Good morning everybody!

How was everybody's week? We had a pretty good week here in Crownpoint. Yesterday was an especially good day. We had a very good sacrament meeting.  There were 50 people at church yesterday. Of those 50, 4 were investigators and we had some less actives there who hadn't been to church in nearly 20 years. Persistance and following the spirit pays off. Sometimes you feel like giving up on somebody but that extra little push is all it takes. Then once they come to church once they want to keep coming. We had two of our new investigators from this week there and they were already talking about coming next week. It is so good to see people progress.

We have a baptisim this Friday. We are really excited about it because their hasn't been a baptisim in Crownpoint all year. It is for a 9 year old girl Sister Cowboy. Yes Cowboy, for some reason everybody likes that last name. Their are lots of Cowboy's that live around here. Anyways, she asked me to baptize her, so that is exciting. We also have a baptism next week as well.  These are two girls that have been ready for baptisim for some time now but the missionaries that have been here haven't beeen in the right mind set. This transfer we have had at least three new investigatiors every week. There hasn't been a new investigator in a single week for the six months before this transfer started. It is unfortunate that some of the elder's get this way and it has really effected the branch. I guess the elder's use to go "hang out" at some of the members houses quite often and for long periods of time. They don't like the fact that we don't do that. We are out working instead and seeing this area progress like it hasn't in such a long period of time. But oh well, I guess sometimes people look at the bad guy as the one who stand's up for what right. Well, in that case I will be the bad guy.

Something we struggle with here is getting the branch involved in missioary work. I believe it's something that is a struggle everywhere. But we are starting to go on splits with the branch Presidency every week, so we are excited about their willlingness and desire to help out in some way. It is somewhere to start, so hopefully we can continue to progress. It will be really good to go see investigators with the members so they have somebodu other then us to connect to when they come to church.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Schmidt