2-17-20

Well what a week. We had 5 baptism friday night. Lana (who we have been working on for 8 months). She was a member of the church. She lost her son to suicide 3 years ago and can't hardly bear life without him. We gave her the temple lessons so she could go have his work done for him and later found out she was never confirmed. So long story short she had to be baptised. We will take her to the temple soon to have someone baptised for her son and have her do some baptisms for the dead.  It is s very sweet time for us and Lana. She is absolutely the most wonderful person on the reservation. She is giving to everyone! What a example of Christ like service!

We also baptised Deloria's grandson, Elijah. He is a very sweet boy and Deloria (who found us at the dollar store and has pretty much come every day since then. Elijah's dad was worked with by the missionaries and he wanted to go on a mission for a long long time. He is about 30 years old and never went. He actually gave Elijah the name tag from one of the missionaries who had made a huge impression on him. He had worn the name tag many many years and now Elijah has been wearing the tag. I understand from Deloria that, that missionary has passed away. (I was wanting to get his contact information and have him come to the baptism but as I said he has passed.  Anyway we were very excited to have him get baptised. He also had two of his cousins baptised at the same time. The sisters worked with them so we didn't' know them very well. We are concerned they will keep coming. The 5th person was from Cherry Creek. She (Kalleon) is the granddaughter of Gloria Belmonte. She is about 15 years old and we think she will be great! Gloria is wonderful, as I have said before that is where we are having church.

This morning I texted the branch president to ask him if he and his wife (sister WhiteBull) would give talks in Cherry Creek this coming sunday. Sister WhiteBull answered NO!  It really is hard to get any help out of them. They have never given us help. President WhiteBull is the branch president of Eagle butte and Cherry Creek, 45 minutes away is a dependant group under Eagle Butte. So really he is in charge of Cherry Creek. The reservation is a tough place to serve. I complained to the stake president a month or so ago (President Osmond, Yes Donnie and Marie's nephew) and he just said one of the branches the sunday before only had 6 people show up to church and the branch president came a hr late. So we do feel sorry for ourselves but realize things are really going pretty good. We did have 60 people out last sunday.

Also a high point this past week is we have contacted 9 people who want to attend the temple and we are going to start temple classes this week to get them here. Is that wonderful of what!!