JANUARY 26, 2015

Dear family and friends,

This week was awesome. The Markers baptism went great! There was a lot of good turn out from the ward and they got confirmed yesterday.

The Markers also have a goal to go to the temple to do baptisms once a month until they can get sealed as a family in a year. We also set Alyssa with a baptism date for the 14th of next month!

We saw Michelle this week, she is doing so well! Probably the most prepared person I have ever taught. She is set to be baptized on the 28th of next month and is so excited! It’s great to have the bishop’s family as her friend as well.

We are teaching a friend of the Chernesky family as well and we set her, the mom, and her son with a baptism date for the 7th of March.

Things have been, and will be going really well here in this area for the next little while. I really hope I can stay for 6 more weeks… We will see.

Nothing too exciting has happened other than the baptisms, we have a "Huge" Winter Storm that is kinda on its way/ here already, SO we have our cars grounded starting today at 12, good thing we have a club house! Woot! They say we could get up to like 24 inches… who knows though.

Well, I hope you all have a good week, I love you all!

Love,
Elder Parker

Jon, Haley and Eddie Marker with Elder Parker, Elder Roberts and Bishop Stapley

JANUARY 19, 2015

Dear Family,

Had an awesome week! First off, Madison was baptized on Saturday and then confirmed on Sunday. The baptism went well, even if the programs got printed upside down… But we had about 10 non-members at the baptism and several want to now be baptized.

The Markers are set for their baptism this weekend. They have been asking about going and doing baptisms for the dead and having callings. Hopefully I will still be here and can go to the temple to do baptisms with them.

We started teaching Michelle, the bishop’s neighbor. She is awesome! She has come to church about 4 times now and is soaking up everything she hears. We will be extending a baptism date to her this week.

We also are going to be teaching family that has moved in with Madison's family.  She and her son have been talking about being baptized now.

Things are continuing to go really well here, the Lord is hastening his work.

I hope you all had a great week! Thank you for all the letters and packages and birthday wishes!

Love,
Elder Parker

JANUARY 12, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,
Well, it was a really good week here. We have seen a lot of miracles.

We got to teach the Cherneskys and finish the teaching Maddison, so she is set for her baptism on Saturday! Woot! We are pretty excited. They also have a friend that moved in and she and her 11 year old son were asking questions about the church and wanted copies of the Book of Mormon. So we will be teaching them as we continue teaching Maddison.

We also got to see the Markers a few times. Jon is still going strong, hasn't smoked in 12 days! Still working on getting him a new job so he can come to church every week, but he is on track for baptism in 2 weeks with Eddie and Haley. Another awesome thing is that his daughter is going to be staying with him on the weekends from Philly and she wants to get baptized as well and Alyssa seems to be getting more open to the idea. Hopefully things go well this week and we can get Alyssa involved in the lessons.

We had several investigators come to church, one of which was the Bishop’s neighbor and she brought her mother. We got to set up an appointment for tomorrow and will be teaching her in Bishop’s home. So awesome!

Carmen and Iran are doing about the same.

The Birthday was good, spent some time with the Markers and they made me Cupcakes and Fudge. They are awesome, some of my favorite people from the mission.

Thank you all for the Packages and the letters. I love you all!

Oh I got an email back from Tianxu! He said it took so long because he has been busy and his dad doesn’t read English, lol. He is still doing well.

Hope you all have a great week! Love you!
Elder Parker

JANUARY 5, 2015

Dear Family,

Well, we had a much better week than the one before. We have been able
to see Carmen and Iran a few times, we reset their date for the 31st.
Carmen made it to church and Iran will be there this week. We were
able to see them with bishop and his wife which went really well.

The Markers came to church! All of them. It was great. Last week we
started on Jon’s resume and his family tree. We were able to find a ton
of names, we will be helping him with that again this week. Hopefully
his schedule works out and they will still be baptized on the 24th. He
hasn't smoked since the new year! That family is awesome.

We are going to be teaching the bishops neighbor soon. She has come a
few times to church and we gave her a Book of Mormon last week. She
wants to meet with us, we are pretty excited.

Maddison is still on for her baptism on the 17th. The way we have
things layed out right now we should have a baptismal service the last
three weeks of the month, it'll be great.

New Years was good, we were on exchanges so I was with Elder Lee.

Not much else happened this week. Thanks for all that you all do! I
love you all!

Love,
Elder Parker