"I really baptized her!"

HELLO.

First of all, Jennifer was able to be baptized!!!! She was so excited. It was such a good baptism, and the spirit was there so strong. Bishop was crying the whole time. We had our two recent converts speak. Minnie (member for 7 months) spoke on baptism, and Chelsea (member for 2 months) spoke on the Holy Ghost. They did AMAZING. And both talks touched Jennifer. We had Elder Roberts do the baptism. He has been out for about a month and it was his first time baptizing someone. She went so low she almost hit the ground. "I really baptized her." said Elder Roberts. Jennifer then gave her testimony. I had never before heard the story of why she let us into her home in the first place, and it was so touching to hear that a voice inside her head told her to "let them in." She said she's never regretted it and she knows this is the truth. We are so happy for her! The Ward members are great. Her visiting teachers are AMAZING and just taking such good care of her already. (:

This week has been full of working with the members. We have received so many referrals this week and have really been working on getting the members trust. I cannot tell you how often we have heard "thank you for bringing the spirit into our home" this week. It's been awesome.

I think it all started with zone meeting. We were all supposed to prepare a four minute restoration lessons and then we would role play it. ROLE PLAYS. They are aweso...actually I hate them. They are so hard, and you look and feel so dumb. But they are the best things. They help so much. So sister Holmgren and I got with another companionship and taught the four minute restoration. Simple and full of the spirit. It was amazing the spirit you felt while in the church gym. All these missionaries testifying that our Heavenly Father loves us and because he loves us he sent His son, Jesus Christ to take upon Him our sins, and that Jesus Christ's church has been restored through a living prophet named Joseph Smith. powerful.

We decided to do this while tracting. So while we are on door steps we don't even allow for them to reject us and close the door, we just start teaching. It's helped so much and we have been able to have such meaningful contacts this week because of it. By testifying of these things on the doorstep, there is no denying the spirit that comes. There have been tears in people's eyes! It's amazing.

The elders came up with a fun way for us to leave thank you cards at dinner. We are now writing a thank you note on the back of a picture with all of us and sneaking it onto their fridge somehow. ... Aka, it's just an excuse to get a picture with us (; haha just kidding. But it's fun and the members have loved it so far. The picture is below, but sorry it's a little blurry.

We haven't had many lessons this week and everyone we had scheduled to get in with canceled. SO we did a lot of tracting. One night when we had already tracted all the streets we had picked out we hopped into he car and looked through our GPS to see who was nearby we could stop in on. There was something marked right at the beginning of a street so we clicked on it and it literally said "tract here." Okay! So we did. We found this Muslim lady who let us in to teach her. She said it was funny because the night before her and her husband were talking about Mormons and had a bunch of questions, and we were able to answer them all for her. She's really not interested in converting, but it was still a cool experience nonetheless (:

I've been studying a lot on faith this week and I found this really awesome talk called "the transforming power of strength and character" by Richard G Scott. But I really liked this little part of it...

"What are some of the empowering principles upon which faith is based?

-Trust in God and in His willingness to provide help when needed, no matter how challenging the circumstance.

-Obedience to His commandments and a life that demonstrates that He can trust you.

- Sensitivity to the quiet promptings of the Holy Spirit.

-Courageous implementation of that prompting.

- Patience and understanding when God lets you struggle to grow and when answers come a piece at a time over an extended period."

Anyway, I hope we can all have a little more faith this week and nourish that faith by daily prayer and scripture study. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us all, and because He loves us, He has restored the truth on the earth once more. I love you all. <3

Love, Sister Merritt