Huge Miracle

Dear Dad,
I look up to you so much! Thank you for sharing your spiritual experiences with me. I can't wait to come home and talk to you in person. I love you tons!

Dear Mom,
Choosing a homecoming topic is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'll send out a letter today with my final decision. I'm out of time, but thank you for everything! I love you so much!

MIRACLE Stories:
We saw a huge miracle this past week! We got a message from James Martinez saying that he wanted to meet with us. We called him back, not sure who he was, and he turned out to be a part-member/former investigator that we've been trying to contact for a while--so we set up an appointment for Friday. We went by and they received us very warmly. We asked him why he wanted to meet with us, and he said, "Well, I've decided that I want to be baptized." After we fell out of our chairs, Elder Barzee asked him what influenced him to want to be baptized, and he said, "I want my family to be sealed." It was awesome! We found out that he's had the missionary lessons a few times before and has a lot of member friends. They've been going to church with his wife's parents in Manassa, but with gas prices going up they want to start coming here. Back in high school he wanted to be baptized, but his family was totally against it. He told us he's made up his mind to stop trying to please everyone and do what he knows is right. Even this time when he told his parents he's going to be baptized, they kicked him out of the ranching business that they shared, but the very same day, one of his member friends offered him another cowboy job! The cool thing as well is that his old job made hime work 7 days/week, but this new one is only 5 days/week, which allows him to come to church every Sunday! It was a huge miracle that he saw the Lord work in his life. Also, the night before we met with him, they randomly opened up the Book of Mormon to Alma 22 and read a little bit. At first he was pretty tired, but as they read, they were surprised at how much it felt like it was talking directly to them and their situation. We asked him if he had a baptismal date in mind, and apparently he has a friend on a mission until June 7, who he was considering waiting for. He said, "He'd probably want me to just go ahead and get baptized, and then he can be there for the sealing, but I haven't decided yet." The next day we had a church tour with him and a fellowshipping couple from the ward. (The two guys already knew each other from basketball). In the chapel, we reviewed the Restoration and talked about the blessings of baptism and the Holy Ghost. After expressing that we wanted these blessings for him as soon as possible, we invited him to be baptized in a couple weeks. He responded, "Well, I did decide that I can't wait for my friend to get home, but we were actually thinking about doing the baptism next week." Of course we were ecstatic! He has some cattle business that he needs to get worked out before the baptism, so we're totally sure when it'll be, but the plan is to review some of the lessons and then as soon as he can, he'll be baptized!

Love,
Elder Craft