Week 81

Today is the first day of my 14th transfer! Woo! I am getting old. People are starting to tell me that I am almost done with my mission. I quickly correct them though and tell them that President Monson told me I can stay for 4 years, so I am not even halfway. This week was extremely special to me. We saw a lot of success. I spent the week with Elder Dial since Elder Prigmore went home. Elder Dial has been out for 3 months now. I actually got to finish his training with him. That was fun. We worked super hard this week and saw a lot of miracles. The Lord is blessing El Paso a ton! I am blessed to be here. So we had Thanksgiving this week! We were taken care of. The Jester family fed us. They are one of my favorites. We actually got to teach the gospel on Thanksgiving which was a miracle in itself! I love holidays as a missionary. Weird to think that was my last Thanksgiving. This week we focused a lot on finding new people to teach. We have a few people who are doing really well and will get baptized in December, so we need to start preparing people for January. We were blessed to be sent to areas with people who invited us back! The Lord truly directed us. It was so cool. One of the reasons this week was so special is because we had a baptism. Erinne got baptized. She is 9 years old and is a special daughter of God. Her family is working on being sealed in the temple! That is so cool. They asked me to baptize her and it made me really happy. The spirit at the baptism was incredible. Seriously one of the strongest moments of my entire mission. It brings tears to my eyes. I know that God loves us. I felt it. And I continue to feel it as I go about doing His work. It was an incredible moment in my life and something I will always remember. I am grateful to be here. So I am not being transferred. My new comp will be Elder Faris. I will get him tomorrow. We will be leading a zone that will have 2 new companionships, making 10 total. We will have 7 missionaries in our zone that have been out for less than 3 months, 4 of those just got off the plane today. 2 of our 3 District Leaders are new as well. Lots of change is happening but with it miracles are coming. Elder Dial and I have prayed all week that we would be able to find someone new to teach. On Sunday, 4 people sat in the row in front of us that I didn't know. 2 were members and 2 weren't. As soon as the meeting ended the members turned around and introduced us to their friends, who want to learn more about the gospel. When members bring friends to church, it is a huge miracle in the life of a missionary. It was direct answers from heaven. God is in control. I love Him. He loves you. I testify of that. I have felt his love for those that I have helped come unto Christ. This gospel is true. It is restored. Christ is at the head. I love you all! 

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  

Week 76

Well hello again! This time from sunny and brown El Paso! Boom! What a crazy week full of craziness. Like crazy. So Last Tuesday morning we all met up at the mission office to head down south. I got to drive one of the mission cars with 2 greenies and another missionary that I knew. The two greenies are actually in my zone now so it was cool to get to know them. We left around 9:30 AM and made one stop in Las Cruces. We got to the El Paso transfer site at about 2:30 PM. It was a long drive and it got less and less green with every mile. Not the ABQ was very green because it wasn't. As soon as I got to the area with Elder Prigmore, my new comp, we got to work! We taught the gospel a ton! We teach way more down here than we do in ABQ which is super nice. Let me tell you about a couple people. First is Zenia. She is a YSA that we are teaching because the YSA sisters are super far away from us. She is incredible though. Really has a strong desire to get baptized. She came to church yesterday which was awesome! We have a couple lessons lined up for this week so we are excited. She is getting baptized on the 5th. Another person is Amanda. She is engaged to be married in November and will be baptized soon after that! Hopefully around the 26th. She loves the Book of Mormon and the gospel. She really has gained a testimony of it and it was awesome to meet her. I am excited to keep teaching her! Another family is Mike and Hilda. They were a referral from the Hermanas. They are incredibly humble. Life has taught them a lot and they are really reseptive to the gospel. They love the feelings they get when we are in their home. Last week Hilda set up an appointment over a week away and Mike told her that it was too far and we needed to come sooner. They are preparing for baptism on the 19th of November. There are a few others that we meet with and see. This week has been a big roller coaster! Elder Prigmore goes home in 4 weeks which means I have to take over the area then. I am stressed a little but know without a doubt that the Lord will provide a way! He loves us all!!

Elder Carruth  

Week 75

Well I got here and had 3 emails in my inbox. Apparently I forgot to tell everyone that my Pday is on Monday. That is a permanent change starting today. All pdays will be on monday. Anyway this is my last day in Albuquerque! I am getting transferred tomorrow. Do you wanna know where to?!?!?! I am going to EL PASO! I am headed down south! To TEXAS! WOO!! I am actually pretty excited about it. My new companion is named Elder Prigmore. He has 5 weeks left on his mission so I will get another new companion and have to take over the zone really quickly. Pray for me. My whole mission has been in the north half and the south half is a completely different place! So I am excited to go learn and grow. It very easily could be my last area. If I spend my last 5 transfers there. So seeing this is my last week I should probably tell you a little about it! More of our investigators decided to stop investigating into the church this week. That was sad but we know that the Lord is preparing others for us to meet! We had a cool experience this week. We were about to go knock a few doors in an apartment complex. We said a prayer that Heavenly Father would help us teach one lesson while we knocked. That someone would let us teach them when we met them. We talked to 1 person out of the first 16 doors. We only had 8 doors left but we were thinking about leaving. It was a little discouraging. But we promised the Lord we would knock the whole building. So we went forward. The very next door we were able to teach a lesson! What a miracle! Had we left we would not have met this wonderful daughter of God. The Lord truly answered our prayers. The next day we decided to try something new! We went on a zone blitz. That is where the whole zone goes to one area and we all knock doors. The hope is we find people to teach for a struggling area. It was a huge success! We found 5 or 6 people who agreed on having the missionaries come back. What a cool way to help other missionaries and to do the work of the Lord. Another cool experience we had was when an inactive member of the church contacted the mission office for a blessing. We got the call and headed over there. She hasn't been to church in 6 years but has really felt the Lord telling her to go back. We were able to give her a blessing. The spirit was powerful. Not only that but we gave her husband one as well. He is not a member of the church and agreed to meeting with the missionaries! A miracle of the Lord. Yesterday was a tough day for me. Having to say goodbye to people I love and care about so deeply. So many incredible families here in the ward. I got to bear my testimony in sacrament and I also gave a talk in the YSA. It went really well and one of the YSA members told me it was a gem. I am going to miss these people so much. So many of them have changed my life forever. I am excited to see what El Paso has to offer! New missionaries to meet and serve with, new people to find, teach and love and new experiences to grow my Faith and testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all!!!

Elder Carruth