Miracles

So we have been seeing so many miracles these past few weeks! This area has truly blossomed! Nick is getting baptized on the 16th of August and he is one of the most solid converts that I have ever seen! He is so converted it isn't even funny. He is defending the church to his anti family, and he has even gotten his mom, step-dad, and little brother to come to church 3 out of the last 4 weeks. It is awesome! I love baptisms so much! I have missed seeing one! The Lord has definitely prepared Nick and I know that his baptism is a direct answer

I also wanted to tell you how grateful I am for the Book of Mormon. There is so much power in that book. It has helped me so much throughout my mission. I know that is has given me hope, peace, and comfort. Please remember to read it everyday. Hayden and Katie are included with this challenge. Anyone who can read should be reading at least one verse in the Book of Mormon daily, it will change your life, and perhaps save it. It will bring you strength to fight the adversary. It will give you courage in those situations that might seem too hard to handle. It will be the light at the end of the tunnel. Please read it everyday. 

Overcoming challenges through hope and faith

Anyway, this week has been another great week of miracles. We have had so much success lately with having lessons. Hopefully this will carry over to many people being baptized in the coming months. We have a lot of success finding people, but they somehow drop off the face of the earth and we never hear from them again. 

This week we have been riding bikes more than ever. I like it well enough. I don't like doing it for long periods of time though.

So this week I spoke in sacrament. I spoke on overcoming challenges through hope and faith. It was pretty ironic since I just went through basically the hardest point of my life these last few transfers and faith and hope were what brought me through it. We have also been studying the Christlike attributes and the first two just so happen to be faith and hope, it was really nice to see how far I have come and to see how much I grew. I am so grateful for hope and faith and that they were able to help me get through that rough time. 

We had an amazing miracle last night thanks to the guidance of the spirit. We were just going to knock a street and we had a few doors to choose from. I felt like we needed to knock the door right in front of us instead of crossing the street. When someone answered it turned out to be the home of a member of our ward who is fairly active. We laughed about how we didn't realize it was her house and then we asked if there was anyone who she knew that we could visit. She directed us to go see her neighbor and said that she had actually brought her to church before. We went and knocked on her neighbor's door. The lady opened right up and let us in. We talked about church and she said that it was different than what she was used to, but that she loved it. We have a return appointment with her this week! It is amazing what happens when you follow the promptings of the spirit. 

Ft, Caroline Ward

This week was pretty dang good! We have been working our tails off
here in the Ft. Caroline ward. We are finally starting to see some
success here.

This week we set a solid baptismal date with Nick for August 16th! We
are so excited to see this for him! He has been coming to church for
more than a month straight and you can just see the change in his
eyes. He has so many questions, but he understands that sometimes we
don't always need all the answers. I am so excited to see him enter
the waters of baptism. He has a goal to get sealed in the temple to
his fiancé (who is an active member of our ward) when he is able to.

We also had an adventure this week while riding our bikes. We have
been asked by President Craig to fast from our cars 1-2 times a week
and bike. We tried that this week and the day we did we had a HUGE
thunderstorm roll through. We biked a few blocks and were completely
soaked through. We stopped into a store to get out of the lightning
and the first person that saw us had her mouth drop to the floor
because of how wet we were. We pretty much stayed that wet until the
end of the night, but it was worth it! We had some great lessons with
people we would have normally passed in a car.

We also had a big move this week. They are no longer allowing Sisters
and Elders to be in the same apartment complex, so we are now living
in the Arlington area. I will send you my address a little later today
when we find the phone. We definitely upgraded apartments. We switched
with the zone leaders and of course we planked them and they pranked
us.  We left upside down glasses of water all over their apartment and
they took all of our toilet paper and put our beds in the living room.

Last p-day we also went fishing. I didn't catch anything, but one
Elder caught a sting ray! It was so much fun! First time fishing!