His Zone.

16 Days till Christmas!!

Well it feels like Christmas was already here, with the week that we had! I am pretty sure that we drove more this week than I have ever driven in the past! I think we drove a total of 400 miles this past week, ya crazy right! There was so much that we had to do as well. We as well got snow yesterday, about 3 inches or so. But we definitely beat you on the coldness.. it’s about 3 degrees right now and was most likely colder last night.. haha!! I am so thankful for a truck:) It was pretty crazy on Sunday, we had to drive to Des Moines for another meeting and it was snowing. We made it there safely! but there is one thing that I found out while driving down there, is that Iowans!!! can’t drive in the snow! haha So I had to show them how a Utahan drives in the snow haha.. we had lots of fun.

We taught J... ward on Monday for the last time before his baptismal interview on Tuesday. The crazy thing is that we were all the way in Iowa City when J... got his interview. So when we got his call and heard that he passed we were so excited!! We got everything ready for his baptism on Wednesday night. We had a lot of people show up for it too, which is such a miracle! The baptism went so well and now he is the newest convert to the Oskaloosa branch:) see pics...

This week we keep working with N.... as well and he is already for his interview on Tuesday and his baptism will be on the 15th! We are really excited for it, because a fairly new member is going to be baptizing him, it is his cousin. C..... and C....'s 8 year old daughter is also getting baptized on the 15th, well that is the plan. So this next week is going to be super stressful. I hope and pray that everything is going go well and that the plans work out:)

Q..... & K..... need to get married this week in order for them to be baptized on the 28th of December. I am pretty sure this is going to be the craziest week of my mission. Everything comes down to this week, to finish strong before the end of the year! I am so grateful to be a part of the wonderful changes that all of these people are making! The Lord’s work is so true and that’s really all that matters!

The funny story of the week,

So we drove down to Osceola for a meeting that we had with the zone, and then soon after the meeting we drove to a town called Lamoni, which is about 30 minutes south of there. We drove down there because we needed to give a man that is planning on being baptized an interview. so here is the funny part of the story.. if you don’t know too much about the Community of Christ, I will tell you a little bit about them. They are a break off of our church and are all over the town of Lamoni and throughout Iowa. They have a college down there in Lamoni, so the sisters that were teaching him said that we would be giving him the interview at the college so we were like okay that we be fine. We get there and end up finding out that we were suppose to do the interview in the chapel of the Community of Christ.. I guess they didn't mind too much.. but there wasn’t really anyone around anyway.. the other funny part is that they had their baptismal font filling up there too... man it was such a coincidence.. I thought that it was super funny.. but everything went well and we drove 2 hours back home, it was an epic day!

The boys looked like they had lots of fun on their new sleds.. wish I could go sledding on some hills too... you will have to do it for me:)

To answer some of the questions. We always have a few new missions in the zone that we are working with, but I haven’t got a new missionary, nor will I get one since I only have one transfer let after this one. but it’s totally cool, because the zone is doing great and we have lots of fun doing missionary work, that is Elder Mattoon and I.. I hope you all had the chance to watch the Christmas devotional, because it was super good! even the kid that winked ;) haha super funny!

You keep having great weeks and I will also have great weeks as well! and I will see you all sooner than later:) love you all!

LOVE ELDER KIRTON!! /\

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[] MERRY CHRIST- mas