August 11, 2000

Dear Family,
Happy birthday Christian, now you are an official adult ready or not. Its crazy that you are 18 and I am 21. Time passes so quickly. I hope by now you received your birthday card. Eat some of mom's banana cream pie for me!
This week has been a little crazy. We spent the first few days seeing people in the ward to say goodbye in case one of us got transferred. We were able to get some pictures for you so you can see some of the people that we associate with. Tuesday night we were at a member's home for dinner. We were eating their special family burgers that are super huge; like almost a pound and a half of meat on a bun. While we were there President Hobbs called and Elder Brown said he would call him back once we got home. We finished eating, shared a message and then we left. We called the President and Elder Brown has been called to be a Zone Leader! He wasn't expecting it at all. He has only 4 and a half months left on his mission and thought that he would be done with responsibility after training me, but the Lord had other ideas. Elder Brown packed up Wednesday and then we left for transfers on Thursday, We got to Statesville and saw that Elder Brown would be Zone Leader with Elder McKee. That means that he is Zone leader for our Zone, and he will still be in my District. It's great that he will still be close b. Sister Astle and Sister Wolfensberger (we share the car with them)are still are in the same place. We all get along great. Elder Terry is my new companion, he is from Cedar City. He was also trained by Elder Brown. He has been out a year and seems to have things going all right. I hope that we both can do well in this area and serve the Lord. Nothing else really has happened. We will be helping a family move into their new home tomorrow. That is about the biggest thing that will happen. I'll keep you posted on anything else and look forward to your next letters. I love you guys. Thanks for everything!
Love Elder Colton

First Letter for August 2008

One thing I wanted to share was an experience this past week. It was a big morale boost! We went up to Lewisville to go on a team with Bro W. and his son. We had planned to go see Bro B. who is a very shy, very kind and loving person. Earlier that day we had tried to see a woman who had ordered a "Lamb of God" DVD. We were trying to see how she liked it and if she would be interested in us teaching her. When we went over she said that she didn't have time. We could smell alcohol on her breath and felt like we shouldn't go back. When we found out that Bro W. was bringing his son, (his son is 19, might possibly go on a mission don't know for sure) we decided that we should go on splits. We decided that I would go with the son and Elder Brown would go with Bro W. I said we might as well give the potential investigator another try. We had told her that we would try and make it back that night if we could. So I would take our car to go meet her, and then Elder Brown would go to see Bro B. with Bro W. Once they got there we split up. His son is a cool kid. He is into video games and that sort of thing, so we were able to talk about it as we drove to the appointment. Once we got there I told him what we knew about the investigator. She lives with her boyfriend and had a father who was a minister. She says she wants to get back to church. We got there and she was anxiously waiting for us. She had been expecting us earlier and was worried that we wouldn't show up. I had to run the visit since I was the missionary, that was nerve wracking! It was seriously the first time I had done that. We started with prayer and it didn't go like a typical lesson because we talked for a little bit first. We found out that she had 3 brothers in prison, 1 brother that had passed away from from cancer, and both her parents were dead. She felt like she had no where to go. Her relationship with her boyfriend had gone downhill. She didn't know why she was still here on Earth and she admitted to us that she has a drinking problem; she had been drinking before we got there. I don't remember all of what I said, I taught her about the Atonement. I told her that Christ knew what she was going through. I admitted that I never had been in her situation like hers, but that I have had struggles of my own. I know I have gift of the Atonement and I can turn all of my worries and problems to him and he can take them away. I bore testimony of that and told her that Christ had not and will not give up on her, because he loves her so much. What was said brought her to tears. I was in awe of what had just happened, and still am. I asked her to read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet that we have and to pray to know if what is in there is true. The pamphlet talks about eternal families. She said that she would and was very insistent that we come back to see her. She walked us to our car and then we left. I hope that Bro. W's son was touched by the visit and maybe give him a little bit more of a desire to serve. Since then we have called her once, and she couldn't see us that day. She hadn't read the pamphlet, so we reminded her to read it. We told her that we would call her again later to set up a time again to see her. More may come from her if she will follow that commitment to read the pamphlet. If she does that will tell us that she is willing to change her life for the better. So that was a good experience one of the few that I have had so far on my mission. I have a feeling that its going to be like this. Most missionary work is not going to be a ton of success stories. There is a chance that more will happen with her, but that isn't up to me. And it may be awhile before I have another experience like that.
Thanks for you letters, they mean so much to me. I love you-Elder Colton