August 12

Dear friends and family, It has been a pretty eventful week! I got in a pretty bad bike crash on Wednesday. My hands got pretty messed up but nothing else too serious happened. I am healing up pretty good by now. We have been teaching heaps of people. On Thursday, we went over to Dilia(Less active member) and Clint's house. They are both aboriginals and he took us out Kangaroo hunting. He had never been very receptive but they both allowed us to teach Dilia's children. We planned to teach them the plan of salvation by having elder case teach while I drew it out on a piece of paper like a pathway through life. They loved being able to picture it and Clint was very attentive. During part of it he said that what we taught is how it should be and he agrees with it. We told them to read Alma 40 about the spirit would and that we would ask them questions about it next time to make sure they read. The whole family seemed to like the idea and we really felt the spirit. We are going to see them again this week, so hopefully they kept their commitments. We also have great news about Toni and her kids. We finally got Toni's records in the branch yesterday so she officially was sustained as a member of the branch. Preston and Jamella were pretty excited about going to church yesterday. They even got new suits just to wear at church and it is pretty cool watching them participate so much. The primary teachers have even told us that they participate more than some of the other kids who are members. I am so glad they fit in so well. We were able to teach their family about temples this past week and we retaught "Gospel of Jesus Christ" to them on Saturday after helping them move a giant trailer from their backyard to the street. It was quite a task, especially because it was too big to fit through the car port so they had to drain most of the air out of the tires. I bet it was at less than 15psi because the rims were almost touching the ground. Their friend DJ also came to church the first time yesterday. He is so cool. He always was alright for a quick chat when we went around to see Toni and her kids but yesterday he actually came to church. I think it's because he finally has a week off work due to having had a BMX bike handlebar put through his stomach. While in priesthood meeting he really expressed interest in learning more and excited accepted a book of Mormon when we gave him one. I hope we can start teaching him soon. We haven't seen Rawand lately. He is still following Ramadan so it is pretty much useless until it's over because he can't read any other books aside from the Qua'ran. We will be teaching him next Sunday though because I think he finishes Ramadan this week sometime. Kelvin has been doing well in Perth I think. We haven't been able to get a hold of him this past week and he still hasn't gone to church since he's been down there but the First Counselor in our branch took him to see the temple grounds while he was down in perth for work this past weekend. It was such a relief to hear that yesterday. I am excited for all the blessing that the lord is giving us here in Karratha. It is a place full of great people who have great potential. I love you all so much! Elder Joshua Butts