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!!! 

Week 97

Well another week has come and gone in the Albuquerque heat. That is right people we are about to break into the 90s. Nothing like waking up and sweating on you walk to the fridge. This week was really good! A lot of craziness happend but still really good. We had a cool experience yesterday. We got to participate in a mission prep class with President Guffey. There were only 2 people who attended. But one of them was a convert of less than a year who is excited for his mission! It was a super cool experience. We have a baptism coming up this week! That is awesome! Alanna is doing great!! She is so excited to be baptized. She teaches us when we meet together. She is incredible. She is so prepared for the gospel. We also have someone else preparing for baptism. Her name is Marissa. She has been on date before but this time she is much more committed. She is really excited. She came to church this week too! Super cool. Amazing things happend everyday out here. I am sorry this email is so short! I love you all!!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 96

Hello friends and family and friends of family and family friends and all of the rest of you! I hope this last week has filled you heart with joy and gladness and that you are excited for the week that is coming! God loves you! A ton! This week was crazy. We had so much going on all week it seemed like there was never a break or time to breathe even. We had to prepare for zone conferences that are coming up the next 2 weeks. Luckily we don't have to go to all of them this transfer. So we get to go and be normal missionaries in ours and enjoy the rest of the time to proselyte. I love it. We had 3 exchanges this week. Tuesday night we had 4 missionaries in our apartment for an exchange all day Wednesday until 5 PM. Then Wednesday night we had 4 more for an exchange all day Thursday. And then Friday night we had 2 more come in. This week we have 2 more exchanges coming. Crazy!!! I love exchanges. It is a great way to learn from other missionaires and to grow. We have seen a ton of success this last week from them. We have started teaching the restoration to everyone we meet on the street. We just walk up and basically start teaching from the pamphlet for 2-3 Miniutes and then set a time to come back to teach them. It has been really awesome and full of miracles!!! So we had an interesting experience this week. Alanna has been preparing for baptism for the 22nd of this month. She is super amazing. She teaches us the gospel when we meet together. She is pretty incredible. Well she moved. And she moved out of our zone which means we would have to pass her to some other missionaries and a different branch. Well we found out that she lives in a couple different places and so after talking to our Branch President we decided to keep her here! It was awesome and we are excited for her and her baptism coming up!! Only a week and a half away!!!! Boom!!!! That is all I can think of this week. I love you all!!! Keep being awesome!!!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 95

Hello family and friends! How are you? Was it a good week? I hope so! This week we had a ton going on. I don't have a ton of email time right now but I will try to capture some of the highlights. We were not able to get in contact with Alana at all this week. We tried to reach out and go by her place but were unsuccessful. Well she showed up at church! Apaarently she had another family emergency that took her out of town, and she also moved out of her apartment. A lot of crazy things and she still made it to church. It was awesome. She even got up and bore a super powerful testimony about trials and the peace she feels at church. We had a lesson with her after and she accepted a baptsimal date of March 22nd! It was so cool! She is so awesome! I feel blessed to be able to meet with her and teach her. She strengthens my testimony. She is doing awesome. We had a super good conversation with the Zinc family. They are super cool but are dragging their feet a little when it comes to learning about the gospel. Their 10 year old daughter really wants to learn about God and our message so we asked her parents for permission to teach her and they said yes! It was awesome!! She could be a great example for her family. They are moving to the West Side of ABQ at the end of the month though. That will be sad. We got to go to the temple this morning! Missionary Monday. All 166 of us at the temple at 4 different sessions. It was cool. I love the temple. It was cool to be able to work so closely with the temple to make all of this come together. I know all of the temple presidency now pretty much. It is weird to get a phone call and the caller ID says "Temple" haha. Good experience though. That was my last big temple trip of my mission. It felt weird at the end not going to lie haha. I am grateful for the temple though. This next week is going to be great! I am excited to see the miracles that come and the joy we find in the service of the Lord. I love you all!!! Keep being a great example. 

Week 94

Hello friends and family and friends of family! Good to be with you on this beautiful Albuquerque morning. I hope this email finds all of you doing well and happy. It is important to be happy. I have learned that as a missionary. This last week was pretty crazy! With transfers and stuff going on I couldn't remember what day it was. It was good to get out and do some work though. Missionary work is the best thing ever. We had a couple really cool stories. Alana was going to get baptized this last week but had a family emergency come up that took her out of town. When she came back she had a stronger testimony then when she left! She even paid tithing yesterday. She is doing so amazing. Her testimony is bright and her love of the Savior is real. I am so grateful that I have had the chance to meet her and know her. She will probably be getting baptized in the next couple weeks. We are meeting with her tonight. We had another really amazing experience this week. A couple weeks ago a man named Rudy called the mission office for a blessing. Sister Guffey called us and we called some other Elders to go visit them. Aparently Rudy used to be married to a member of the church. He had a pretty bad alcohol problem so he got a blessing from some missionaries a long time ago. After that blessing he never took another drink. 45+ years sober now. The other Elders gave him a blessing and then we went by a week or so later. He told us that he believes in the power of the Elders. He asked for another Blessing from us and he asked us to dedicate his home. That was the first time I have every dedicated a home. It was a sacred experience and a powerful expression of God's love. We began teaching them and they agreed to meet with missionaries. They don't live in our area. But they are incredbile children of God. Our Father in Heaven loves us all. I know that to be true. I have seen His love in my life over and over. I know He is there. This is His work. I love you all and am grateful for the positive influence you all have had on me. Keep up the great work! 

Week 93

Well this week was crazy. So much moving around and traveling and stuff. Oh and we had transfers yesterday! We had two zone conferences last week that we went to. One was down South. We headed down Monday night and stayed all day Tuesday and came up Tuesday night. We got home a little before 11 on Tuesday night. We had another Zone conference in the north on Thursday. We got to give an hour long training in both of them about how to teach using the pamphlets we have been given. It was super cool and it went pretty well. I enjoy training and teaching people even when it is a room with 100 people in it. We spent a lot of time last week planning for transfers too. We had a lot of moving parts. On Monday we picked up 11 new missionaries from the airport. Wanna hear a funny story? Good. At the airport this guy walked up and started talking to us. He is a member from Iowa. He was on the phone with his wife and asked us about a missionary in our mission who his wife is like 2nd cousins with. Well I am also closely related to that missionary, Elder Turner. So I asked if his wife knew any Carruths and she said her Grandma's maiden name is Carruth! Small world. Crazy stuff. The new group of missionaries are all awesome. Super solid and powerfu. They are going to great things in this mission and in their lives. Yesterday was trasnfer day. It is a really cool feeling watching the trasnfer van leaver with a ton of missionaries on it and to think of all the hours of work and planning that went into that one moment of time. It is cool and it all inspired by the Lord. All glory be to Him. We had a cool experience this week with Alana. She has been doing super well and progresing in the gospel. She feels it and knows it is true. She was going to get baptized today actually. But last week she had an unexpected death in the family. When we got to go teach her and ask her how she was doing she told us that she had been praying a lot and that she was at peace. She said she is excited to came to church and pay tithing. She did come to church this week and participated a lot. She is doing amazing and will get baptized sometime in the next couple weeks. We are really looking for new people to teach. The work is going great! I love the Lord! I love my Father in Heaven! I love all of you! 

Elder Carruth 

Week 92

Monday seems to be everyday now. Next Monday is arrivals and we get to go to the airport again and pick up 11 new missionaries. Remember the last time we picked up the new missionaries? Feels like yesterday. This week was a good one! I will try to capture the highlights. We had a special MLC with Lee Donaldson. If you know The District, he is the Mission President of District 2 in San Diego. He is a professional trainer for the church now so he came to train us and President Guffey. We got to go teaching with him on Monday night and it was awesome! He taught us a ton about the Doctrine of Christ and the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome. MLC was super cool too! We had 91 missionaries there and we managed to take a picture with all of them! Pretty cool. The meeting was super inspiring and I am pumped up to apply the things that I learned! I have a lot of tools for teaching people now. Besides that we had a baptism! Kimberleigh got baptized this weekend. She has changed a ton. She was super excited though and it was a good day. The spirit was super powerful the whole time and I loved it. I could spend all day at baptisms. It is almost like being in the temple. Kimberleigh is doing awesome. We have another baptism coming up on the 22nd! Alana is her name. She is awesome. She has come to church 3 weeks in a row and stayed all 3 hours. She is really excited to be baptized. We are excited too! This upcoming week is going to be crazy! We will be in El Paso tonight for Zone Conference tomorrow and then another Zone Confernce in ABQ on Thursday. Transfers are next week so I don't really know when I will email. Probably Tuesday. I am not going to get transferred. I will stay here till the end of my mission most likely. I love you all!!! 

Week 91

Well hello there everyone! What a wonderful week this last week has been. It was a little crazy at some points. But it was great. First of all I didn't even know it was the Superbowl this week until last Thursday when missionaries were asking us about the policy for the day. My desires and focus has changed a ton on my mission. Last year I knew exactly when the game was and who was playing. This year I didn't even have a clue. Mission life takes over. I am glad I have changed though that is nice. Anyway back to this crazy good week. We are still working with Alana. She is preparing to be baptized on the 22nd of this month. She is amazing honestly. So prepared for the gospel. She bore her testimony yesterday in church and it was awesome! She is awesome. We are excited to continue to work with her. I don't know how much I have talked about Kimberleigh. She has been being taught for a long time. She has been close to getting baptized but things seem to always pop up. In church she sent us a text that told us she wanted to get baptized this weekend! We just so happened to have our District Leader in the same building so he gave her an interview on the spot. She is ready to go! Boom! We are going to have a baptism this Saturday! I am excited for it. We had a drunk homeless guy walk into our sacrament meeting yesterday. That was exciting. He passed out in the middle of it all and snored up a storm. You never know what is going to happen on any given Sunday. We had MLC this week. Usually it is a spiritual feast. But when you are on the AP side of things it is a stressful 8 hours. I conducted the meeting and that went fine but we were about 45 minutes behind schedule at the end. It was crazy. I was so stressed. But it was still awesome. It was great to see everyone there and get to see some El Paso friends as well. I am grateful for all of you!! Thank you for your support!! I love you a ton!!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 90

Well today might just be a short email. I lost some time this morning to meetings with President so I am running a little behind. So please forgive me in advance for not filling you all in on everything. First off we had some big changes this last week! There was a worldwide missionary broadcart with Elders Oaks, Bednar and Anderson of the 12. They changed the missionary daily schedule. They gave us more freedom to move things around in our day and gave us the chance to sleep more at night. They also made pday longer. So that was cool. It was pretty big news across the mission and I am sure across the world. Modern day revelation is wonderful. I am excited for the change. We got to go to El Paso on Friday. We had to take a car down to a missionary who needed it. So Elder Petersen and I got to drive all the way to El Paso in separate cars. That was WEIRD. Holy Moly I have totally forgot what it is like to be alone for any length of time. I didn't know what to do with myself. It was a good taste for after mission awkwardness. I appreciated it. It was good to see some of the missionaries from down in El Paso too. That was good. On the way back from El Paso we got to stop at a place named Sparkys. It is a burger place that is know across the mission of being the best. I have heard about it my whole mission. Well we gave it a try. And the myths are all true. It was amazing. SO good. I will go back someday. I attached pictures in case you were hungry. We have a new person we are teaching! She is a huge miracle! Her name is Alana and is a YSA. She really wants to do what God wants her to do and knows she needs a relationship with Him. She is currently on track to get baptized on the 22nd of FEB. That is super cool! She came to church and stayed the whole time yesterday! Super cool. Besides that we have had a ton of meetings this week. Busy busy busy. I love you all!!!

Week 89

Well I feel like I Just emailed all of you yesterday. So not sure how it is Monday again. But this last week was super awesome! We had some miracles and some really awesome experiences. I love being a missionary. I have said that a lot but that is because it is true. We had a baptism this week! His name is Dustin. He is awesome. I remember teaching him on exchanges with the APs like last August. And now he got baptized! It was a really spiritual experience. Dustin was smiling super big and was super excited.  I have a miracle story. We were with our Elders Quorum President in the YSA one day and he noticed on his phone that there was a unbaptized YSA aged person that we never heard of. We decided to go try by. No one was home. That's not the miracle. A couple houses up we saw 3 men digging a ditch outside a house. We tried talking to them but our Spanish is pretty rusty. One of them, named Juan, spoke enough broken English to tell us that he would allow missionaries over. We didn't think a whole lot about it, it was just a normal average contact. We did pass on his information to the Hermanas. Well at Dustin's baptism, we saw the Hermanas walk in with Juan!! It was so cool! He talked about how good he felt there and all about the trials he is facing. He grew my testimony on talking to everyone. It was so cool. The Lord puts prepared people everywhere if we are willing to talk to them. Miracles are everywhere. So we had a lesson with someone this week and when we came out of the house we got to watch someone back into our car. That was a first. He tried to tell us that it was fine and that we didn't need to worry about it. I told him that it is God's car and not ours haha. It was interesting. We had a really neat experince this week. We went up to Santa Fe on Friday for a District Meeting. I have some good missionary friends up there so it was cool. Well one of them asked me for a blessing right after the meeting. She told me that she had thought about getting a blessing from me a few days prior and that it was a miracle that we were there. The blessing was incredibly powerful. I could feel the love of our Savior and how much he loves her. I know that the Priesthood is real. I am grateful for the chance I had to serve one of my sisters. It was a great week! I am excited to see what next week holds!! I love you all!!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 88

Well I feel like I Just emailed all of you yesterday. So not sure how it is Monday again. But this last week was super awesome! We had some miracles and some really awesome experiences. I love being a missionary. I have said that a lot but that is because it is true. We had a baptism this week! His name is Dustin. He is awesome. I remember teaching him on exchanges with the APs like last August. And now he got baptized! It was a really spiritual experience. Dustin was smiling super big and was super excited.  I have a miracle story. We were with our Elders Quorum President in the YSA one day and he noticed on his phone that there was a unbaptized YSA aged person that we never heard of. We decided to go try by. No one was home. That's not the miracle. A couple houses up we saw 3 men digging a ditch outside a house. We tried talking to them but our Spanish is pretty rusty. One of them, named Juan, spoke enough broken English to tell us that he would allow missionaries over. We didn't think a whole lot about it, it was just a normal average contact. We did pass on his information to the Hermanas. Well at Dustin's baptism, we saw the Hermanas walk in with Juan!! It was so cool! He talked about how good he felt there and all about the trials he is facing. He grew my testimony on talking to everyone. It was so cool. The Lord puts prepared people everywhere if we are willing to talk to them. Miracles are everywhere. So we had a lesson with someone this week and when we came out of the house we got to watch someone back into our car. That was a first. He tried to tell us that it was fine and that we didn't need to worry about it. I told him that it is God's car and not ours haha. It was interesting. We had a really neat experince this week. We went up to Santa Fe on Friday for a District Meeting. I have some good missionary friends up there so it was cool. Well one of them asked me for a blessing right after the meeting. She told me that she had thought about getting a blessing from me a few days prior and that it was a miracle that we were there. The blessing was incredibly powerful. I could feel the love of our Savior and how much he loves her. I know that the Priesthood is real. I am grateful for the chance I had to serve one of my sisters. It was a great week! I am excited to see what next week holds!! I love you all!!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 87

Another week has come and gone! Can you believe it? I feel like I just sent an email out and now I get to send another one. This last week was a good one! We got to spend a ton of time out in the work pounding the pavement. That always makes you feel good at the end of the day. We are working with a couple people who are preparing to get baptized! Dustin is getting baptized this Saturday. He has come a long long way. He still has some stuff to learn but he is really excited about being baptized. He has been working for it for a really long time. The other person who is preparing to be baptized is Kimberleigh. She has come a very long way. She used to have a false idea of who God is and now she has a much stronger relationship with Him. She chose her own baptismal date of the 4th of Feb. She is doing awesome! Elder Petersen and I are having a ton of fun. We get along really well and both really want to be successful, especially as the end of our missions approach. He is a stud of a missionary. Super strong testimony. So we had a super cool experience this week. We were asked by our Stake to speak at their annual Priesthood Preview. It us a big meeting for all of the 11 year old boys who will be turning 12 this year. We both got to speak about how the Aaronic Priesthood helped us prepare to serve a mission. It was a really cool experience and something I probably would never have gotten to do had I not served a mission. It is interesting to me how before my mission I would have freaked out at an invitation to speak at something like that, but now I cherish opportunities to share my testimony with others and to speak in front of people. I love it. I have never spoken in front of huge crowds, probably around 250 people is the biggest. But it is still cool! And a change in myself that I have noticed. So a funny/creepy story that happened this week. We went to a gas station because I drank to much water that day and there was a homeless guy outside. When he saw us he yelled "THERE ARE MY DISCIPLES!" and we realized that he had been drinking a ton. He tried to hug us but due to our sincere silent pleadings he didn't. We had found 4 pennies on the ground and we tried to give them to him. He said "Flip them all and they will all be heads." So we did and they were all heads. Little creepy but a little funny too. We also had a drunk person try her absolute hardest to tell us that you can sin and be close to God at the same time. It was a great week! The gospel is awesome and I love my Savior. This life is about following Him. That is what leads us to eternal happiness. I just wanna thank everyone who has supported me on my mission. Means the world to me. I love you all!

Elder Carruth 

Week 86

Well another week has come to a very quick end. Before I started my mission everyone always told me that "the days pass like weeks and the weeks pass like days." I have come to see that that is true especially over the last couple weeks. Everyday feels like it lasts forever and the weeks go by in  the blink of an eye. I feel like I email every other day. This week was good! We planned transfers all week. We spent a lot of time in the office making sure everyone was good to go on transfer day which is today. We are taking time to email while we wait for the South missionaries to get up North. We had about 60 missionaries here this morning and it was cool to see everyone. The Lord really blessed our missionary work this week. Even though we spent a ton of time at the office preparing for transfers, we managed to have the best week we have had in a long time. We hit the standards of excellece (mission wide goals to strive for every week that President sets) and that was awesome! President was super happy about that and it made us feel good. The Lord really just blessed us with opportunities to share and teach the gospel. We found a family of 4 this week. They were taught by missionaries a long time ago and when we knocked on the door their 9 year old and 7 year old were super excited to see us. They said they might be willing to listen to the message again especially for their kids. We testified of eternal families, my favorite part of the gospel, and I am excited to work with them! They are a super cool family. We also made huge progress with an investigator named Kimberly. She is 19 and is about to graduate college with a double major before starting law school soon. She is brilliant to say the least. Well she fasted on Sunday and she wants to get baptized! She bore her testimony on Sunday and testified of the plan of salvation and the joy it brings. She testified of the Book of Mormon as well. It was a miracle for us! Yesterday we got to go to the airport to pick up 6 new missionaries. 3 of them are from Washington!!! We are taking over the mission! The new UTAH! BOOM! Every time one of them said they were from Washington I would do a double fist pump in the air and President Guffey would say "I am sorry to hear that" haha it was awesome. The new group of missionaries is a good one. They will be a strength to the mission. It was weird being at the airport. Last time I was there I was the one coming off the plane not knowing what the next 2 years would hold. I am glad that these last 20 months have been filled with miracles and tender mercies. Tons of trials as well that help humble and refine us into the missionaries that Heavenly Father needs us to be. I am so grateful for my mission. It fills my heart with joy and love when I think back to everything I have done and everyone I have met over the last 20 months. It is crazy how fast time goes here. I love my Savior Jesus Christ with all my heart. He is our Redeemer. I know that with all my heart. This is his church, he is at the head. I love you all. I am grateful for your influence in my life and the support I feel from you as I have served as a missionary. I hope the next 4 months continue to bring the same joy that I have felt up till now. The gospel is true. The Restoration is a fact. Heavenly Father loves you. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Elder Carruth