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