Week 104

I remember on my first Pday of my mission, my trainer turned to me and said "How was your first pday?" After a positive response he said "Good, only 103 more to go." It is hard to believe that I have made it through all 103 of them and here we are. This will most likely be the last email I send as a full time missionary. It has been a long road, challenging at times, but worth it. Today my email will simply be my testimony of things I know to be true. 

I know that God is our Father in Heaven. We are His sons and daughters and He loves us. He wants us to be happy and to find joy in this life and the next. He has a perfect plan for us. I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer. He showed us by example how to live so we could return to God again. I know that Jesus Christ suffered for every pain that we could ever know, and he did it out of love for us. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It brings peace and direction into my life that I cannot find anywhere else. This is Christ's church. I love my Savior. He is my best friend and I strive to follow him in everything I do. My mission has strengthened my faith and relationship with him. I am so grateful. My heart is full. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Week 103

Another great week to be a missionary!! We got to talk to people and teach people and all that wonderful stuff. I love the life we get to live out here. There is nothing better than representing the Lord to our Brothers and Sisters. This week started on a little bit of a sad note. Tuesday was MLC. It was my 17th and final MLC of my mission. President asked those who were going home to stand and share their testimonies. As I looked across the room I was overwhelmed with a feeling of love and gratitude. The missionaries in that room have changed my life forever. I couldn't find the words to say to express the feelings of my heart. I managed to keep most of the tears away as I bore my witness of the Savior. I love these missionaries so much. It was hard to shake their hands and give them hugs knowing that it will likely be the last time in a long time that I will get the chance to do that. I am so grateful for my mission. The sadness was short lived though. I got to go on my last exchange of my mission this week as well! I got to spend the day with Elder Robinson and Elder Petersen, my old comp. We had a cool miracle. We dropped by a recent convert who was not home. Elder Petersen said we should try by a family that he remembers meeting here. When we went we found 2 17 year old girls who had just moved in. They invited us in and we were able to teach them about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was powerful and they both prayed at the end. It was a miracle to me. I am grateful for it. Yesterday we had the chance to teach mission prep for our Stake. It was awesome. I love getting to do stuff like that. The spirit is so powerful and we learn a lot. I love working with the youth. Today will be exciting. There is a local Pueblo that is having a feast day and one of our members invited us to go with him! That will be so awesome!! I love you all!! Thank you for your support!!! 

Week 102

 

 

Hey everyone!!! So today has been a lot crazy with a lot of meetings and planning some stuff out and all of that jazz so please don't be offended when this email is really short. This week was really good! We got to go on 3 different exchanges this week. It seems like we are always opening our doors to a different set of missionaries on any given night. The exchanges were really good though! I got to spend some time with some of my closest friends in the mission and even spent a day with an old comp!! I learned a ton and felt the spirit a lot. That is always the best thing that you could possibly have in your life is the spirit of our Heavenly Father telling you that you have done a good job and that He loves you. We found a new investigator this week in the La Cueva ward. His name is Spencer. We have a lesson with him tonight. He is a young married guy who just moved here. He is open to learning about the gospel! Please add his name to your prayers!!! Church this week was really really good. I received answers to my prayers and guidence for my life. There are a lot of changes coming up and I need all the help I can get!! I am grateful for the experiences I had this week.

One really cool thing happened that I want to share. On Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Evans. I have served around him pretty much his whole mission. I have been on exchanges with him before in El Paso. I love him to death and enjoy any chance I can get to do missionary work with him. We dropped by this member of the YSA who is not active. We have tried to meet her a bunch of times. Finally this time we were let in and got to talk to her and her parents. He parents are both converts and they shared powerful stories. Amanda, the YSA, opened up to us and shared her fears and concerns. It was so powerful. I felt the love that Heavenly Father has for her as His daughter. She agreed to meet with us. On Sunday her mom found me in the chapel and came up to me and said "You are the perfect missionary for our daughter. We have been waiting for a long time for the right missionary to come along. Thank you so much." It was a very sweet moment of my mission. I felt so much gratitude and love. It was special to me and something I will always remember. 

Love you all!!! 

Elder Carruth 

P.S - In the office, they always put up all of th pictures of the missionaries who are soon to go home. Well the office staff put a question mark over my face so I wouldn't have to look at myself going home. It was hilarious and really nice of them.

 

Week 101

Well this week was an incredible week!!! A lot of wonderful things happened. I love missionary work. Like a lot. It is the best thing ever. So let me think about the highlights of the week this week. We got to go on 2 exchanges this week! I got to spend some time with some amazing Elders and it was a blast. The biggest highlight of the week was Marisa getting baptized! That was incredbile. It was the first convert baptism in this ward in well over a year. There was probably over 50 people there and it was powerful. The spirit of the Lord was there and we all felt loved and encouraged and peaceful. It was great. I loved it. She has been being taught by missionaries for almost 3 years. She has been really close before but finally made it this weekend! She was so happy. I had the thought after the baptism that it could be the last one of my mission. Then Heavenly Father prompted me and told me that it doesn't have to be. There is more work to be done! I am excited to go out and do it! Yesterday was a great Easter. I had the amazing opportunity to speak in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. I hated speaking in Sacrament before my mission. I really enjoy it now. I enjoy having the opportunity to study for something specific and to share my testimony to everyone at once. I had a great experience yesterday. The spirit helped me share the things that needed to be shared. I loved it. That is all I can think of!! Great week and I hope yours was too!! 

For those of you who are interested in coming to my homecoming, here is the information:

Date: May 21, 2017

Time: 11:00AM

Location: 9341 4th Avenue Northeast Olympia, Washington 98516

All of you are more than invited to come. For those of you who may not know what that is, I will be speaking at my local congregation for about 15 minutes probably. I will be sharing some things that I have learned on my mission and also some things that I believe will help all of us increase our faith. Let me know if you are planning on coming! Love you all!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 100

Hello people! How are you? How is life? That is good to hear. This week was pretty awesome! Have you noticed that all weeks are pretty awesome? I have said that 100 times I feel like. Anyways let me tell you all about why this week was so awesome! So we had transfers this week. That is always a really exciting day and you never really know what is going to happen! We have 2 brand new missionaries in the mission now. They are both pretty awesome! One is from Spokane. Washington is going to out number the Utah people here soon. You just wait and see. Transfers went pretty well. Nothing majorly crazy happened which is good. The transfer van showed up 45 minutes early from El Paso so that was cool. We were scrambling a little bit but got it all figured out. Keeps us on our toes! This week was my departing interview. That was a little crazy. I never really thought this day was real or would ever really come. It is just something that is talked about in rumor almost. But nevertheless is came and it happened! It was a great experience. The spirit was strong and motivating. I felt the love of President and Sister Guffey. President told me how much my blog helped him and Sister Guffey prepare to come to the mission. The first time I met them last July that was the very first thing they told me was they had read my blog. And apparently it really helped them. That made me feel good. I am glad I send emails home every week haha. The interview was great and I am excited for the next 5 weeks. We had a really cool miracle this week. Elder Nelson was calling all of our formers and he called a guy named Eric. He told us that he had been thinking about us earlier that day and that he was wanting to take the lessons again. The reason he didn't get baptized before was he struggled with coming to church. We met with him and he accpeted baptism immediately! It was super cool! He told us that he is looking for peace in his life and the lesson went really well. We are excited to teach him. It was a miracle. Yesterday we went to a fireside put on by our Branch President. It was called "The Tomb" and was all about the final days of our Savior's life leading up to His resurrection. It was really powerful and a lot of people came to see. There were members of different faiths there as well. It was pretty cool! I enjoyed it. Anyway it was a great week. I love you all!!! 

Elder Carruth 

Week 99

I believe this is Elder Carruth's cousin, Elder Turner!

Hello friends and family and friends of family and friends of friends and anyone else! I love you and am grateful that at some point im your life you agreed to receive my emails! Hopefully this one will be uplifting and encouraging. This week was a good one! All of them are good ones! We got to go to the temple this week with Alanna. 9 days after she was baptized she went to the temple to be baptized for her ancestors. It was an incredibly special experience. The spirit of the temple is so peaceful and calm. I felt the love of my Heavenly Father. I felt warm. It was a special experience to go with someone who I helped come into the gospel. She had a wonderful time and didn't have the words to describe it. I was able to find 9 of my own family names that I could go do work for. It was a cool moment doing some family history and being successful at it! I have always wanted to be able to do it. After that wonderful day we got to watch General Conference all weekend! 10 hours of amazing talks and music. The spirit was so powerful as we got to listen to the Prophets and Apostles. My personal questions were answered this weekend. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. I know that there is a Prophet on the earth today. He spoke about our need to read the Book of Mormon daily. And also our need to have charity with everyone. It was powerful. 

Here are the links to President Monson's talks if you would like to listen to a Prophet's voice:

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/media/session_3_talk_3/5381947833001?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/media/session_4_talk_4/5382435401001?lang=eng

I also have an invitation for all of you. The following link is the church's Easter video for this year. It is powerful. Please share it on every social media site that you have. Share it with the world. PLEASE share it. It will soften hearts and help people feel loved by their Father in Heaven and their Savior. It will help you have more of the light of Christ in your life. I promise.

https://www.mormon.org

I love you all!!! 

Elder Carruth 

PS - Happy 50th Mom!!! And Happy 56th Dad!! 

Week 98

Well another week has come and gone!! This week was awesome! Every week is awesome! I think I start out all of my emails the same way.... Awesome! We had a baptism this week!!! It was incredible. The spirit was so powerful and peaceful. Alanna was so excited for her baptism. You could truly see the light in her. She has changed so much already. The gospel has worked miracles in her life. Her whole family was there! Like a ton of family. Brothers and Sisters and Neices and Nephews. Packed house. It was amazing. She is amazing. We are working on going to the temple with her this week before conference! The temple closes after conference so we wanna go now. That would be amazing to be able to go to the temple with her for the first time. I am excited!!! We are working hard at finding new investigators! We need people to teach. This last week we taught very few people. We have a couple people who are working on getting baptized which is good. Time will tell. This upcoming weekend is genreal conference! We get to hear from the prophet of God and the Apostles. It is an amazing time to receive answeres to our prayers and feel of God's love. I invite all of you to watch it! 10 AM to Noon and 2 PM to 4PM on Saturday and Sunday. That is New Mexico time.... You can watch it live on lds.org! You will love it!! I love you all!!!