Week 85

Hey so this is probably going to be a really short email. And I don't know how much time I will have to email for the rest of my mission. Here is why. On Monday morning I got a call from President Guffey. I didn't really know why he was calling but it didn't take long to figure it out. President called me to be an AP (Assistant to the President). It was honestly super unexpected and overwhelming. But I am excited for the chance I have to serve all of the missionaries now. I had about 6 hours to pack and leave El Paso. I didn't get to say goodbye to any of my missionaries before I left which was super hard but I will see them again as I travel to Zone Conferences. I am grateful for this new chance to serve and help the mission. I am humbled by the call. My last 3 transfers are going to go by super fast now. If you want to send me anything in the mail just send it to the mission office:

4400 Presidential Dr. NE. Ste. E

Albuquerque, NM 87109

I will be in the office pretty often so it will be easiest to get it that way. 

The last week I had in El Paso was really good. The Lord blessed us a ton and it was awesome to see. Elder Faris and I worked hard and saw a lot of fruit from it. Christmas was great. I got to talk to my family which was super cool. I am excited to be back up in ABQ!! It will be  big adventure for sure!! Pray for me!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 84

Well another week has come and gone! I feel like I have less and less time to email every time I come to the library. Maybe that is because I have more and more emails! That is good I guess. Yay for being loved. So this week had a ton going on. Super busy with meetings and stuff. We had 3 exchanges this week. The all were pretty slow. We got to have Elder Larkin with us for the day on our AP exchange! It was awesome to get to catch up with him and talk about our companionship together. Made me happy. He is a great child of God. We had interviews this week with President Guffey. My whole interview was talking about the zone and the mission and how we can improve and what things we are doing here in El Paso. It was super cool I felt like I was counseling with President about the needs of the mission. Hopefully I didn't say anything dumb... We also had zone conference this week. I know we just had one last week but we had one this week too! A normal one without any general authorities. Elder Faris and I got to train the missionaries. We gave a 15 minute training 4 times, once to each zone. The spirit was super powerful though. It helped us train to the needs of the missionaries and helped us learn from what we were training on as well. It was super cool! So we had a couple lesson with James this week. He is the one who our member brought to church a couple times. I don't remember what I told you all about him. But we taught him twice and he accepted a baptismal date of the 14th!!! Of next month. He is going out of town for the holidays and getting married in the process! That is so exciting! He loves the gospel and it is a miracle for us to get to work with him. We wont see him for the next 2 weeks so pray for him!! We will be!! We had a baptism this week! Carlos got baptized! He is an awesome kid. Super smart and knows the gospel is true! His family is doing well. They are returning to activity. His mom is super sweet and there is a special place in my heart for them. The work is going well! Now we need to find people to teach so it can continue to go well!! Pray for us!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! Remember the reason for the season! Christ was born so her could fulfill his mission, to die and rise again for us. Because he arose, we will all rise as well. I love you all!!!! 

mormon.org has a great video for this time of year. Check it out!!

Elder Carruth 

Week 83

Well what a week. So much has happened over the last 7 days. Like a ton. Let me tell you about it all. Imagine all of this in one breath... it would be funnier that way. Soooooo on Tuesday we had a mission tour with Elder Pearson of the 70. What a powerful disciple of Jesus Christ. He gave us so much to think about and new ideas to apply and to help our mission progress. He also gave us a wonderful feeling of the love our Father in Heaven has for us. It was such a spiritually motivating day for all of us. We all received revelation on what we can do better. During the conference Elder Pearson asked 3 missionaries to get up at the pulpit and give a 5 minute talk that we were all asked to prepare in advance. It is the scariest time of zone conference honestly cause you never know who will get picked. Usually Zone Leaders don't get called because we are asked to give other training during the conference. Well, my luck seems to have run its course. The last of the 3 names that Elder Pearson read was "Elder Carruth." I got nervous for the first few seconds as me and the two sisters he chose walked up to the stand. But I also was filled with confidence and assurance because I knew that I had prepared something that the spirit would help me with. I knew that my preparation was adequate and I have faith that the Lord will help me. As my turn came I was filled with love and I spoke boldly and by the spirit. I honestly can't remember much of what I said, but I do know that I got a ton of compliments on my public speaking skills and the spirit that my talk brought to the meeting. It was a really big testimony boost to me. I know that the Lord helped me a ton in preparing and giving that talk in front of a General Authority of the church. I am grateful. The whole mission tour was awesome. I know that the spirit was there because when the meeting ended I just wanted to tell all the missionaries how much I love them and that God loves them. One of my spiritual gifts is telling people that I love them. Something about compassion. But the rest of the week was super good too! We saw a ton of miracles! We have this investigator named Jackie. Well she has been close to baptism a couple times. This week we were finally able to meet with her again and she set her own date! She is living all of the commandments too! She is getting baptized on the 7th. Also!!!! She invited a friend to one of our lessons last week and he also wants to be baptized! They both came to church yesterday too. It was a huge miracle straight from heaven. We also got to teach James this week. He is a referral from a member. The member actually brought him to church the last 3 weeks we just haven't been able to teach him at all yet. Well we talked to him about the Plan of Salvation and he loved it! He wants and eternal marriage and is getting married soon. He loves the gospel and wants to be baptized! The Lord is seriously pouring out blessings from heaven for us. This last few months of my mission seems to be the time where all the promised blessings of the last 18 months come to pass. I have prayed with all of who I am that we would see miracles. And we are. God truly does and will answer our prayers. This next week is going to be crazy busy! We have 3 exchanges to do and another Zone Conference to go to. It will be exciting and stressful! I love you all so much! And so does Heavenly Father. 

Elder Carruth     

P.S. - funny story I forgot to tell. We had to go to ABQ for MLC with Elder Pearson this week. So we stopped in Las Cruces for some Chick-Fil-A. We were almost done when these 2 high school aged girls pulled up chairs to our table and began asking us questions about the gospel. We had 4 missionaries there. They were not question designed to learn but more designed to prove us wrong. It was fun having 4 missionary minds full of scriptures and quotes to help these 2 girls know how to have a better relationship with Christ and what the Atonement is really about. It was a fun experience because I don't think they got the answers they were expecting. Good times in missionary life

Week 82

Well another week has come to a quick end. Sometimes I feel like I get to email everyday. That is what it feels like out here. We just sit and email all day everyday. But I guess we do some real work too. This week was really good! We had a ton of meeting to go to and tons of stuff to prepare, so we spent a lot of time doing that. But we did see a lot of miracles in the work! So transfer day happened, my new comp is Elder Faris. He is from Idaho. Like all of my comps are it seems like. But he is a really good Elder! Knows what is up and is excited about the work! That day right before transfers I had a really confusing experience. We walked up to this lady in her garage and said "Hey how's it going?" and it response she said "no hablo espanol." I didn't know how to respond or what to say to that. Like you just spoke in Spanish to tell me you can't speak spanish? When we said hi in English? Hmmm.... anyway something really cool happened later that day. We went to see a less active and as soon as we walked in they told Elder Faris that they knew him and his parents. As it turns out, the parents of this less active member are the ones who introduced Elder Faris's parents to each other and introduce his mom to the gospel! Crazy small world! But super cool. We had a baptism this week!!!! Amanda got baptized! She got married too! Our Stake President married them and then right after that she got baptized! I was super touched when she asked me to perform the baptism. It was a special experience for me. The spirit was strong and peaceful. She is amazing and will be an amazing member of the church! The miracles that came this week were in direct answer to our prayers. Elder Faris and I have been really praying that we would find new investigators and that we would be able to keep teaching a lot even though we have baptized a lot recently. Well the Lord answered our prayers. We have 5 lessons set up for this week with just new people that we met last week. It seems like the very little time we have spent knocking doors is being magnified by the Lord. It seems every person we see wants us to come back. Every one we talk to is a miracle from heaven. Not only that, but a member of our ward that brought a friend to church last week brought that same friend this week AND another friend who happens to be a family of 4. We also got a referral from a member in sacrament meeting that we have already made contact with and have an appointment to go teach. The Lord is truly blessing us a ton. We are diligent and faithful in the work. But more importantly we are obedient to the commandments of God. That is when miracles happen. We are so blessed to be here on this mission. This is the best mission in the world with the best missionaries. Especially my zone. I have so many incredible missionaries here and I love them all so much. I love all of you as well!! Keep it up!!

Elder Carruth 

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 

Week 74

This is going to be extremely short! I have very little time today because we went to the zoo this morning with the zone. So I will just share a miracle story. On Sunday we had a member bring his friend to church with him. He introduced us to her as soon as we walked into the building. Her name is Shana. She came to gospel principles class and Jennifer and Domonic were there too! It was awesome to see them I didn't think they showed up. We decided to ask the class if they had any questions for us. That was inspired because the questions that came were incredible. First off Shana asked the first question. It was her first time at church. Not only that but her question was "How does baptism work in this church?" It was amazing! By the end of the class she told us that she has found her new church! Our church! She lives just outside of our area but the sisters are ready to teach her and help her. The next question was one that really touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I was fasting that Sunday for Jennifer and Domonic. We have been teaching them for a couple months and I love them both to death. I am 100% POSITIVE that I knew Jennifer before this life. I know for a fact we were friends before this. And not just friends but like best friends. Like brother and sister. I have been praying so hard because I know that Jennifer wants to get baptized and wants to get sealed in the temple. But Domonic has been a little slower on the uptake. He is Catholic which is awesome. Firm faith in Christ. The miracle came in class when Domonic told us his hang up on getting baptized with his wife. He told us that he has had family who has passed away who were good Catholic people. He didn't want to believe that they couldn't live with Domonic again because they weren't sealed and they never had the chance to be in their life. It was a big deal to him. The spirit had him ask that question because we have the answer. Everyone gets the chance to accept the gospel, if not in this life then the next. We explained and testified that his family would learn about the gospel and have the chance to be sealed. They are waiting on Domonic to get baptized to take their names to the temple. I think it really softened his heart. Jennifer was in tears. I was almost in tears. It was incredible. They are incredible. We have a lesson set up with them later today. I love you all!

Elder Carruth

PS - The picture with me and a sister missionary is me and Hermana Peyson. She came into the mission with me and we served together in Rio Rancho for all 5 transfers I was there. She is my best friend in the mission. She goes home in a week. Which means the english sisters that came out with me go home next transfer and I go home 6 months after that. Crazy.

Week 73

Hello wonderful family, friends, acquaintances and everyone else!! Happy October! Can you believe it is October? That means November and December are coming. And then 2017! Wow. 2017. Cool stuff. Anyways this week was pretty good! We had a TON of meetings and stuff so we really only got to work for 2.5 days. But in those days miracles happened!! So the Sisters were teaching a man named Daniel. He is in a different ward. Some situations made it necessary that we would need to take over teaching him. So as of Saturday we have been teaching Daniel. Well he is super solid! He has committed to be baptized on the 29th and we might move it up to like the 15th! He has changed so much already as the spirit has taught him and his testimony has grown. I am excited to teach him! He wants us to meet with him everyday! That is so cool! Lots of teaching now. We had zone conference this week! 4 zones got together to be taught by President Guffey. I got to see some old missionary friends which was awesome. The spirit was super strong! I learned a ton. So cool miracle this week. We started teaching a girl named Theresa. We taught the Restoration to her and she accepted a baptismal date of OCT 22! it was super cool! We haven't heard from her since though so keep her in your prayers! We are still working with our other investigators too. So the highlight of this week was General Conference. If you don't know what that is, it is a huge church wide broadcast where the Prophet and Apostles of the Lord speak to us. And other leaders of the church as well, male and female. Their words are inspired and inspiring. It is an amazing time to get answers to prayers and hear the words of living prophets. It happens twice a year. So the rest of my email is going to be questions that many of you might have, and a link or two to go watch a talk that helps answer that question.

Where do I come from? Why am I here? What happens after death?

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_1_talk_3/5150993228001?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_4_talk_3/5151849353001?lang=eng

What is the Book of Mormon and why do we need it?

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_2_talk_5/5151163687001?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_3_talk_4/5151317617001?lang=eng

Is Joseph Smith truly a prophet of God?

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_1_talk_8/5151305274001?lang=eng

Why do bad things happen to good people? Is it possible to be happy?

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_4_talk_4/5151884835001?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_4_talk_9/5151870518001?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/media/session_5_talk_8/5152056834001?lang=eng

By listening to these talks, you can come to know for yourself of who the Savior is and how much He loves you. This is His church led by His chosen servants. I love you all!!

Elder Carruth

Week 72

Hello people!! What a wonderful week this week has proved to be. This might be a short email, so if you usually stop reading around now feel free to keep going! So we had some cool miracles this week. Rosalie, our Jewish investigator, prayed for the first time this week about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ. She told us that she felt good when she prayed and we were able to testify to her of the spirit and how we receive answers to prayers. She came to church for the first time too!!! AND she stayed for 2nd hour! AND she PARTICIPATED! BOOM! So that was cool. On Friday we had a Zone Training that followed up for the MLC we had last week. It was super powerful and the spirit of the Lord was there in abundance. We all received revelation and inspiration for how we can improve and how we can be better. What a wonderful gift from Heavenly Father. That same day we had a member make the whole zone a cake! I think there is a picture of it with this email. It was so cool! It had a Zia on the top and then all around the sides were the doors that we knock on as missionaries. The member used to own a bakery in Salt Lake City. It was amazingly good and the zone was super happy! Ok so I have more miracles to talk about. So we went by a YSA to start the morning off on Saturday. He actually has a couple kids so not quite a YSA anymore but he told us about his neighbors. We deiced to go talk to them. When we knocked on their door they immediately let us in! We were able to teach about the Restoration and Book of Mormon. We were able to give their information to the Sisters who cover the family ward in that area. It was awesome! And a pure miracle from the Lord. He truly led us to those people who need what we had. Later that day went by Jennifer and Domonic. They just got back from a Doterra convention in Salt Lake. We told them to go to temple square and they did!! They showed us pictures of them standing outside the temple! It was so cool and amazing! Not only that but Jennifer told us that next year they are adding time to their trip so they can spend a day their. Jennifer and I are pretty much best friends now. They both came to church this week! Jennifer for the second time and Domonic for the first time! They stayed all three hours and participated! It was a miracle and so cool! If I was telling you this story in person I would be out of breath. Imagine that. Overall we had 5 people come to church this week. That is the most since I was in Belen almost a year ago. It was so cool to see people progress. Yesterday was probably the best day. It was missionary monday. When the whole mission goes to the temple!!! The temple is so wonderful and peaceful. It is truly the house of God. If you don't believe me go to the closest temple to you. Just walk around the outside and touch the outside of the building. Think of your Savior and His love for you. I promise you will feel the truthfulness of the temple. And the holiness that is there. We also got to clean the temple! I got to see the bride room which is something I would never get to see otherwise. We were in the temple for a total of 7 hours. Wonderful. Beautiful. Celestial. I love you all!! Hope this week is the best of your WHOLE LIFE! You are in my prayers. God loves you!

Elder Carruth 

Week 71

Well hello there people. Hope today finds you doing wonderful things and enjoying life. If not then know that I love you and think you are great! And that I know you can do wonderful things. This last week was full of miracles and ended with a ginormous miracle. Like proof that God exists miracle. The hand of the Lord is in this great work. So let me tell you all about everything! Or at least some about some things. So the first really awesome thing that happened this week was we had a mid-month MLC with a General Authority. Elder Pearson of the Seventy came to our mission to visit with just the leadership. (If you don't know what the Seventy is or what they do, https://www.lds.org/church/leaders/quorums-of-the-seventy?lang=eng this website will help.) He talked to us for 4 hours. The spirit in that meeting was incredible. My testimony was strengthened. He talked a lot about our divine identity. How was are children of God and how we want to get back to live with him. When we understand that God is our Father, we immediately want to follow Him and His son, Jesus Christ. This Friday we get to train the missionaries of our zone on the things we learned. It will be wonderful. So a really cool miracle we had this week, not the ginormous one, was when we went to teach Chris. He is a less active member in the YSA. When we got there we found Alana. Chris's friend. She is not a member of the church but wanted to learn and so we were able to teach her the restoration and the spirit was powerful. It was a cool miracle to be able to help her feel the spirit and invite her to come participate in the blessings of the gospel. It was a cool experience. Ok are you ready for the ginormous miracle? Since like 3 of you are probably still reading this far into my email only you will feel the strength and testimony this story brings. We are teaching a guy named Jim. He is a wonderful son of God. He has been meeting with the missionaries for well over a year now. He has his choice of the true church narrowed down to 2 churches. Ours and another one that I won't mention. Honestly he is leaning towards the other one. He has been taught all of the lessons and has read the entire Book of Mormon and a lot of Doctrine and Covenants. On Tuesday, we went over there and made him a promise. We promised him, as representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ, that if he would live the gospel for 3 weeks, coming to church, reading the scriptures, praying daily, following all the commandments, etc, that he would get his answer at General Conference. He accepted our invitation. We went back on Friday. He had been keeping the commitment. Friday was the day that we met with Elder Pearson so we were on a spiritual high. We immediately applied the things that we learned in MLC to Jim. We taught his about his Divine Identity and how the spirit talks to us. He told us that he has a new desire to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He told us that he doesn't get the warm fuzzy feelings at the other church like he does at ours, even though he believes their doctrine more. We testified to him again that he would get his answer at conference if he kept on the path he was on. We also extended a baptismal date of October 8th to him, the week after conference. He accepted! It was so cool to watch the spirit work on him. That in itself is a huge miracle from God. BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!! WAY MORE! He came to church on Sunday which is good. We noticed someone on the stand that we didn't recognize. Well it turns out that it was Elder Torres of the Area Seventy. President Guffey, our mission President, has been talking about him a lot since he lives in Albuquerque. Elder Torres got up and talked about receiving revelation at church. He promised all of us that if we would be sitting down 10 minutes early for church that we would receive the revelation we need for our lives. He also testified of baptism and how the windows of heaven open at baptism. As soon as the meeting ended our Bishop and Elder Torres came right to us and Jim. Elder Torres shook our hands and then talked to Jim for 5 minutes about what he was feeling. Jim told him that he was preparing to be baptized on the 8th and Elder Torres really committed him to that. It was so cool and powerful and really had an impact on Jim. So we are having a baptism on the 8th of October! Be excited!! That is the wonderful thing about having faith in Christ. Through Him all is possible. Without Him, all is pointless. I want to extend a promise to all of you, members of the church or not, that will help you grow your faith in Christ. If you will simply allow the missionaries to share their message with you, just listen to the message they share, it will strengthen your faith in Christ. You will be blessed for heaven. We as missionaries truly represent the Lord Jesus Christ, having been set apart by His Authority to represent Him. This is His work. And He loves you. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Elder Carruth

Week 70

Elder Carruth says time goes fast when you are on a mission!

Holy Moly 70 weeks ago I was at home. 34 weeks from now I will be back home! That is plenty of time so it is ok. I notice an interesting change in what member have started asking me. Instead of asking "How long have you been out?" they are now asking "How long do you have left?" It is a subtle but very big difference. 16 months ago today I entered the MTC and my life changed forever. I can't really believe where I am today and all of the things that I have been able to accomplish with the help of the Lord. This last week was amazingly good. Elder Rayl and I are doing awesome together and are working super hard. Not just hard though we are working super smart as well. This is probably the most diligent I have been my whole mission. We are seeing a ton of miracles from it too. Good things happen to those who follow the Savior! So last week we had a really awesome miracle. Since Elder Rayl and I cover the YSA branch now we can go anywhere in the Stake. We have about 8 wards to choose from to work in at any given time. We prayed one day of where we should go. We decided to go to Ventana since it just recently opened up to missionaries. Even if we couldn't find YSAs we could hopefully help the sisters start their work their. Well we were able to get in contact with a less active member who our branch president asked us to go by. We set up an appointment. That was miracle number one. We knocked on two doors after that. The second door answered and it was a YSA! Her name is Danielle. She is very happy with her current church but told us we could come share with her if she could share with us. She also said she might be open to baptism is God told her it is true. Which is good cause we know that God will tell her that it is true. Cause it is true. Anyway that was a huge miracle for us to start the work in the YSA! We are super excited. Are you ready for miracle number two?!?! So do you remember Margo? She was the lady who randomly stopped her car and told us she appreciates what we do. Well she dropped us this week. BUT! We were able to talk to her daughter, who just so happens graduated from high school this year, which means she is a YSA, and she wants to hear the lessons from us! It was so cool!! Like super cool! The Lord is blessing us so much right now. We are so excited for this week. So many miracles are happening. So Jennifer came to church this week! And it was an amazing sacrament meeting. Two of our young women did a duet of Come thou Fount. One played the harp and both of them sang. It was incredible the spirit that was in the room and Jennifer totally felt it and recognized it! It was amazing. We also had an investigator named Jessica come to the YSA. When I saw them walk in I almost cried. I was so happy to have someone at church and I could truly feel of God's love for them. It was a sweet experience for me. We taught a few lessons last week too. This week should be better on the teaching part hopefully. This Friday Elder Pearson of the 70, he spoke in April conference 2015, is coming to our mission to do a MLC. I am pumped to be there! It is going to be incredible I can already tell! Anyway that is all from me this week. I love you all!

Elder Carruth

Week 69

I am losing track of what week I am on... It all feels like one really big and exhausting week. Full of joy and miracles from heaven of course. This week was the last week of the transfer! It also happened to be a holiday weekend. Wanna know a fun fact about New Mexico? Everyone leaves for the holidays. No one comes here for the holidays. People wanna get away. But no one wants to get away to New Mexico haha so this place is like a ghost town. All of the people we are teaching were out of town so we only had one lesson this week. But that is ok! Because the work of the Lord will always go forward. So lets talk about transfers. We got wrecked during transfers. We almost lost half of our zone! But that is awesome because change is good and I like meeting new missionaries. Not all of them are new to me but most of them are. So one of the missionaries that got transferred was my companion. Elder Campbell headed one zone over to the north side. My new companions name is Elder Rayl. He is a new Zone Leader so I am training him to be one. It is awesome! He is a stud. Great missionary and super sincere in all that he does. I am going to learn a ton from him I can already tell. We are going to work super hard and find the miracles that the Lord has prepared here. Another cool thing is that we now cover more than just the Volcano Cliffs Ward. We also now cover the YSA branch in the stake. YSA is the Young Single Adults. That should be interesting. I haven't had a strong desire to serve in the YSA but I am up for the challenge! We are starting from scratch so pray for us! Yesterday we got to take two greenies with us for the day because they were going down south to be trained. So from about 8 AM to 2 PM we had two brand new Elders with us. We worked in splits so I took Elder Dixon to a lesson with Rosalie. Rosalie is doing good. She had a recent tragedy in her family and since then has read 150 pages of the Book of Mormon. She told us she finds comfort in it too which is awesome! Elder Dixon was awesome as well he will be a great missionary and a leader in no time. That is pretty much all that happened this week. This next week is going to be legit though! We are going to tear it up and have a blast doing it! BOOM! Love you all!

Elder Carruth

Week 68

Another week has come to an end here in New Mexico! I feel like it has been a lot of weeks now. But there are lots left! More people to help and sweat to shed! BOOM!! So this week we were able to accomplish a lot. And we saw some cool miracles as well. Last Pday we took the zone out to Laguna Burger. It is out on the To'hajiilee Navajo reservation and they have really really good green chile cheeseburgers. The zone has been begging to go all transfer so we finally organized it. It was a ton of fun! We got to talk and share stories and I cut Elder Phillips hair with my knife. All good things. It was a good activity. On Wednesday we were able to meet with a guy named Jim. Not sure if I have talked about him much or not. He has investigated the church for a few years now off and on. We just recently started meeting with him after a few months of no missionaries. He has narrowed his search for a church down to 2. Jehovah's Witnesses and LDS. We talked a lot about the Apostasy, which he believes, but he doesn't know if the restoration has happened yet. I thought about it and if the restoration has not happened then it wouldn't matter what church we joined since they would all be fundamentally false. So it was an interesting time to ponder. He is a really great guy. I loved him as soon as I met him. We became friends right away it is kinda cool how that happens sometimes. Thursday was a really good day! I must tell an embarrassing story. We were helping the Hawthornes remove a giant swamp cooler, one of my pictures is me standing next to it. Swamp coolers are New Mexico's version of AC. They require water and a fan that spins. Basically it humidifies the air and pumps it into your house and cools its down. If the humidity of the air outside is above 30%, they do nothing. Which is why they are awesome in New Mexico and terrible in Washington haha. ANYWAY! I was in charge of using the sledge hammer to destroy the electrical box. I had cameras on me... 4 people watching.... I geared up big and.... WHIFFED!!!! It was pretty hilarious actually. I didn't miss again though and vengance was mine haha. It was a good day. On a missionary note we had a sweet miracle that day too. We were walking to our truck when a woman named Margo stopped in the middle of the street to tell us she appreciates what we do. we quickly exchanged info and gave her a call. When she called us back she asked us if we were Mormon or from the Church of Latter-day Saints. If you don't know they are the same. After explaining to her that Mormon's do in fact believe in God, she set up a time to meet with us. When we did we has a wonderful lesson about the Book of Mormon. We explained how it does not replace or take away from the Bible, but simply is a separate witness that Jesus is the Christ and that we have Prophets on the earth today. The Bible and Book of Mormon were written at the same time period, by prophets called of God, simply in different places in the world. Both point to Christ as our Savior. What a wonderful gift from God to allow us to learn more about his Son and about the Plan of Salvation. God loves us. The next day we got to move an upright piano down a flight of stairs. I pinched a nerve in my shoulder which was uncomfortable for a couple days. We also got to go on exchanges! Elder Phillips joined me for the day in Volcano Cliffs. We got to teach Jennifer and Domonic. It was the second time ever the Domonic joined us. We focused on the Plan of Salvation. The spirit was there and every time one of them shared their thoughts or idea it was always doctrine. They already believe the truth. They are truly prepared to have the gospel. Even if they don't know it yet. They are coming to a baptism tomorrow! That will be so awesome! Baptisms are so powerful. Last week was a really great week for us. The Lord showered us with blessings and we were able to help people draw closer to their savior. God is great. Jesus is the Christ. His church has been restored. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Elder Carruth

Week 67

Can you believe it is week 67? I remember when week 6 came around and I thought that was nuts. Time flies when you are serving the Lord. This week was a good one! They are all good though. Let me give you the update on our current investigators. Jennifer is doing good. We taught her last Thursday and then again on Friday when our member invited her to dinner with us. She really loves what we teach and she loves the members she has met. She really appreciates us. She told us that she is not ready to be baptized anytime soon. But I don't think that is true. I think the spirit will touch her heart and help her progress. She really wants her husband to be a part of it. We are going to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and Eternal Families on Saturday so pray for us! It should be really awesome. Rosalie is doing really great as well! Last time we met with her she asked us to teach her how to pray and said she would! That is HUGE progress for her. She is going to come to church this week Her progress is slow but very real. I am excited to watch her move forward. We also taught a guy named Robert this week. Elder Larkin and I found him a while ago and haven't been able to see him. He told us that he would get baptized if her knew that it was true. He is a really cool guy that loves the Savior. That is the update on the people we are teaching! We are still trying to get most of them to come to church and to pray about baptism. The work is always moving forward! I gave a talk this week in the spanish branch. That was a new experience for me. It was cool though. I spoke about repentance for about 10 minutes. There were about 30 people in the meeting. A member of the Branch Presidency came up to me after and said that there were 6 non members there! That was cool to know. It was a good day though the spirit carried through my talk. That is all I have to report on! I love you all a ton!!

Week 66

Well another week has come to a quick close! This Pday came so much faster than all the other ones. Well kinda. The work this week was good! We taught more lessons and went to a baptism! All good things all good things. Anyway we were able to teach Daniel and Cedar this week. Daniel is doing good and tells us that the spirit is nudging him in this direction. He is reading and praying. We just need to get him to come to church. We took him on a church tour this weekend and that was really cool! We sat down and talked to him a lot about baptism and what that would do for him. He is a little hesitant to set a firm date but he knows that this is the right path for him. He feels the spirit and tells us the Lord is guiding his path. We are meeting with him tonight so please pray for them both!! They need your thoughts and prayers!! We went on a couple exchanges this week. First was with the APs. That was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. I love hanging with the APs. They are a couple solid missionaries. Obviously since they are APs. The other one was with the Laguna Elders. I stayed in my area and Elder Nelson came with me. He has been on his mission for 3 weeks now. Well in the field for 3 weeks. He is a stud. Great desire to work and obedient. He taught me a lot and told me what I need to do better. It was great! I got to interview someone this week for baptism. Her name is CJ. She is a young single mom with 2 young boys. She has had a really tough life and as we talked about baptism we both got emotional. She is a wonderful daughter of God. One who has been prepared to receive the gospel. She will now go out and change lives. Her baptism was great too. We taught Rosalie too this week. She is doing about the same. She did tell us that she is thinking about thinking about baptism. It might not sound like much but is a huge step for her. She keeps reading and that is what converts! The Book of Mormon is true!!! Today I realized something. A year ago I was in Belen at the end of my 2nd transfer. 3 of my converts now have been members of the church for a year and I want to talk a little about them.

Chuck: I love Chuck. He was my best friend while I was in Belen. Life has been tough for him but the gospel really changed his life. I know that I was in Belen for him as well as others. I believe we knew each other before this life. I haven't heard much from him since I left that area, however, I found out that he is in a Rio Rancho hospital, nothing major I think, and I just got permission to go visit him. So right after this email I am headed up there to talk to him. It will be a wonderful day.

Kendall: I don't even know where to start with Kendall. We were also best friends in Belen. She grew my testimony way more than I helped to grow hers. The Lord truly prepared her to have the gospel and I feel so blessed just to have been there to watch. She is an inspiration to me and to all those who know her. She loves the Lord. The gospel has changed her life. She has changed my life and my mission by continuing to progress and to share her testimony. She writes me occasionally and I know she is doing well. I love her to death.

I love all of my converts. These are just the two who have been on my mind today as I reflect on the early days of my mission. They will always hold a special place in my heart.

Elder Carruth

Pic - Renee got baptized!!! I taught her in Rio Rancho before I got transferred.

Week 65

Well another week has for some reason decided to end. Which means I get to email you all! Woo!! Yay for you!! Last pday was the dreaded deep clean pday. Where we get to stay inside and clean our apartment all day long... It is good though because a lot of apartments need it. Ours was pretty good but we made it better. Hopefully we pass our inspection! We had a cool little miracle that day though. We were in the truck about to go knock on doors. The Lord prompted us to take a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. So we did. The last door that we knocked on was a woman who recently lost her mother. She was still visibly upset. We gave her the pamphlet and testified of eternal families and of God's love. She invited us back. It was a really cool experience for both of us. The Lord prepares us to help His children. So here is the real miracle of the week. Are you sitting down? Good me too. So I don't know how much I have told all of you about Rosalie. She is our Jewish investigator. She isn't really progressing and told us that she just wants to learn about our faith to know the truth of it and not what others say. Well... She read the Book of Mormon on her own and we know that that is how we gain a testimony. We came back for a lesson and she recognized the spirit! She told us that she felt good about what we say and when we come over. We testified of the Holy Ghost and promised her that she knows this is true. She told us that she didn't expect to be where she is when we started meeting. It was so cool to watch the Lord soften her heart and help her to gain a testimony. It is a small testimony. But the beginning of a great one. It was so cool for us. We got to help some people move rocks this week. We carried them in 5 gallon buckets up 2 flights of stairs. They are not members of the church so it was really cool! We had MLC this week. We got to hang out with President for the day and see all of our Zone Leader buddies. That is always a ton of fun. We also got to feel the spirit and receive revelation for our zones. That is the best part. Zone training the next day was amazing. The spirit was so strong as we talked about how we progress. We talked about how the knowledge that we are sons and daughters of God is what makes us want to progress. When we understand that we are literally His children we desire to be like him and be better. It was powerful. I loved it. Hopefully the zone enjoyed it as well! So I received and interesting assignment this week. One of the members of the High Council asked me to speak with him in the Spanish Branch in a couple weeks. I excitedly accepted the invitation. My topic is repentance and how to teach it to people. He also asked for stories of recent converts. 10 - 15 minutes. So it should be interesting! I am excited for the chance though. That is pretty much all that happened this week. We are still looking for more people to teach the gospel too! God loves all of us!

Elder Carruth

PS - I just wanted to show that it rains here... and that there is a pot of gold on top of the Sandias.

Week 64

  

Ok so another week has gone by. This one was painfully slow though. Just because last Pday was Monday and this one is back to Tuesday. I strongly dislike Monday Pday. It throws everything off. Like I mean everything. But we all survived and are back again. Transfers was interesting. My new companion came up from El Paso so I had a temporary companion for most of the day. Any guesses on who?? Thats right! Elder Proctor! I served with him in Belen for 3 months and it was so great to catch up with him and hear that he is doing good. He was on his way down to El Paso. Eventually I got my new companion Elder Campbell. He is from upstate New York and has been out for about 20 months. He will probably end his mission here. We get along pretty great though! We love the area and work well together. We found a new investigator our first 2 hours together actually. Talk about hitting the ground running. His name is Aaron. He is the brother of the person we were actually trying to talk to. He has read the Book of Mormon cover to cover and reads it regularly. He met with missionaries before he moved here. He has had a really tough life but has a ton of faith. He love learning about religion. It is hard to meet with him though. He wants to come to church though which is good! That was really the only person that we found this week. We met with Daniel and Cedar as well. We are still working with Daniel to pray about being baptized on the 3rd of September. We don't know if he has real intent or not. We have a lesson with him tonight though so pray for us to follow the spirit and teach to his needs. So some fun facts about the new missionaries that are in the zone now. Elder Campbell went to BYUI and lived in the same complex as me, Kensington. Not only that, but he is and ECEN major which is in the SAME building on the SAME floor as the CS major. So we probably walked past each other 12456 times but never knew each other. Proves how anti social I was in a former life. Even crazier than that there is a sister in the Zone named Sister Ingold. She also was at BYUI studying math education. We talked about classes and found out that we has Calc together our first semester! We sat like 3 seats away from each other everyday for 3 months! And never knew each other. So I am glad they came to this mission so we could finally talk a little haha. I am blessed to serve with some amazing missionaries out here. I love my calling and I love the work we get to do together. The gospel is true. We had interviews with President this week too. The first question he asked all of us was "How is your relationship with your Heavenly Father?" Talk about a powerful question. Made me think a lot. But I believe I have a great relationship with Him. I feel of His love as I strive to be the best I can be and follow my Savior Jesus Christ. I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father loves all of us. We are literally His children. That is why He loves us. We are all Bothers and Sisters, part of a plan that is eternal and perfect. My prayer is that we all strive to follow the Savior and to improve our relationships with Heavenly Father. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Elder Carruth   

Week 63

Another week has come and gone in the mission of Elder Carruth. Some good things happened. Some bad things happened. And that pretty much sums it up!! Have a great week! Just kidding. I have like a ton of time so I am going to tell you stuff. Sooooo.... Well the big news is that my companion is getting transferred! That makes me sad. We only had 6 weeks together and I feel like we had more to accomplish. But the Lord knows what He is doing. He is going to Rio Rancho!! My old area!! We literally just traded places it is pretty cool. I am telling him all the people to say hi to. For all of the people who read my emails from Rio Rancho look for Elder Larkin!! He is coming!! We were able to put someone on baptismal date this week. Daniel accepted a date of September 3rd. We are pretty excited! It was a good lesson and he has already read the first book in the Book of Mormon. Pretty cool. Hopefully he continues on the path he is on! It leads to life eternal and happiness! We were able to go on exchanges this week. I stayed in my area to see if I could take it over after 6 weeks. It went pretty well actually and I think I will be able to handle the area. I am slightly stressed but I know that the Lord has a plan for me and for this area. Me and my new companion, Elder Campbell, will do great things and will see success! I know it will be good. We found a new family to teach this week! Their names are Jennifer and Domonic. They have a 2 year old son and one more soon to be here. They were both raised Catholic and have good Christian values. We talked to them about the Book of Mormon and they said they would read it. I don't know how interested they are in converting but I know that the Book of Mormon is true and will lead all people to baptism if we read it with an open heart. They have a great family and one that would be greatly blessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I am going to end on a really cool story to me. So we went and visited this member who works at a couple different hospitals. He started talking about his friend. She is going through a lot and he found out that she started taking the missionary lessons. She lives up in Rio Rancho. Her name is MaryJo. When I heard that I got really excited. She is the first investigator I ever found in Rio Rancho and taught her till she moved out of the ward. She is an amazing mom and has 3 wonderful kids. I think about her often and wonder how she it. It was an amazing miracle to me to hear about her from a member of my ward here. I truly am grateful. The world is so small. I love you all!!! Thank you!!!

Elder Carruth

Week 62

Ok so first warning this email will be pretty short. So the 69 of you that didn't send me a smiley face from last week wont have much to read this week. Today has been crazy and stressful. We went and hiked the volcano this morning. That is where the pictures come from. This week was pretty good! Every week as a missionary is really good. We got a new investigator! Her name is Rene. She is pretty cool and loves meeting with us. She has never been baptized in any church but is open to the idea of being baptized here. We just need to get her to read and to come to church. We are struggling a little with finding people to progress now. We have a few people to teach but no one that is really moving toward baptism. It is ok though because I know that the Lord is preparing people and that we will be blessed by our diligence. Just gotta keep up the good fight!! That is what we do!! Next week is transfers. Pday is on Monday again next week for some reason. I probably wont get transferred but I won't know till Saturday. These last 5 weeks have gone crazy fast! Time just doesn't want to slow down. Being a missionary is the best thing that could ever happen to anyone. Best decision I have made ever. The Lord is everywhere in this great work. I fear the day I am asked to take off my name tag and return to the society I left behind. Good thing it is a year away!! Love you all!!

Elder Carruth

Week 61

Soooooooo its has been another week. Crazy to think. I say that every week I feel like. Wanna know why? Cause it is crazy... Like wow.... Anyway this week was good! Slightly slower than last week but still wonderful! Any week as a missionary is wonderful. The gospel is great. God is perfect. The Savior loves us. I could probably just end right there but let me tell you about my week. If you have made it this far into my email I am impressed. Send me a smiley face and I will be double impressed. Wanna see who actually reads these things... Anyway we are still doing awesome. Elder Larkin is like dead set on getting transferred in two weeks. I think he is going too. But the Lord likes to play jokes sometimes so you never know!! We will know sometime I guess. Transfers are on the 26th this month. Tuesday. Which means Monday Pday that week. Not a huge fan. We taught a few people this week but unfortunately none of them are really progressing very well. We are on the hunt for new people that we can teach and testify to. So pray for us. Our companionship is doing really well! We get along really well and work hard together. It has been a lot of fun over the last month. Crazy to think I have been here for a month already. So one thing that did happen this week is we had MLC. All of the leaders in the mission get together and council on what the mission needs. A 7 hour meeting in the end but full of spiritual insight and revelation from President. We then get to train the missionaries in our zone the next day for a couple hours. We had a great meeting with the zone. The spirit was there and was inspiring. Nothing else that was super exciting happened last week but we are still going forward! The work of the Lord never stops!! I love it!!

Elder Carruth

Week 60

What a long and busy week! So much happened! So much to talk about! So little time... We will try to fit it all in! So last week we finally got to meet our new mission President. President and Sister Guffey are awesome people. I received my own witness that President Guffey is called of God to be here and to lead this mission. I know it without a doubt. I am excited to move forward with him and to do the work of the Lord. Right after that we went on exchanges! I got to head out to Laguna/To'hajiilee reservations. Got to spend the day out in the middle of no where! It was awesome! I loved it even though it was a super long and exhausting day. We found a scorpion while we were out and about and we caught it. Good times. Waking up on July 1st was a weird feeling. The year is already half over but it does not feel like that at all. Crazy to me to think about it. But still good! The work continues! So last Friday we got to go to Pete and Mandy's wedding! It was so amazing. We were there for a long time but the spirit was so strong. The place they had it at was so GREEN! I miss green. It was like a little corner of Washington! It even rained a little for me! Beautiful. What a wonderful day for them and for all of us that got to be a part of it. One of the pictures us a selfie of us and Pete literally 2 minutes before the wedding started. The following day we got to participate in Pete's baptism. We had a huge support show up from the ward and from Mandy's family who are mostly active members. I love her family. They made me feel right at home and I truly enjoyed it. The spirit was powerful and Pete bore his testimony of how his life led him to where he is today. He inspires me. So before I forget there was a crazy cool miracle at the baptism. We thought that Mandy's dad would bring baptismal clothing for himself since he has been a temple worker before. We assumed wrongly. We didn't have anything for him to wear. We tried to get into the closet with the clothes before he came just to see and we didn't have a key for it. We decided to go back and try the closet again and it opened! There were 2 suits in there and one of them fit him perfectly! And if that isn't enough we went back after the baptism to try again and NONE OF OUR KEYS WORKED! We couldn't get back into the closet! The hand of God opened the closet for us. No other way. True miracle. It was a great week! Besides all of that happening Elder Larkin and I saw a ton of success! We found 6 new investigators! The ones that I am most excited about are Victoria and Erica. We knocked into Victoria, a 16 year old girl, and she told us to come back. When we did she brought her 15 year old sister Erica along. Victoria didn't seem too interested but Erica is. She wants to learn more and if this is the truth. It was such a cool miracle! The reason I am really excited about them is because my whole mission I have taught and baptized 16 year old girls. Kendall in Belen and Angie in Rio Rancho. I call it the Carruth Curse but it isn't a curse. It is a blessing. There are only two reasons why I can think of that the Lord continues to have me teach 16 year old girls:

1) My maturity is that of a 16 year old girl and I connect well with them.

2) My wonderful mother converted at the age of 16 and now I have the opportunity to pay it forward.

I lean towards the latter, but am undecided. I am grateful for the opportunity to teach God's children about our Savior Jesus Christ. What a glorious gift and privilege that is to me. I love the Lord. And I love His children.

Love you all!!

Elder Carruth