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