Week 42

So this week has been full of lots of ups and downs for Elder Moncayo and I. None of our baptismal dates are going to happen this transfer, if they do, it will truly come from a miracle which we always are hoping and praying for. This past weekend, every set appointment that we had fell through and no one was home and we taught like 2 lessons which is weird for us right now because we usually teach all day and everyday. But all that happened for a greater reason and purpose that we did not understand until lastnight. As all of our plans fell through and all of our back up plans fell through, we had a thought to go visit a sister that has been sick. So as we drive up, she and husband our walking right to where we parked and we get out and they say " well hallelujah we have been needing you" so we went in to her house and talked and listened to her crazy story about the hospital and how stupid the doctors were and in short she wanted me to give her a blessing or she was going to call her penicostal friend to see how that goes. So I gave her a great blessing and the Lord did something to her because she was blowing kisses and felt amazing after that so she was happy.

Then we had another feeling to go visit a brother that his wife broke her leg, on a banana peel of all things, and she has been in the hospital for about a week. They re not sealed together and we are working on that with them and he has been depressed and scared of her health while she has been in the hospital. So we knock on his door and he says " i can't believe it, come in!" He told us that he had been praying to God to have help to overcome this depression and crazy time of his life. So we gave him a blessing and he was so happy and grateful to the Lord and it made his testimony truly grow.

So we had a horrible day but it lead to the benfit and growth of two wonderful people that need help andstrength from the Lord. Love all you

Elder jimmie G. Watkins

Week 41

So I am sad to say that the Skewes family was not baptized on Saturday but it is going to happen this Saturday if ALL goes well. The dad is being hard to work with but everything looks like it will work out for the good. On Sunday we had an earthquake, not big and crazy but it lasted for about 20 secs or so and there was a huge chandelere (i have no idea how to spell it) but it was above me and would have killed me. But we were with a mexican lady that is from a tiny village in mexico and she was freaking out and it was hilarious. Nothing happened but weird rolling movements.

We just set another baptismal date with a man that is an ex marine and we are way excited for that because it is in 2 weeks! we are way suprised by this blessing and cant wait for him to truly experience the blessings of baptism.

Well everything is still crazy here in Cali. We now have 7 baptismal dates and have taught 47 lessons last WEEK!!!! thats a lot I am dead tired. Love all ya

Elder Watkins

I finally finished the OLD TESTAMENT! It is about time, I have started the NEw Testament and I love how much we are the true church and actually follow the words of the Savior.

Week 40

Elder Jimmie and the family talked for about 2 1/2 hours on Sunday for Mothers Day. It was awesome....he didn't email much this week but this he emailed to me personally....thought I'd share.

So how has it been since sunday? It was awesome to talk to you! so anyways
thanks for all that you do for me and its weird to think about that next
time you talk to me will be Christmas and then the time after that call will
be like how are you? see you in like 2 weeks! I cant believe how fast this
is going and it is going too fast. Thank you so much and pray for the
baptisms on SAturday to happen please

ELder Watkins

Week 39

Dear Family and friends,

So first, I am ok and don't have "el chancho". That is the name that Elder Moncayo and I have given the swine flu crap. I guess it has gotten bad enough that our President has told us to buy two weeks worth of food today. He says that we may have to be confined to our apartments for a week or so. Kill me please if that happens! We think if that happens we are going to go insane and not want to be around eachother. Also that would be horrible because we are booked everyhour of everyday for the next week and we have 6 people with baptismal dates. So we dont know what is going to happen here in California, this place is loco!

Anyways the Lord is blessing our mission abundantly with people to teach and people who have commited to baptism. The Lord is doing his part and we are working our butts off to make sure that we keep up and do ours. Right now we are teaching a man that claims he has seen Jesus and he and I always sing Country Gospel music together. Yesterday we had to ride our bikes and it was funny because our area is all hills, big hills that never stop. so you have me that is not used to riding the bike and out of shape from the car, and my handlebars werent exactly all the way tight and they kept on moving and we thought we were just going to die because of the hills. Also the family that we were going to visit fed us KFC and was not good combination for riding the bike.

We are being blessed with lots of sucess and we are working to do our part. Please pray for us to stay away from el chancho. and for all of our investigators to be baptized.

Elder Jimmie Watkins

Week 38

Hello HELLO from the swine strickened golden state of Mexicalifornia!!!!

So this week in my new area has been amazing! We had zone conference on thurs and President Sexton gave us an amazing teaching that will be the turning point of all of our missions and especially mine.

To sum it up, he taught us the doctrine of baptism and our whole purpose here is to declare repentance and baptism and that we need to commit everyone that we teach to baptism in EVERY lesson no matter what. Because if that is not our goal than why are we there to teach them. So this past week we set 3 baptismal dates and more are coming. MY new companion and I are teaching all day and EVERY day! I am so stinking tired. I feel like Nephi where i am weak at the joints each night from teaching. I don't know how that is but it is weird. My area has a lot of hispanics but we can't teach espanish we have to pass it off. But I am just excited to be able to speak to them and eat their food! My companion speaks great english but we speak a lot of espanish. We are doing great and I am excited for my birthday and cant wait to hear from all of you!!!! I love you all and pray for us and protection

Elder jimmie G. WAtkins