TRIO TIME

Hey y'all!

Okay! So... we have had such a successful week and crazy. For y’all who don't know, because of a ton of emergency transfers, I am now in a trio with Sister Hosman and Stauffer. We are taking over both the Monroe and Loganville areas so as you can imagine... Super busy. We have both apartments, so just depending on what we are doing that night and where we are, we stay in the apartment closest. Basically we just have a suitcase with us at all times in the trunk of the car with extra clothes and a toothbrush. We also have an air mattress that travels around our area with us wherever we go. It's very exciting! Lol.

We have started serving at FISH (faith in serving humanity). Sally is the lady in charge. Her and her friend worked as lunch ladies in an elementary school and realized how many of these kids' lunches were payed for by the government. Their families didn't have any money to provide food for them. Sally wondered what these kids would eat during the summer so she started FISH for kids. Volunteers gather together and donate money to make hundreds and hundreds of sandwiches and sack lunches for these kids every day during the summer. Then they would load up some cars and drive all over Monroe and Loganville. We would drive slowly and honk our horn over and over again and ALL these kids would come out and run to the car to get their lunch. It's so cute to see how happy these kids are to get their lunches (:

Jarree is one of our wonderful investigators we have been working with. She is a wife of a inactive member and she has great faith in Jesus Christ. When we first started working with her she wasn’t reading scriptures, praying or going to church despite her strong testimony of the Savior. But she had that desire to come closer to him. Saturday we had a lesson with her.. She told us she has been reading the scriptures and praying a lot now. Her faith in Jesus Christ has increased and she wanted that for her family too, especially her inactive husband. The spirit was so strong as we talked about the importance of baptism by proper priesthood authority and gave her the calendar to pick a date to be baptized. She chose August 13th and at the end of the lesson we had asked her to pray about the date she had chosen. When she asked Heavenly Father if it was right, the room was silent for a while and then we could hear sniffles. She started crying as the spirit testified to her that it was the right thing to do. Sunday morning her AND her inactive husband came to church, participated, met a lot of people and could feel the spirit. At the end of the three hours Jarree's husband excitedly tells us "I've had the best day! I'm ready for a calling! Where's my home teaching list? I need to be more involved!" He then became a little more serious and said "I wanted to thank you Sisters, if it weren’t for you, we both wouldn't be here today." Jarree, too, was so happy and told us they would definitely be back the next week! The Spirit has definitely pricked both of their hearts and gave them a taste of something they had both been missing for a long time. They now have a goal to be sealed in the temple a year after Jarree is baptized and want their two kids to learn about the church as well. It reminded me of a verse in 1 Nephi 8:12 "And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit." The gospel is definitely something that brings us joy and I'm happy Jarree and her husband is able to have that in their lives.

Other than that we have stayed super busy with lessons and helping our investigator Tommy prepare for baptism this week. We had 9 investigators at church and all of them are growing closer and closer to the next step (: love y'all!!

Love, Sister Merritt