Preachin' to the Hoosiers: More Blessings in Carmel

This week was fantastic!!!! So many miracles. We have been so blessed. But then again, this is the Lord's work, not ours.

Our mission for the past couple of months has had a standard of excellence. Part of this standard of excellence is teaching 20 lessons per week and since I am in a leadership position for our companionship some further standards are to teach 8 member present lessons with 2 of those lessons in a member’s home. Sister Barrett and I have been doing pretty good and most weeks we get somewhere between 18 and 22 lessons. BUT this week we had 34......... IT WAS CRAZY!!!! We were also able to have 11 member present lesson and we had 4 of those lessons in a members home. We were so blessed this week!! I am glad to be serving in such a fantastic ward with members who are so willing to have us teach in their homes. With members who care about who we are teaching and are so willing to come to lessons when we ask them too. And not that numbers by any means determine our success- but to think that each one of these numbers represent a person, a soul, someone who is precious to the Lord. This truly is His work.

Last week, I told you about Sam, and this week we started teaching his older sister, Sabrina! She is 21 years old and was just sworn into the Navy. She went to Catholic college for 3 years and has a strong roots in that faith. She is not sure that she wants to convert or that she ever will, but she is looking for more peace in her life (little does she know.... this is exactly what she will get ;) She came to church on Sunday and she is reading the Book of Mormon now!! She says that even if she doesn't convert, she has decided that these are truths that she wants to live that she wants to be able to be a support for her Mom, her Aunt and her Grandma who are all recent converts!

We had a lesson with Sabrina on Saturday night at 8pm. She told us that she was on her way out the door after to "hang out" with some friends, which from what she explained didn’t sound like she would be in the best environment. We ended up having a fantastic lesson on the Holy Ghost and how she can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost right now in her life and after baptism she can have the Gift of the Holy Ghost and that through the holy Ghost she can come to know whether or not these truths that she is learning are true for herself. We left this lesson excited about how well she received everything and how strong the spirit was and thought that she would just be on her merry way to go "hang out". We found out that after this lesson..... she decided NOT to go out!!! She told us that it just didn’t feel right and that she just wanted to stay in so she would be well rested for church on Sunday. Little does she know that staying home that night is applying exactly what we taught and acting on the influence of the Holy Ghost. The converting power of the gospel is so strong and so true! I love it!!!!!

Here are some picture from my adventures in Carmel!!!