Family and friends,

Thursday night, I got a call from one of my former companions who is
still serving in the office. It was great to talk to him and he
informed me that someone we  had taught named Eddie Ramirez was being
baptized on Saturday! I was shocked. Let me give you the background.

President Riggs had us go on an exchange with some missionaries
serving in Gainsville. Although Gainsville was about 45 minutes away
from where we lived, it was still part of our area. I went to
Gainsville with Elder Snell, and while we were out, we met a man named
Eddie Ramirez. We had a good conversation with him on his back porch
but it was obvious that he had some mental disorders. He could speak
and understand just fine, but just struggled with being social and
something seemed off.

As we left his apartment complex, I told Elder Snell, "Don't you think
that Eddie would do great in a singles ward?" He looked at me and
said, "Thats a great idea, what is the singles ward up this way?" A
few seconds later he finally realized what I was saying. He agreed to
let us teach him and so my companion and I started working with him.

After a month of teaching him, Eddie was going to go back to his
country of Guatemala for about 2 months and so at that point we lost
contact. We were bummed but when he got home, the plan was to teach
him. After that point, we kept trying to find him but never caught
him. His phone did not work so the only way to contact him was to
drive the 45 minutes to Gainsville. After no luck a few times I left
the area.

Turns out, the sisters in the Gainsville ward, ended up knocking right
into him and he had been home for only a couple days. Instead of
passing him to us, they passed him to the Spanish ward. They taught
him the rest of the lessons and then he ended up being baptized on
Saturday! It was a cool experience to see how God knew where he was
and that he was not going to fall away from the missionaries.

I have some plans that I want to do but I need to confirm when we will do it. That's my job this week, is to get things somewhat finalized. The training is good. He is a cool kid and so it's been easy. I hope that he will continue to work hard after I'm gone. That way the things we have done can hopefully stick with him.  I've heard from Kayla, but not about much details. I am happy for her, she seems happy and so I am happy!