Sincerely, Elder Watkins: Rattlesnakes (Week 82)

We have had a great week here in Duncan. We had some great lessons with investigators, visited tons of less-active members, and we stumbled into tons of rattlesnakes... at the Waurika's Rattlesnake Festival. We were at a members home for dinner and we got to walk through Waurika's lil' downtown and see a lot of rattlesnakes. I'm not usually big on snakes but it was pretty cool. I'll send some pictures.

Me and Elder Hoopes got to go to a baptism in Mustang for M~, the father of a part-member family I taught about 7 months ago with Elder Staheli. It was amazing to witness his baptism and see the great faith that he has developed over the past several months when I was in Ponca City. Their family has grown so much. It was amazing to see how the gospel strengthened their family through the trial of their young son's suicide. The Mustang ward has been amazing with their love and fellowship for their family. There were so many people at the baptism we had to have part of the service in the chapel. Next week M~ will be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood so he can eventually baptize his daughter when she is ready. Man I just got goosebumps, so awesome!

Yesterday we had a pretty cool miracle. Earlier in the week (Tuesday) we got pulled over and asked if we were Mormon. We respond with a "yes", and joy filled his face. "I'm a member from OKC and I've been looking for the church, what's its address?" We started talking to him and he told us his story. He joined the church * years ago but after moving to Duncan a year later he quickly went inactive and felt guilty for living with his girlfriend, and 7 years later on a random street he ran into us. Well we set up a time to meet with him and we were on our way.

Well Thursday rolls around and we show up for our appointment but no one was home, We heard music from the garage and walked around the house. It was his now married wife working in the garage. We struck up a good conversation with her and we told her we would try to come back later when he was home, well are plans got crazy that night and so we couldn't see them.

So, yesterday night we were biking down their street to see some of our other less actives. Elder Hoopes was biking ahead of me, I noticed both of their cars were home and his wife working in the
garage again. We turned around and visited with her, her husband and their 8 year old daughter. We asked if there would be a good time to come back and share a message with their family and his wife said one of the greatest things in the world, "we can listen to one right now, I think." We sat down and shared a powerful message on the atonement of Jesus Christ and what it means that He lives today (check out helives.mormon.org). We taught her about the Book of Mormon and its divine witness of Jesus Christ. She had so many questions, she was fascinated by the Book of Mormon. When we gave her one she thanked us and told us that she would read the whole thing. Those were sweet words to our ears. She even asked where our church was. After we said the closing prayer I could see a few tears in her husband's eyes. The spirit was really strong the rest of that night. There is nothing better then following the spirit and being guided to the right place at the right time. Being a missionary is awesome.

Thank you for all your emails! I love you all! Have a great spiritually uplifting week!

Sincerely, Elder Watkins