Joey's Baptism

Joey's Baptism

 
The baptismal service for Joey was amazing!! The Spirit was so strong. Joey had a really good experience with his baptism. While I was sitting next to him, after the actual ordinance, I felt the Spirit whisper to me, "I love him, and I'm proud of him," and I was allowed to feel a portion of the love that Heavenly Father has for him. Us and the YSA's did a musical number together. I played while they sang "Nearer My God to Thee." After the baptism, we went out to Van's pizza.

Brothers in the Gospel

We confirmed him yesterday, and he was all smiles. After church, we ordained him to the office of Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. He's doing so well.

Sorry this is so short. I love you all. Have a great week.

Elder Dumont

Spiritual Powerhouse Week!

We had interviews, zone meeting, and general conference in the same week!!! It was a good week!!

Interviews- My interview with President Baker was great. I got my temple recommend renewed. We talked about the needs of the district and said I was doing a good job as a leader. He also explained what's going to be happening with the My Plan thing that the church put out for missionaries last 6 weeks. We had district meeting right after. We went from there to Correlation at the Packer's, to going home teaching with Brother Hamilton, to dinner with the Hamilton's, then to Book of Mormon class. I was spent after that.

Joey Barstow is getting baptized- We had a lesson with him on Wednesday, and he had his interview on Friday. He passed!!!! He couldn't come to conference because he was working, but he watched some of it as soon as he got home. He's just awesome.

Zone Meeting- Zone Meeting was all about prayer. It was really good. Afterwards, I went on exchanges with Elder Hintze. This was the first day I was able to be out all day working!! I felt great. Elder Hintze and I got a lot done. He's a really good missionary.

General Conference- This was my favorite general conference ever!!! There were so many good talks. I loved Elder Ballard's talk on family councils, President Nelson's on being priesthood men, Brother Owen's on leadership, President Uchtdorf's on being rescued, Elder Oaks on opposition, and Elder Holland's on how the Lord blesses us when we try. All of it was just amazing. I look forward to going back and reviewing all of the talks that were given.

I love you all. Have a great week.

At mom's request, some pictures.

Nimrod the Mighty Hunter

The Smith's snoozing during conference

Another plus for Chick-Fil-A

Taking advantage of the free mouthwash

Happy Easter!

We still spent a lot of time resting, so I'll just give a brief summary.

Lessons- We were able to teach a lot more lessons this week. This was due to using the phone more effectively in setting up more lessons. We were able to go out, teach a lesson or two, then come back and rest. It was really rewarding.

Joey- Joey is doing solid. He's been reading the Book of Mormon a lot. Me and him are actually in the same place, so I challenged him to a contest to see who could finish first. I'm gonna win!! He'll have his interview this week.

Easters- The Easter service was super good. Chelsea and Madison Packer sang Gethsemane, which has a lot of meaning in my family. For dinner, we went to the Packer's. The Evers, Smiths, and Gabbie were all there. It was a blast!!! Jacob talked about taking me cliff jumping when he comes to Utah in June!!

Mosiah 3- I read Mosiah 3 Saturday night before bed. It talks all about the Savior's atonement, the reason for the Easter season. I felt the Spirit very strongly testifying that Jesus the Christ lives, and that He did take our sins upon Him. I testify that I know that the Savior suffered "more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore." I know that He lives, and one day soon, He will return to Earth. I eagerly look forward to when I will meet my Savior face to face.

Elder Dumont

Appendicitis

Not much happened this week. We spent most of it in the trailer resting. So instead of having 7 straight days of "we sat at home and studied," I'll just his the highlights.

Appendicitis- Last Sunday morning, I woke up and my stomach was hurting a little bit. I thought it was just hunger pains due to the fact that it was our fast Sunday. I went to church and was doing fine. I even played the piano during Sacrament Meeting. During 2nd hour, I started getting really uncomfortable. I was trying to shift positions constantly, but nothing was comfortable. We went to call the mission nurse, but she was about to teach a Relief Society lesson. After Priesthood opening exercises, I got a blessing from Brother Packer. I survived through the end of church, but as soon as it was over, we drove home, and I curled up in a ball on my bed and called Sister Steadman. She told me to go to the urgent care in Elizabeth City. We would have to wait a hour and a half to be seen. During that time, the pain started going away. The doctor came in and started pushing around on my stomach. When he got to my appendix, I flinched in pain and he said, "Crap." He was a funny doctor. They took a blood sample and came back and said "You have appendicitis." They sent me to the ER after that.

      We checked in and some nurses took me into a little room and did some initial tests. One of them started feeling around my stomach and asked me, "Are you holding you breath?" I said "No." She said, "You have some really nice abs." Ha ha score. Sister Steadman met us at the hospital. They took me back into a room. I got to call my family. They gave me some pain killers in an IV. The surgeon came in and explained to me what was going to happen. They did the surgery lyposcopically. They made a could a small incisions and put a camera through my belly button to get it out. After he left, we waited for the OR team to get set up. They took me to the OR prep room and I was there for about an hour waiting for the anesthesiologist. I went into the operating room at 10:05. The next thing I remember was being waken up and wheeled into my hospital room. Apparently, I called my parents again, but I was so out of it. The nurse asked some questions and then I finally got to go to sleep. The nurse, who was extremely pretty by the way, woke me up every couple of hours to take my vitals, or give me more pain medicine.

     I spent most of the day in the hospital recovering. I was discharged at about 6:30. Hospital food is not desirable. They gave me Percocet for the pain.

Zone Conference- We went to Zone Conference on Wednesday. We had two different sessions, a morning and an afternoon. I made it most of the way through the morning session, before I went to the Mother's Room to rest. I made it through all of the afternoon session, but just barely. We talked a lot about using the Book of Mormon more effectively.

Exchanges- We did two exchanges this week, one with Elizabeth City A (Zone Leaders) and Elizabeth City B so Elder Davis could go out and do some work.

Big Changes- We had a pretty big shake-up in the branch yesterday. The Branch Presidency was reorganized. President Evers is still the president, with Brother Packer and Brother Johnson as counselors. Brother Hamilton is the new Elder's Quorum President, and Jacob Packer is the new Branch Mission Leader.

Elder Dumont

Eventful

Sorry I don't have time to write a weekly update. Here's the brief version.

The work is doing really good here. We taught a lot and we found a lot of new investigators. We had to move Joey to the 26th of March.

The biggest thing is that on Sunday, I got appendicitis and got my appendix removed Sunday evening. I spent most of yesterday in the hospital recovering. I'm doing pretty well, but I still have a lot of pain. I'm going to be taking it easy for the next couple of weeks. I'll try to remember to write a fuller account next week.

Love you all.

Elder Dumont

A Slight Hiccup!

This is from the Dad!

Yesterday was pretty momentous for us, and more so for Elder Dumont. Yesterday morning we received this awesome video of him playing the piano for sacrament meeting in the branch he is serving in.

Made momma so proud.

Around 4:00 pm we received a phone call from the mission nurse who told us that she was in the emergency room with Elder Dumont and that he had appendicitis. We were able to speak with him at that time for a few minutes (blessing) We also were able to talk to him just before he went into surgery and for a minute when he arrived in his room for the night after recovery. He was groggy but doing well. We are so grateful for the blessings of modern medicine and that he was in a place where healthcare was not a concern. We are grateful for Sis. Steadman (mission nurse) and President Baker for keeping informed as to his condition.

He will have a few days of recovery then should be back to the work. We are grateful for his service and looking forward to him coming home in 78 days, although we don't tell him that.

Life is Good!

Tuesday- I had a district leader call, and then I had a mission leadership call, and then we had deep clean. We squeezed a lesson in with our neighbor Tony. We had a lesson with Joey about the Plan of Salvation and temples and family history. It was super good. We had dinner with the McMahon's.

Wednesday- We had quite the adventure today. Brian McMahon picked us up and took us down to Grandy. We saw Sister Reedy and shared a short message with her. Brian dropped us off at the food pantry and we were there for a couple of hours. We had a ride arranged, but that fell through, so we were on foot until dinner. We saw Sister Cartwright and tracted. Brother Hamilton picked us up and took us to his house for dinner. Poor Sister Hamilton was sick, but managed to make us a fine southern feast of pork bbq, baked beans, and eclair cake. That woman is my hero ha ha.
Brother Hamilton came out with us and we saw Kim. We talked about praying in and for our families a little bit. We then had to do a split. Elder Davis went with the Needhams to teach the Harvley's, and I went with Brother Hamilton to a couple of other appointments. They both fell through, but we had a good time just talking and getting to know each other. We picked up Elder Davis and went home.

Thursday- After weekly planning, we had another lesson with Joey. We went over the baptismal interview questions with him. He seems all good to go. Jacob took us out afterwards and we went and saw Lonnie. He was in a better mood, relatively speaking, today. We talked more about the Book of Mormon. We tried to visit a few others, but no luck. We had dinner with the Packer's. They're still the best. Brother and Sister Packer took us to Book of Mormon class and it was so good!!!

Friday- We had a great zone meeting about planning and finding. I got a ton out of it. We grabbed lunch at Firehouse Subs (Thank you Jessie) and went straight to our appointments. First was Brother Connell. He's this really old Scottish guy and he's a hoot. After that we went and saw Mike Harris. That was an interesting Restoration lesson to say the least. We had dinner with the Estes's, and then went home teaching with Brother Estes. We went and saw the Smith's, and I love the Smiths. They're the best.

Saturday- We went to Grandy. Brother Smith met us there and we went and saw Gabbie. We listened to part of Sister Stephan's talk from last conference. Mainly her power struggle with her grand daughter. It was funny, because while we were listening to the talk, Gabbie was having a power struggle with her nephew ha ha. We tried to see some more people around Grandy, but no luck. We did see Sister Cartwright again. We drove home and waited for the Smith's to pick us up for dinner and stake conference. We had dinner at this Japanese place and had some legit Japanese soda. You had to pop this glass ball to get it opened. It's hard to explain. Stake Conference was sooo good. Elder Wilson of the Seventy was there. Afterwards, the Smith's took us to Arby's for ice cream.

Sunday- The Harvley's drove us today. I got to see Elder Ward for the first time since August!!! It was another great session. Several people bore their testimonies about finding God. We came home and started studies, then went and saw Brother Hulet. We stayed in his neighborhood and contacted former investigators. We got some referrals from one man and one of them seems super promising. We got a lot of appointments set up. We had dinner with Sister Nixon, Nick Johnson, and the Smith's.

Life is good. Love you all. Have a great week.

Elder Dumont