"Le ordeno que se ponga de pie y camine..."

Dear Family,

This week has been quite the experience. We are very pleased with our teaching pool right now. We are working very well with the Gavilan Branch and are very happy for the support we are receiving. The title of this email is a quote from the movie "Treasure in Heaven: The John Tanner Story." Look it up online when you get the chance or check out the Doctrine and Covenants visual resource dvd's. When you watch a movie enough time during the week, it gets to the point that you can quote the whole movie without help. (Ask me to quote all of the Restoration DVD when I get home.) Anyway, the movie was exactly what we needed as we taught Maria Franco, the mother in law of our branch president. She accepted baptism for June 25, 2011. We are very grateful for all of the support we have been receiving. We are very busy and working very hard to help all of our investigators make it to the waters of baptism.

Recently, we have encountered several obstacles that are impeding our work. Luckily they are all short term things such as hospitalization and deaths in the families of our investigators. We keep working hard and pray that the obstacles will be removed.

The mission conference with Elder Ballard, Elder Hinckley, and Elder Clayton went very well. We learned a lot about how we can better work with the ward council. We are excited to put the training into practice. It was kind of a whirlwind trip with many different meetings across the mission. We were blessed to have Elder Hinckley address us in the Morgan Hill stake. Before the main meeting, he held a special meeting for recent converts and returning members. We were glad to see several of our recent converts there. Also, several of the less-active families that we have reactivated were present and shared their testimony in this meeting. It felt really good to see that we are baptizing and rescuing, as we should.

This next week looks to be another busy one as we prepare for Zone leader council, host zone meetings, and make plans for the transition of mission presidents. It is weird to think that we will all have to adjust to a new mission president. As Elder Ballard said, it is the nature of the church for people to be released from callings. We hope that all of our missionaries deal with the transition with dignity and respect.

I was very glad to receive your letters this last week. I have recently mailed some newer pictures of Elder Smoot and myself. I hope you enjoy.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a wedding announcement for Taber's wedding. He is younger than me. It makes me feel weird.

Love,

Elder Badger