Gibbons!

Hey Mom and Dad! Thanks for the email and for Peter’s email. Also thanks Auntie Cath for the note and Derick for the letter and Star for the post card.

Mom to answer your questions... my schedule is good. Two nights in a row I had less than 6 hours of sleep... but last night I got a full 8 hours and it's surprising how I feel fully rejuvenated.... so I’m great! Elder T and I are working on getting more proselyting into our days as well... we spend a lot of time in the office and we're trying get out to proselyte and teach the earliest we can each day. It's working out. That being said, whenever we have meetings or transfers or exchanges... there won’t be time for us in our area. So our area is a little slow. We're still baptizing though. L should be baptized next Saturday. Plus we have the Fort Jackson post every Sunday. That's where most of the proselyting effort is put in. We haven't traveled a ton yet but apparently we will. My biking days are over. We have unlimited miles. ... (I’ll bike though when we go on exchanges). As for the horse trough... it's SWEET. I’m sending a pic here in a minute. We can collapse it and fit it in our trunk. I teach in English at the base (expect for the occasional Hispanic private)... these days I do very little with my Spanish. I’m bummed about that. But I’m still reading in Spanish and hope to keep it up over the next few months.

This past week has been great. Private B was baptized on Sunday. I baptized him.... the water was freezing. We filled up the trough with hose water and outside was about 40 degrees. haha! Really cool experience. It was neat... we got out of the water and he sat wet and shivering while I confirmed him outside, right next to the font. I didn't even feel cold. The spirit was strong and then we gave him the priesthood. Fastest baptismal process I’ve ever seen. Seven days total.... and I only saw him two of those days to teach him. It was so awesome.

So I heard that P and F are officially taking the temple prep classes. We'll be going down to Charleston for an exchange with the zone leaders this week and to do a baptismal interview with one of the families that I taught down there. I think I may also go visit F and P as well as a few other converts. I’m stoked.

The rest of this week was pretty much spent prepping for the meeting. We made these really cool mission plans with action cards which promoted baptizing, teaching skills, and obedience. We have such good missionaries.

The meeting was cool. Three days. On the last day we had a general authority. Elder Gibbons of the Seventy. And yes... we are related. hahaha. When they picked him up, Sister McConkie made the connection. Elder Gibbons came up to me later and formally introduced himself and said... "I think we're related. Your grandpa is Francis Gibbons? Andrew Smith Gibbons is your great great grandpa and he is my great grandpa." The conversation went something like that. Very nice guy. He was a great teacher. He gave us some really good training on working with members. Elder Gibbons really enjoyed the meeting and our mission, and I think he liked me okay too. haha

Elder T and I housed eight missionaries in our apartment during the conference. It was a funny group. One morning one elder yelled to me in the kitchen from the bathroom, "Elder Stoneman... did you put in my contacts!?" haha I didn't... and then some other elder realized that it was him. They both freaked out. Man, it was hilarious.

Well I love you guys.

Elder Stoneman