Elder Kasey Crafts

Dear Friends and Family,

This week was for sure another great week here in Fort Hancock! We were finally able to move to Tornillo. (we had been living in Fabens which is about 10 min out of our area.) Our PO box will remain the same.

 First of all i was thinking i'd walk you through our life here as missionaries. We wake up at 6:30 and for exercise and either go play basketball at the church with some other Elders, or go work out with an 18 year old named Alonzo who is leaving on his mission in December. At 7:00 we eat breakfast and get ready for the day. At 8:00 we begin personal study! (I love personal study) I've been reading alot in Jesus The Christ and Preach My Gospel. At 9:00 we do Companionship study and go over lesson plans and do role plays. at 10:00 since we are learning Spanish, we do an hour of language study. At 11:00 since im still new, we do one hour of training. And this is where Elder Westover enlightens me with knowledge. At 12:00 we eat lunch and study a tiny bit more and then leave the apartment at 1:00! We then try to find and tell anyone we can about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Between the hour of 1-5 it is pretty hard to get scheduled appointments because all the men are at work. At 5:00 we eat dinner. About 5 days of the week we eat with members. We get taken very good care of down here! The members are amazing. Then at 6:00 we begin proselyting again. We usually are able to get more appointments at this time of the evening. And then at 9:00 we go back home and prepare for tomorrow!

I have gained a strong testimony this week of a section in Preach My Gospel called "The Iceberg Effect." Which means if an investigator doesn't want to get baptized it is because there is something deeper of a reason. We stopped by Gabby's house this last week to see how she was because she hadn't been able to meet with us for a while. We started, and her father came in and they got in a huge argument. (He is very catholic, and lives in her house and really doesn't want her to convert) From this we found that the real reason that she wasn't accepting a baptismal date is because she has fear of being rejected from her parents.We will continue to help her in any way that we can.

Also one of the members here that I would like to talk about is called David Hernandez.He was baptized when he was about 20 years old and then went inactive for about 35 years and began drinking and smoking. And then a couple of months before i got here, he just started coming back to church and stopped drinking and smoking cold turkey. He has been coming out with us almost every week to Fort Han cock to introduce us to all of his friends that need to hear the gospel. He has such a desire to do missionary work! It is amazing. Having him at the lessons is also very crucial. If Elder Westover and I had just knocked on their doors it wouldn't have been effective as having David Hernandez who they know and respect knock on their door with the missionaries ready to teach and help.

This week is General Conference!!! General Conference to missionaries is like a midnight movie. We've been looking forward to it for months. It truly is an amazing opportunity. Sometimes i think we take General Conference for Granted. But in reality its where God is speaking to the entire world. We've been inviting everyone we can to come to General Conference with us.

Love you all a lot and I hope you receive great revelation in General Conference!

Elder Crafts