Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

First of, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. On Saturday Juan Escalente was baptized, he is a incredible guy. By the time i came got transferred here he already had a date and was super solid. I will give his story here. Juan is 25 and he is dating a member in the Coos Bay ward. After a while dating he accepted the invitation to come to church. He was very scared to come to church, because not too long earlier he had been to a different church and felt "horrible the whole time." He knew if he felt that same way then that would be the end to his investigation. He said he felt very good and at peace in church, and he has been pretty much every week since.

He met with the missionaries here for a few months and was very earie of joining before he absolutely knew it was the truth. One day he texted the Elders and told them he was ready to be baptized and he set his date for Dec. 22. About a week after setting the date the two
missionaries that taught him got transferred out and my companion and i started teaching him. It was very easy, he knew it all and was ready to go. It has been awesome to get to know Juan, he is a genuinely good guy, he kinda looks like a rough kid, but after getting to know him i know he would never hurt a fly. He will be a strong member through out his life. His baptism wend very well. In the fount he started crying, you could tell it was something that means a lot to him. Yesterday after Church his girlfriends family invited us over to lunch with them. It was great to be with him after the confirmation, and at the end he shared a Christmas message and bore his testimony. The gospel truly makes good men and better.

Thank you to all who have send me Christmas letters, and packages, i really enjoy hearing from you. I love you all and wish you a Merry
Christmas
 

Elder Covey

--
Fearless via Faith

Christmas Pictures

Rebecca Rose Walters Baptism

Juan Escalante Baptism

December Pictures

Merry Christmas 2012

Elder Reed

Elder Burg

Transfers

 First and most importantly Rebecca got baptized! Pauline is too old and not healthy enough to get baptized right now, she is actually in the hospital right now, so she did not get baptized, and that really does not get me down. She has learned understood and accepted these things and she is pretty close to the end. I have no doubt she will accept it in the next life, which could be in a short time. I am so happy that Rebecca got baptized. On Wednesday she called us and said that she was sick and she was afraid that she would have to postpone it, we went over there and gave here a blessing and a little pep talk, and she decided that as long as she was able to physically walk she would be baptized on Friday. The service was great, the only problem was is that Elder Reed and I were Late! ha ha

We had Zone Leader Council that morning in Eugene the drive to Eugene is about 2 hr and 30 min. They said it would be done at 3 but it went over time and the baptism started at 6. So we ended up we got there right as the first talk started. It was kinda Crazy but the service was very nice and Rebecca was very happy. She has such a strong testimony, she has already gotten a bit of flack from her friends for going the church, but she does not care. Being a Member has and will continue to bless her life so much.

Now i will talk about transfers. I am getting transferred to the North Bend Ward, and Elder Reed is going to stay in Coos Bay and train. They told us at ZLC on Friday. The funny thing is, is that i kinda saw it coming. President really likes the Zone Leaders to be in the same ward as the Stake President and President Tricinie lives in the North Bend ward. It is kinda sad to leave Coos bay after only being here for 6 weeks, there are a lot of awesome people here, but with Rebecca getting baptized last week that makes it a little easier, and Shaely and Bauden are moving back to St. George, so my favorite investigators are either leaving or have been baptized. My new
companion is Elder Burg, I know him a little bit, he seems like a good kid and i am exited to be his companion. I have had some really exiting ideas lately for ward mission plans and correlation between members and missionaries. I will talk about it more on a different email, i dont have time for it today. What prompted these ideas is that President Tricinie asked Elder Reed and i to ponder and pray about ideas that can help the stake out and help it so the missionaries can have more things to do when we get all the new ones. We are meeting with President Tricinie this Sunday and we are going to talk about it. I am exited.

In mission slang you call your trainer your dad and the person you train your son, and it sticks with you for the rest of your mission. I say this because this week I am a very proud father. Elder Jorgensen just got assigned to be a Zone Leader, and Elder Kwok is training this transfer! They are both very good sons, and i am glad i did not mess them up too much. I really hope i get to be in one of their zones again. Other good news that i keep forgetting to put in my email is that Justin Pattersen was baptized two days after thanksgiving! He is such an amazing guy and he is going to be a great member, and now i need to convince him to go on a mission Ha Ha. I got t0T call him the day of his baptism, It was great!

I Love you all
           Elder Covey
--
Fearless via Faith

A wonderful start to the Christmas season

 It has been a really good week and we have some exiting things coming up. So first big news is that we have a baptism of Friday. It is of a mother and daughter. the Mother (Pauline) is 91 and the daughter (Rebeca) is 59. They were being taught since before i came. They have had the desire to be baptized since before i came, but the big thing holding them back was Rebeca's health. She has some off shoot of vertigo, so she could not really sit up or move around. Before i came President gave them permission to baptize them even if they had not come to church because of their health conditions. 
When we first met with them i really felt that it was important to get them to church before their baptism. I felt that if Rebeca would give it a shot the Lord would bless her and she could come. We decided the first step was
to get her to come to the church for a chapel tour. We talked about it for a long time but we could not get her to commit to date until two weeks ago, we committed her to come for a chapel tour for Nov. 27th.

We had the Chapel tour and it was great. She was able to walk around and sit strait up in the pews for a good half hour. We showed her the baptismal font and she was very exited. We challenged her to get baptized on dec. 7th and she accepted. She also accepted to come to church on Sunday and she if she could make it threw sacrament meeting. She and he mother came Yesterday and were able to stay for two hours, they loved it. And at church Pauline also said she was willing to be baptized on Dec. 7th. Rebeca has been more exited for her baptism than anyone else i have ever taught. In our last lesson with them she told us "I cant remember ever being so exited for something in my whole life" and she told us that at least 7 times! She is great. It has been amazing to see these miracles happen in for them. I am very exited for Friday.

On Thursday President came to our zone to do a specialized training. Elder Reed and I were assigned to teach about "The standard of Truth" Which is a quote from Joseph Smith prophesying of missionary work and how no one can stop it and it will reach the whole earth. We had 30 min to go in depth and teach from it. We made a little sheet to pass out that morning. I think it went well, I will email the handout so you can see what we did. After Specialized training President Young came to a lesson with us. We taught Mark and Stephanie. The lesson
went really well. We taught about the power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon each day and how much it blesses our lives. It was my first time having President come to one of my lessons. I really
enjoyed it! he is a great man.

Transfers are a week from today. It will be interesting to see what will happen, it seems like there is a 50/50 chance that Elder Reed with stay, and there is a small chance that i will go. We will see what happens. On Thursday President told us that we most likely will not be covering North Bend next transfer, Which is a relief. It has been interesting covering both. It has gone pretty well, they have a few cool investigators and it has been fun teaching them. 

Well that is all for this week. But before i end i would like to just bare a quick testimony of the joy and excitement that God gives us when we serve Him. A week ago from Sunday during sacrament meeting i was sitting in the pews feeling very overwhelmed, there were a million things i had my mind on and at first i thought "poor me, I wish things were less crazy." but almost immediately afterward that i thought about how grateful i am to have all these things going on. In no way would i had rather been been sitting as a non missionary without a care in the world. I have the amazing opportunity to be a part of these things that are so important, and things that bring me so much joy. How awesome is it that i have lots of things to improve on. It's exiting and I love it. I love stepping back and thinking about what i am doing and why I am stressed out. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to worry about. Well hopefully that makes sense, It make sense to me ha ha, I love you all!

Elder Covey
--
Fearless via Faith