a baptism!

what's up fam and friends?! so no questions this week.. hopefully i can come up with something decent to fill you all in on the work here in Fallon!

well, this week was good. One of our investigators was baptized on saturday! his name is Gaven, 19 yr old student. He's an awesome kid and i'm really excited for him. I'll attach a photo from his baptism.

So we've been focusing on helping Shane and Crissy a lot lately. Shane is the one that works right in front of our house. he's the best. we taught he and Crissy the plan of salvation on our porch yesterday after church. he is really receptive to the things that we teach and Crissy is still trying to find out of God is real. We invited her (both of them really) but mostly her, to read the book of mormon and even try to pray and with time her faith will grow and she will come to know that God has a plan for each of us and he loves us! it's been so rad to see them make little changes in their lives. for the most part they don't even realize they are making them. Shane is just solid. they have a lot of things to work out before they get baptized but it will be rad to see where they came from to where they end up. we love em'!

Other than that we've been contacting a lot of the Less-Active names on our ward list just trying to build relationships with them and help them. working with less actives is almost more difficult than non members because these people have a past in the church and they still turned away from it! We've been trying to figure out how to help a lot of them and it pretty much just boils down to Church, Prayer, and scripture study! with those three components you can't get off the path. well in you go at those sincerely of course! it's interesting to see.. it's not easy for anybody to stay faithful in the gospel.. adversarial forces are working hard all the time to get us to step away from the love of our father in heaven! it's tough. but those three simple things are the antidote to overcoming the trials and temptations that come our way. i know it to be true! :)

so i don't have a ton of time left.. one last thing i wanted to make mention of was an article i read in the ensign about gratitude. There was a 16 yr old girl who, for an english class i believe, made a list of all the things she was grateful for. she counted her blessings, literally! her list ended up being over 1200 things she was grateful for and the article goes on to describe that when we are looking at all of the ways God has blessed us in our lives we see that we aren't in need of much more. I thought it was interesting because Mom asked me the question about gratitude a little while ago then i was able to receive further insight from that article and from the spirit! I started a list of things that i'm grateful for. very specific! i'll add things that i'm grateful for to my list as they come into my mind, but i've committed to writing down at least one thing each day that i'm grateful for. the great thing about making a list and counting your blessings is that the spirit of gratitude lingers in your heart! when we notice the hand of the Lord in our life, we notice that he is intervening on our behalf.. it strengthens my testimony that he knows me and loves me! and he has the same love for all of his children. he desires to bless us and wants us to be happy. so anybody that reads this, give it a try! just make a list maybe for FHE or just whenever.. but make a list of every thing you are grateful for. spend some time on it and think about all the ways the Lord has blessed you and try and tell me he doesn't love you! :)

welp errbody, i hope you all have a great week this week. I love you all and i pray for you often. we'll talk to you all next week!

if anybody wants to say hey, my email is Joseph.Sykes@myldsmail.net and my address is 4348 Reno Hwy, Fallon, NV. 89406

hope to hear from you soon. :)