19 Months Down!

Dear Family & Friends,

How are you? I miss each of you so much! Happy Preparation Day! I love

Preparation Day, because I get to email all of the people I love.

Guess what. Yesterday marked 19 whole months since I left on my

mission. It's been FOREVER since I've seen y'all! But time has flied

and continues to move fast. Especially in Gilmer! I love serving here

in Gilmer so much. The work is just exploding! We are so blessed! We

taught 46 lessons this last week. I've never taught so much in a week

in my whole mission! We also now have 23 people who have baptism

dates. Holy moly! God has prepared so many people here it's

incredible! I am just so grateful for the chance I've had to serve in

Gilmer. What an amazing place to serve.

This week was incredibly busy! It felt like we were running non-stop.

It was great! Monday was interesting. It was toward the end of our

Preparation Day, and the sisters wanted to go get some dinner. So we

all went to this restaurant called "La Carreta." It has some really

good Mexican food. Well, while we were eating we started hearing

sirens. At first we thought it was just police or an ambulance. But

then people in the restaurant started standing up and looking out the

windows. Some people started to look scared and the TV in the

restaurant changed to announce a severe weather alert and that a

Tornado was coming through Gilmer. It started raining like crazy. I

was beginning to get a little nervous, but at this point I was still

pretty calm. I looked up at the sky and it had a greenish color to it.

All of the sudden a HUGE gust of wind went past the restaurant

slamming the doors closed. Rain and hail were coming into the

restaurant and I started getting REALLY nervous. Sister Howell was

shaking so bad. Sister Van Den Berghe was keeping her calm while Elder

Holst and I were figuring out what we should do. Everyone in the

restaurant moved to a part where there was no windows. A guy came up

to us and told the sisters to get under the table. We stayed in there

until the weather calmed down a little bit, and we all ran out to our

cars to get to the church, because we would be safer there. I could

hardly see anything because rain was pouring down so hard! We were all

soaked by the time we got to the church, but we made it safely and I'm

grateful that God kept us safe through that experience. I definitely

will never forget that.

This week we went to meet with Meagan, and she told us that her son

Zachary wants to be baptized! We were so excited to hear that! He saw

his mom get baptized and really felt the spirit. He talked to us about

his desire to be baptized and we told him we can make it happen! We

are teaching him now, and he should be getting baptized either this

weekend, or next. Friday was fun, because we got to do some exchanges!

Elder Holst is the only Spanish missionary in the whole Stake. So he

covers any Spanish work from here in Gilmer all the way up to DeQueen

Arkansas. Well, there is some Spanish work happening in Mt Pleasant,

so we set up some exchanges to happen. Elder Bair came here to Gilmer

with me! Elder Bair's last companion was one of my old companions!

Elder Casper! It was a lot of fun serving with Elder Bair. We were

able to teach Monda, who is typically very shy and has a hard time

talking to new people. We also met a cat named "Weedles." Haha! The

reason I bring that up is because we have a recent convert in our Ward

named Wendy. Her car recently had a baby, and Wendy wanted to name the

kitten something special. So, she combined Westover and Needles

together! Weedles! Lol! I don't like cats, but I'm honored to now have

a cat named after me. Elder Westover should be happy to hear that too.

That night, we were able to go to the church to have Ariell's baptism

interview. She was pretty nervous, but did a great job! She is now

ready to be baptized! All we have to do is wait until this weekend!

It's scheduled for this Saturday at 4:00 PM. We got a call last night,

though, that there would be a Mission wide meeting on Saturday at 3:00

PM. It made us pretty sad, because that's right on top of the baptism.

We are going to try to change it if we can, because we really want to

be there with Ariell as she gets baptized. Pray for us that we get

that situation figured out! Later, we exchanged with some OTHER

Elders, so I got another new companion for the next day while Elder

Holst was teaching Spanish up in Mt Pleasant. The other missionary I

got was Elder Jeffrey. We had a good day together, teaching a lot of

people! I was happy to have Elder Holst back that night. The next day

we had church! We sadly didn't have a lot of investigators attend, but

we aren't letting it get us down. That night we taught two new people

and they accepted the invitation to baptism! Their names are Kristin &

Clifford! We're excited to teach them!

I'm just so happy to be serving here. I can't explain how grateful I

am for it. God is so good to me and I just can't express my gratitude

enough. I am so grateful for each of you as well. You make my life

meaningful. You make my life great! I love you all so much! I know

Jesus lives! I know He's real and loves us.

D&C 88:63

63 Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently

and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall

be opened unto you.

He's there. Just draw near to Him!

Well, in three short weeks it will be Mother's Day. Which means I will

have my very last Skype home on my mission. Then in 5 short months I'm

Utah and Idaho bound! I can't tell you all how much I miss those

places. I can't wait to see all of you again! Even all my friends here

in Texas that I email. I can't wait to see every single one of you

again! You all mean so much to me.

19 Months Down! 5 To Go!

Have an incredible week!

Elder Joshua Needles