When in ROME! ... New York...

Well folks, my time in Vermont has come to an end.

Hello Everyone!

I am excited to email you all today. This week has been a riot! Not only have we been working hard, but we also had two, yes two, baptisms!

To start the week, we saw a bunch of people and had a ton of great lessons. As we progressed through the week, we kept on finding more people to try and saw many miracles; most of which were in myself. I have gone through the mission only half-heartily. I have enjoyed helping the Lord in his work with his children, but I always held something back from giving my all. Elder Baker helped me to see that. As much of a challenge as it was working with him, this is probably the transfer that has changed my mission and my outlook on life. 

We got special permission from President Rogers to baptize one of our investigators who had given up smoking and then found out that she was going to go through lung cancer for the third time! President heard of this and told us that she would be baptized Sunday. So we saw her every day to finish preparing her for baptism and then our other investigator who has a trike in his throat finally got baptized with the other sister by his son! It isn't often that you get to see a father be baptized by his son. It was an emotional day for everyone.

Before this, however, we received transfer calls from President Rogers. He told Elder Baker that he would be training a new missionary the next transfer and that I would be going to Rome as the new District Leader. What's funny about this is that I finally let go of the want to be in leadership because it is nothing more than another way of serving and all of a sudden I get it! I am glad, but now I don't have a big head about it. I am just glad that I will be able to help other missionaries in another way than what I have been able to do for the last year. What is also funny is that in my new district, I have President Rogers and his wife, the office couples, the APs (Assistants to the President), Zone Leaders and only a few regular missionaries. This is going to be an interesting transfer.

I am so grateful that I am on a mission and that I continue to see many of God's children coming back into the fold and into his Church. I hope you are all having a good time back at home and are remaining healthy!

Elder Melanson