Tender Mercies

Hello (:

This week has been just full of getting to know everybody. All our investigators, less actives and members. Since I'm still new in the Ward and my new greenie, Sister Dowdle is new, it gives us a good excuse to stop in on everybody. So, my new companion is Sister Dowdle. She is from Alabama and she's absolutely the cutest. We get along great and I'm pretty sure we need to be companions forever. (: The Ward has been awesome and have been helping us so much. These little tender mercies and miracles have been taking place here in Athens and I know that as we continue to work hard we will see more and more.

1: A recent convert, Pam, took us to dinner at Wendy's one night. As soon as we arrived the lady working the counter asked us if we had a Mormon Bible. I took one out of my bag and handed it to her. She handed it straight back, telling us to sign it and put our phone number in it. She is searching for a church and has been hearing a lot about the Mormon church. She told asked us when she would be able to come to church. She was just so prepared and ready. We definitely weren't expecting that response

2: As we said goodbye to Pam and was about to exit, One Directions "Ready to Run" comes on the radio and so obviously we had to stay until the song was over. It was definitely a tender mercy. (:

3: So because I am training again all of a sudden, we were able to go to the follow up meeting for all the new missionaries. My favorite people (missionaries) from Shallowford are also training! ... We were missing one. But it was sooo wonderful to see Sister Barben and Elder Poulsen. Plus, the follow up meeting is always good. It always pumps us up and gets us ready to talk to everyone that we see!

4: So our investigator is really struggling with trying to find a place to live and he doesn't have any money for food, so we decided to talk to some members about getting him some food to eat. All of a sudden a less active calls us, telling us he has a bunch of food that he doesn't want and was wondering if we could use it. Of course we took and and was able to get it to our investigator. He was so appreciative. (:

5: As we were completely out of a lesson one afternoon we saw this lady walking her dog. We were able to talk to her for a little bit and we found out SHES A MEMBER. She hasn't been to church since she was a teenager and she wasn't on our records at all. It was such a blessing to find her and she wants us to come back this week and visit with her. She says she needs to come back to church, she's just a little nervous.

I am so grateful for all these tender mercies that happen each and every day. I know that if we look for the Lords hand more fully in our lives we will be able to see that he is highly aware of us and is giving us blessings and miracles that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. We just need to look for them (:

I love y'all (: have the most wonderful week.

Love, Sister Merritt