A Great Baptism Story

hello things are going great. your talking about me at church, man, that is exciting. great words of wisdom? you got to study you got to be obedient you got to work hard and the spirit will help you out and you will be able to accomplish whatever needs to be done. How have i changes? I think I'm a little more grown up I understand and know a lot more about the gospel, I know how to work with people a lot better and to motivate myself. advice for boys getting to go on missions would be to read the book of Mormon and to familiarize yourself with pmg. Cool story huh. well my favorite baptism my whole mission is an elderly dude name Michael Boutchyard. he is the one that looks like Bruce Knaphus. but he has a cool story. he married a member of the church and he wanted nothing to do with the church cuz he was really religious himself and he had gone to all sorts of bible schools and stuff and been taught that Mormons were a cult and bad and everything, so he wouldn't allow his wife Gloria to go to church. but Gloria was still a member in her heart and would always pray for him and everything. and she had a devout diligent visiting teacher named sister Bible who would come every week and visit but Michael would tell her to leave. After time they would talk a little bit but nothing special. Then sister Bible got a bright idea to bring the Ensign over each month. so she subscribed them to Ensign and brought it over every month. Michael would just throw it away without Gloria even seeing it. and a funny fact is that Gloria would tell Michael to answer the door every time sister Bible would come over so he would get the ensign and maybe look at it. that's what she would pray for. and her prayer came true after a few months of throwing ensigns away he started to read them and he really enjoyed it and felt the spirit so one Saturday he said to Gloria lets go to church and she said ok but you go to your church and I'll go to mine and he said no I want to go to your church so she was ecstatic and they came and it was steak conference and they sat in the back and when it started he felt the spirit so strong he didn't know what it was that they moved seats then the next day they got on the internet and referred themselves to the missionaries and we showed up a day or two later and he was ready. he had already been reading out of the book of Mormon and d and c and teaching of the prophet Joseph Smith and the lessons went amazing and he was baptized 3 weeks later and he is the most faithful out of any of my recent converts. they have spent over 700 dollars at the church store buying books and tapes and are constantly learning he is the young mens secretary so he's on fire, it was sad though a few weeks ago his mother in law got really sick and past away. we gave her a blessing she made it to church once and wanted to get babtized but her sickness got too bad and she wasn't able to get babtized they were even going to babtize her in the hospital but the only bath tub that was big enough was occupied then she died. but the Boutchyards handled it really well and are really excited to be able to do all the temple work. but another cool part about it was we were over there 2 days ago helping mike clean his mother inlaws trailer and he gave us a big old brand new stereo cd player, a type writer, a record player, and an 8 track player so that was pretty cool they are the best people. it is really cool to see how the lord can prepare people. you just got to be doing what your supposed to be doing and we will find people like Mike to teach and babtize the lord provides people to teach through obedience and diligence. yeah i keep a journal i don't write everynight but quite a bit so.. i think that is about all i have to say about that but the 50 pound bags of ties come from a thrift store called tiedmans that collects ties from all over the valley and bags them up sells them for 15 dollors so thats pretty cool. i didnt burn i tie on my 6th month mark i don't really know why but oh well. Everything is fantastic here the babtism for the 78 yr olds went fantastic it was the biggest turn out i have ever had lots of family and members and there was a great spirit i didn't have to do anything at the babtism just sit back and watch and enjoy but the day after i got the opportunity to do one of the confirmations and that was neat. everything else is going well my comp goes home next week so that is wild but we had a good lesson last night with an elderly woman and her husband is a member and comes to church every week but she works so we are working things out to where she can have church at her house and she is praying about getting babtized this week so that should be good. not much else is new this has been really long so i love you so much thanks for everything.
> love elder knaphus