On the first day of the campaign, Monday morning, April 29^th, in Belen, New Mexico, the team of Chuck Wyeth, the preacher here, and his son, Bradley, and William Hardy went to the house of Christine and Aaron. Christine has been a part of the afterschool program at the Belen Church of Christ with her five children. She is a very sweet and kind-hearted young lady in her early 30s. She had set up this meeting without actually telling her husband, Aaron, about it. When Aaron came out, he was somewhat surprised. However, he seemed to have a ready and receptive heart to hear the gospel. Aaron stated that his family had been faithfully attending the Mormon church doing the early years of his life. He stated that at the age of 12 he was baptized in that church. However, as he began reading the scriptures, he stated that he remembered telling his grandmother that the preacher was changing the words and the meaning from what he was reading in the Bible. Sometime later, his family stopped going to that church altogether, and Aaron continues to be troubled by the fact that both his aunt and his father, as well as his grandmother, abandoned much of their belief and stopped going to church, worshiping God, or reading their Bibles. Aaron stated that he knew that there was something missing and once we showed him the gospel of Christ and how to obey it, Aaron readily accepted, as did his wife, Christine. After proceeding to the church building, Chuck took their public confession. They obeyed the gospel and were welcomed into the family of God. The following Tuesday morning Chuck and William went to their house to give them new Bibles, and their 14-year-old son, Jeremiah, asked to go door knocking with the team and volunteered to read the scriptures. It is believed that this whole family is going to be a wonderful addition eventually to this congregation. All glory to God.

Pamela was the first person on April 30, the second day of the campaign at Belen, that Charles, Tommy, and Barbara found who would share in examining Bible scriptures with them. Pamela is single. She has 2 sons, Christopher, 42, and Adam, 39. She also has one grandchild, Adam, 16, who she is raising. She is a paralegal and also works as a stocker at Walmart. She is friendly but somewhat reserved with a quick smile. She was very receptive and wanted to study the Bible. She considered the final question in Acts 22:16, “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” She then said, “I’m ready,” so everyone went to the building, and she obeyed the Gospel.

On the second evening of the campaign Chuck Wyeth, William Hardy, and Jennifer, who is the adult daughter of Eugene and Evelyn met at their home. They were soon joined by their daughter-in-law, Camilla. Eugene and Evelyn are an elderly couple in their mid-seventies and have been married for almost 50 years. Eugene is a Vietnam army veteran. Rapport was built with them from small talk and admiration for his accomplishments in the Service and in the work done on his house and the conversation gradually transitioned to asking the most important question, “If the Lord were to come right now, do you know for sure, nothing doubting, that you would go to Heaven?” When neither of them could answer for sure, then 1 John 5:13 was read in order to focus on what is written in God’s word before pivoting to ask them both what they had done in the past to secure their salvation. Since both of them had been Catholics all their life, they revealed that they were baptized as babies. From that point, the study moved on to the next verses, putting emphasis on the verses that pertain to things in the Bible that conflict with the Catholic teaching, such as the passage in 1Tim. 2:5, where it says that there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man, Jesus Christ. It was explained that this eliminated praying to other mediators, such as the Pope, Saint Jude, Saint Francis, or even the Virgin Mary. This fact was eye-opening for them. Finally, when the last verse of the study was read, which was Acts 22:16, Eugene stated that he could see no reason why he should not obey the Gospel that very day. Therefore, all proceeded to the church building to accept his confession before men as well as that of his wife Evelyn, his daughter-in-law, Camilla, as well as his son-in-law, Tiger, as they obeyed the Gospel in baptism.
 
Tiger is the longtime husband of Jennifer. Jennifer is a faithful member of the body of Christ. A few years ago, she was converted and led to Christ by her best friend, Rose, who had given Jennifer the book, “Muscle and a Shovel”, by Michael Shank. Jennifer read this book and was convicted to obey the Gospel. Tiger has recently been attending worship regularly with his wife, Jennifer, and he has even been attending some in-home Bible studies with a fellow brother in Christ named Hud Griffith. However, when we gathered together during his lunch break and William Hardy presented the Gospel from the little checkbook Bible, Tiger was convinced that he needed to obey the Gospel. Therefore, he returned that evening with his in-laws, Eugene, Evelyn, and Camilla, where Chuck took all four of their confessions publicly. There was much rejoicing and singing of hymns as, one by one, they all four obeyed the Gospel of Christ. This was a very happy occasion for everyone, especially for Jennifer, who was instrumental in helping lead members of her family out of Catholicism and into the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ. Rose stated, "Jennifer’s baptism was a blessing, but even more so for me. She became my best friend in a time that I needed a friend and an extended family the most when my mother passed away. God’s blessing was multiplied in so many ways."
 
  Antoinette is a young lady that Larry Lovett met in Belen, New Mexico. She was at the church building and Larry introduced himself and asked her if she had ever heard a Gospel presentation. She agreed to listen, so she, Larry, and Rose Gould studied for nearly 3 hours, making sure that she understood what God expected of her. She obeyed the gospel at 10 PM on Tuesday night of the campaign. She has been adopted by one of the local members and they are continuing to educate her.

On Wednesday, November1, the first day of the outreach effort, Chuck Wyeth asked Joe Ferguson to go to the local nursing home to check on one of the employee’s cars which would not start. It was found that the problem was that the finance company had locked her car due to a mix-up with the payments. It was decided that Joe needed to take Beatrice, the owner of the car, to the finance company in Albuquerque in order to sort it out. On the way Joe asked Beatrice the question and her reply was no, she did not know if she would go to heaven if she died. She had been baptized into the Mormon church in order to attend school and then baptized in the Baptist church but realized that something was missing both times. After her car was released, they went back to the church building and started a Gospel presentation. After getting halfway through it, something came up and it was postponed. Sunday morning Beatrice was in worship and stayed for the noon meal at the building. After lunch, Joe and his wife, Darla, along with Laurel, a local member, took her and completed the presentation. At the end of the presentation Beatrice was asked to give God her answer as to whether or not she would obey the Gospel, she burst into tears and said, “I have been praying that God would let me live long enough to find the truth.” She then obeyed the Gospel by putting on Christ in baptism.

The preacher at Belen, Chuck Wyeth, received a call as we were concluding services Sunday evening on May 5th. It was from Nicholas, who wanted someone to come meet with him and his wife, Mary. Nicholas said it would need to be Monday evening after work. Chuck asked Charles Shelton and Sharon Pacheco to go and do the presentation which they were more than willing to do. After meeting Nicholas and Mary, it was very apparent that Nicholas had spent much time studying the Bible.  He knew it better than most people. Charles would start reciting a verse and he could finish it. They were both very willing to get right to it. Nicholas did most of the scripture reading. As we progressed, it was easy to tell they were getting it. Toward the end before we got to Acts 22:16, I took them to Acts 9 and showed them Paul's conversion. Then we went to Acts 22. They read verse 16 silently. After a few minutes, Mary said, "I want to be baptized". Nicholas said, "So do I". We went to the building and Chuck baptized Nicholas then Nicholas baptized Mary.