard thing, because sometimes talking to you is how I get through the week. I know I will be blessed as I obey. At least I get to send you a email every week right? So the rule is I cannot respond to anyone until the next week.  Anyway, now to get that out of the way. Here is my week:
As I told you I got a new companion! He is awesome, he is from Negros, Philippines. He is really funny and has a great sense of humor. He is really good at basketball.  As I learned early, he really shows his love for the investigators and members and so in turn they love him too! But most of all I love how we can talk and communicate openly. He  is someone I know I can talk to and have fun with as we work hard. We have a lot of progressing investigators and it is amazing to see their progress. Our biggest challenge is teaching them all the material before they get baptized. We had 12 investigators at church yesterday!
 So I wanted to share with you a really great experience that I had yesterday.  We have been teaching this man named Edwin. He is really cool guy. He is the one that had the accident with his eye and because of his accident he has become really humble. He is also a chain smoker. He smokes 40 cigarets a day. I am sure you can imagine what he teeth looks like, hahaha. That was a few days ago. Now he is down to 19 and next week he plans on it being 0! As he was telling me this I was filled with joy and happiness as he told me this! He told me something that really hit me, he said: "Impossible is nothing for the Lord" He has really strong faith and is going to be a great priesthood holder when he gets baptized. I know that the atonement is so real. As we were teaching Edwin we were with one of our members, He told Edwin that he too was a chain smoker before he was baptized. I was shocked! I never would have thought that his man had a smoking problem before. He was a new man and his countenance was so bright. The Atonement changes people. It is the greatest miracle. I continue to have really cool experiences and I am loving my mission. It is hard but it is so amazing!

Take care always, have a good week!!!:)
ELDER MURDOCK