Dogs and Little Girls

Hey y'all.

What a week. It's been so very long but full of adventure.

First. We met this awesome lady named Pepsi who we are teaching now. She is searching for a church for her family right now and when we went into her home to teach the restoration she asked great questions that is missionaries love to hear like, "there are so many churches on the earth today, how do I know which one is right?" And, "wouldn't God love us enough to send another prophet so I know how to raise my family?" We put her on date for baptism the end of March. She's ready.

We spent an entire day in a tiny town called Crawford, Georgia. It’s about 15-20 minutes east of Athens but still in our Ward boundaries and way out in the country, so we decided to scope it out. It's cute but there are animals literally everywhere. We were driving down this small dirt road trying to find a house and came to a dead end. So we turned around and saw this huge field next to us filled with DOGS. There had to be around 50 of them. We sat there and watched them for a second which ended up being the worst decision because they saw us and swarmed to the car. We couldn't move for 10 minutes because these dogs

were laying themselves right in front of us and would NOT move. But we made it out of there finally.

We parked the car and rode our bikes all around this little town of Crawford. We were chased by so many dogs that I lost count. We were invited into a home where they had exactly 368,183,729 cats I believe and then were chased by more dogs, invited into 3 homes right off, met 3 new less actives, and knocked on 41 doors. Overall our Crawford trip was a success, resulting in 3 new investigators and 7 lessons, but next time I'll just stick with driving through that town.

We had a lesson with Anna and Trevor this week on the Holy Ghost. As we were talking  we had the prompting that we needed to invite her to be baptized. We did NOT want to do this because last time it resulted in an "absolutely not!" And then things were awkward for awhile. But there came a point and a time in our lesson where that's the only thing that came to our mind (the Holy Ghost is very stubborn sometimes. And so are we) we were having this internal battle for a second but we really felt like we needed to ask her so we did. Silence filled the room for what seemed like forever. And the answer was surprising. "Yes!" Sister Foster, Trevor, the couple who was with us, and I could finally breathe again and everyone was so happy. Especially Trevor. She didn't want to pick a date yet, but we didn't have to beg them to come to church this week, they just said they would be there and they would pick us up. They came to Stake Conference yesterday and absolutely loved it! They talked about the things they learned all the way back home.

Saturday evening we were waiting at home for our ride to pick us up for the adult session of stake conference. We weren't exactly sure what time she would be picking us up, only it would be within 15 minutes. As we were waiting we had this overwhelming feeling that we needed to spend this time contacting. So we start walking through a neighborhood behind our apartment complex. We decided we would visit a potential at the end of the street. As we were walking we see a group of young girls playing in the front yard of a home, when they saw us they stopped what they were doing and just stared. One of the girls ran up to us and we said hello, asked her name, said nice to meet you and then continued down the street. While we were walking away my morning studies of "talking to everyone" came into my mind and I realized everyone meant everyone. Even little girls. So we turned around and noticed that this young girl had followed us. She smiled and asked "Are you the people that teach us about Jesus?" "Yes!" She grinned really big and told us to come meet all of her family and friends. She went throughout her whole house, gathering everyone she could to have us share a short message. We gave all the young girls pictures of Jesus in the Americas, taught them a really simple restoration and told them we had to go, but would be back soon. We went back through that neighborhood the next evening and found out that all these girls had hung up the picture in their bedrooms. We know that we have planted seeds within these young girls and we are so grateful that we used those extra 10-15 minutes working. We have learned it's so important to not waste a second of the Lords time. Miracles are waiting to happen.

I'm so grateful for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and the guidance it gives me every second of each day. I know that this is Heavenly Fathers work and as long as we are listening to that still small voice and obey we can be led to those people who are ready (:

I love y'all. Have a great week & stay good.

Love, Sister Merritt