Week 80

Well this week was crazy. Just crazy. So much happened in such little time it was crazy. Crazy in a good way. Like a fun roller coaster kind of crazy. I am glad that I get to email today! I almost thought I wouldn't get to. But here I am! So we had a couple super spiritual feast moments this week! The first was zone conference. The South zone conference is always the biggest in the mission. It has 4 zones and about 70 missionaries. It was awesome. The spirit was super strong and we learned a ton. Elder Prigmore and I gave a 15 minute training. We talked about retaining recent converts by helping them get to the temple. It went really well! The spirit helped us a ton and we got a ton of good reviews from the missionaries. I got the crowd to laugh a little so we won them over from the start. It is interesting talking to a group of 70 missionaries. I enjoyed listening to other people train us as well. At the end of zone conference President Guffey gave me a hug and told me "You are about to take on a heavy load." If that isn't the biggest cliff hanger I don't know what is. I am pretty sure he is talking about this week. Elder Prigmore is up in ABQ right now since he goes home tomorrow. I am hanging with another set of ZLs for the day and will get a temp companion for the rest of the week until transfers next week. My temp companion is Elder Dial. He has been out a little under 3 months. What that means is for this week I will be the only Zone Leader in the zone. I will be over 8 companionships of missionaries alone for a week. It will be crazy but I am pretty excited. The other super spiritual moment was yesterday when we had MLC. First of all I love going to MLC as a south zone leader. We get to ride up for 5 hours with another set of zone leaders and it is a ton of fun. We share a lot of laughs and share good ideas for how to help our area improve and how to train the zone. Yesterday Elder Torres of the area 70 came and trained us. It was super powerful. He just recently came back from being a mission president and he love missionary work. He gave us a ton of info and ideas on what we could do to help the mission. It was so cool. Since MLC was yesterday that means zone training is this Friday. The whole zone gets together and the zone leaders train them. I will be alone for that. I could use some prayers! I need all the help I can get!! We have been really blessed in this area. We have a baptism coming up this Saturday and one the following Saturday. This Saturday is a 9 year old girl named Erinne. Her whole family are members and are returning to activity. The family asked me to baptize her so that will be a super sweet experience for me. I am excited for it. The following week is Amanda's baptism. We have been teaching her for a while now and she is doing awesome. She is going to get married and baptized on the same day! It will be awesome! We are teaching a lot and doing our best to find more people to teach! This week should be a really good one! I love you all!! 

Elder Carruth 

Week 79

Well another week has come to an abrupt end. This week was super stressful... BUT it is because we were trying to keep up with all the miracles that were happening! Seriously though this last week I was able to see the hand of the Lord more than I ever have. We were so blessed and it is amazing to see! We had exchanges with the Assistants on TUE-WED. We had to leave El Paso at about 3 oclock, pick up another set of ZLs and make the trek to ABQ. We got in around 10 PM. the exchange was awesome! I got to hang out with Elder Larkin for a bit. I love that kid a ton. I learned a lot while we were up there. We didn't make it back to El Paso until 11:30 PM Wed night. That was rough. But we prayed and fasted for miracles to happen so we could still have a good week! And we did! We taught 5 lessons on Friday and 8 on Saturday! That is a personal best I am pretty sure. We end the week with 20 total lessons. Seriously the only way that was possible is because Heavenly Father made it happen. We were able to teach Mike and Hilda again! And their 3 kids. They accepted a baptismal date of Dec. 18th. That is the day that their 7 year old turns 8! So we can baptize them all together. They are super humble people who need the gospel. They love us coming by. Their 11 year old, Alyssa, is already 40 pages in to the kids Book of Mormon. That is about Mosiah 11 for us old people. They are super awesome though and I love them. We are also teaching a new family! They are the Fisher Family. They are all member except for their 9 and 8 year old. They are making their return to the gospel and want to go to the temple! That is a good goal to have. We just started teaching them and their 9 year old wants to be baptized! So she will be on the 26th of this month. They are a cool family too. they have been to church 3 weeks out of the last 4 now! So things are going well for them. Jackie didn't come to church yesterday so she won't be getting baptized this weekend. But she will soon. She has felt the gospel bless her life. Her sister, Katlynn, gave a talk in Sacrament yesterday! She has been a member for less than 2 months and it was awesome!! She seriously did so well. I was really impressed and proud. It reminded me of Kendall when she spoke soon after her baptism with President and Sister Miller. That also really impressed me. That is pretty much all that is going on right now! We are being extremely blessed. Obedience to the commandments of God truly does bring miracles into your life. If you don't believe me try it out! I promise miracles for you and your family. next week pday is on Tuesday for me. We have MLC in ABQ on Monday. I love you all!! Tons and tons!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 78

Well people... I don't really have words to describe how amazing this week was. Not just in our area but really across the whole zone. Miracles are happening everywhere and all of the time. It is so cool to watch the hand of the Lord bless the lives of these people. Especially those people who desperately need it. I love missionary work. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. And I feel so incredibly blessed to be here. Anyway let me tell  you all about what has happened this week! So the biggest news is we had a baptism this week! And we had a total of 4 in the zone! Our baptism was Zenia. She is a really special daughter of God. She has gone through some really rough things in life but has truly embraced the joy that the gospel brings to us. She has felt the peace that comes through the Atonement. She loves the gospel and we have been blessed to be able to teach her and help her all along the way. It was super cool because the missionary who first started teaching her got to come to the baptism! That was special for Zenia. The spirit was super strong too and it confirmed to me the importance of the work we do. This is God's work, not ours. I had a sweet experience this week with a couple Sister Missionaries. They came to us one night pretty distraught about something that happened. They were freaking out pretty bad. We listened to them and offered them blessings. I had the chance to lay my hands on the head of one of them and give her a blessing from our Father in Heaven. It was peaceful and calm. The next day at a service project she came up to me and told me that the things that were said in the blessing could only have come from Heavenly Father. That the words were exactly what she needed. It proved to me and strengthened my testimony that the Priesthood is real. I am blessed to be able to use it to bless God's children. It was a powerful example of God's love for His children. We went on exchanges this week. I got to stay in my area. I have only been here for 3 weeks so I was honestly a little nervous even though I have been a missionary for so long. We had a miracle filled day though. We taught 6 lessons total! That is good for one day. We got a phone call from some sisters a zone over and they told us about a guy named Michael. He approached the sisters on the street and told them he felt prompted to ask about their message. Turns out that he lives in our area! And he has 4 kids, 2,4,10,13. We were able to teach him twice this week and he is open to baptism! He told us that he feels that this is a good thing and a good path. He listens to the Book of Mormon while he is at work and is 14 chapters in and remembers it! Talked to us all about the Brass Plates of Laban. It was a cool miracle from the Lord!! People are starting to come up to the missionaries! Maybe it will happen to us this week! Pray for it! So I finally got to meet one of our investigators this week. Her name is Jackie and she is the 16 year old sister to our 17 year old recent convert Katelynn. She has been thinking about getting baptized for a while now and is preparing for the 19th. 16 yeard old girls seem to be the theme of my mission. She came to church yesterday and even fasted with us. Katelynn bore a powerful testimony in sacrament that her sister got to hear. It was amazing. Ok so this email is super long already I feel like. So if you made it this far I am impressed and I love you. I just want you all to know that I feel richly blessed by my Father in Heaven. I have never felt the joy that I feel every single day as a missionary. I go out and represent the Savior to the world. This work is led by the hand of God. This work is true. I love my Savior with my whole heart. And I know that He loves me too. I know that this church is true, that Jesus Christ is at the head and that the Book of Mormon contains the word of God. How blessed we all are to live in this time when the gospel can be found in its fullness on the earth. Our Heavenly Father loves us all. I have seen that every day on my mission. And is the strongest part of my simple testimony. Heavenly Father loves His children. In the sacred name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Elder Carruth 

Week 77

Well hello friends, family, people and children of God! What a beautiful Monday morning. Happy Halloween! Those who have leftover candy feel free to send it to me. My mom has my address. I got some missionaries I can share it with so I don't gain too much weight. Someone go trick or treating for me! Be a missionary! Hand out pass along cards! Boom! This week was a good one! We had amazing things happen and we even hit the goals we set! The Lord is blessing us! Right after Pday last week we packed up the car and headed up to MLC in ABQ. We picked up some other Elders and made the 4 hour car ride together. I am glad we drove so I didn't have to sit in the back of a Nissan Frontier. The ride was hilarious and full of good mission stories from some great Elders. MLC the following morning was good. Long meeting but good. It was nice to see some familiar faces and a lot of new ones as well. On the way back to El Paso we stopped with the STLs (Sister Training Leaders, they also go to MLC) and grabbed dinner. That was super fun cause I just made a fool of myself and made people laugh. That is my talent haha. Eventually we did do some missionary work this week.So we have this wonderful family. The parents are Mike and Hilda and they have 3 kids. We have been teaching them since I got here. They love the gospel and the spirit they feel when we come. Their kids sat in on the last lesson and their 11 year old agreed to be baptized with them! They are preparing for the 19th but it might be a little soon. We are working with them though and I love them to death. They make me happy. We have a baptism coming up on the 5th, this Saturday!! Her name is Zenia. She is a YSA who really loves the gospel. She loves church and the people there. She has really been progressing a ton. She keeps her commitments and feels the spirit. She is ready for her baptism and we are getting really excited for it! It is going to be wonderful! So I have this confession. Since I got to El Paso I have really been trying to lose some more weight. I have lost about 25 pounds over my whole mission and want to keep it going. Well... We have a member of our ward that has Olive Garden Pasta Passes. 3 of them. So whenever we want free pasta we call her up and go. You know how hard it is to lose weight with UNLIMITED CHICKEN ALFREDO?! Impossible. And she gets upset if we don't ask her to take us. It is a rough life as a missionary. No one understands haha seriously though we are truly blessed to be here. The Lord is looking out for all of us. On a more positive note I had a really cool experience this week. We were headed to a lesson when we unexpectedly had to split up. I have been here for less than 2 weeks and I had to be by myself with a member. We went and taught a lesson to a man named Fernando. He was almost baptized a couple years ago. We were able to really discern his needs through the spirit. After some powerful testimonies and examples from the scriptures, he agreed to pray about being baptized on the 3rd of Dec. His heart softened a ton! It was super cool and honestly a miracle from heaven. I had another cool experience this week. I was on exchanges with Elder Evans and we had a pass off lesson with a set of Hermanas. The 4 of us in one lesson. One hermana has been out for 2 weeks and the other 3 months. Both new. It was a great lesson. Both of them had such powerful testimonies of their Savior. I felt my testimony grow. I love getting to teach with Sisters. They have a powerful spirit about them and they do things differently than Elders. It was awesome! I am grateful for it. We had 3 people come to church Yesterday. It was good to see them there and good for the ward to see us bringing people to church. I got to meet a family yesterday that lived in Lacey and went to 4th ward! I passed them the sacrament I am sure. That was super cool for me though. That is about it for the week! Long email this week so be grateful! Love you all!!

Elder Carruth