Elder Dustin Carr

A Week in the Life of Elder Carr

This week was great.  We got a lot of time to work in our area, allowing us to have 25 lessons, 5 new investigators, 10 member lessons (hitting both those standards), and almost reach our baptismal date and sacrament meeting attendance standards!  It was awesome!
 
I feel that in this last transfer I have changed a lot as a Zone Leader in my focus on other missionaries needs.  I got to go on two exchanges this week and really enjoyed getting to focus on the missionaries I was with in striving to uplift, encourage, and inspire them - as taught in the white handbook.    A lot of it probably came from when we were constantly taking care of the Sister Missionaries in the hospital and it really taught me some things.  Since then I've focused so much more on following the leadership goal in the white handbook which "... is not merely to supervise or motivate, but to lift, encourage, inspire, and bless."  It really is a Book of Blessings!
 
We had a sweet miracle this week with an older lady that is a close friend and neighbor of a good member friend of ours.  She has been taught by the missionaries since a few months before I came, but she would never accept a baptismal date because she was afraid of what her children would think.  She had also been concerned about how she could just "turn her back on her old church" which she has been a member of most of her life, but one of the biggest things she desires is to be sealed to her beloved husband who passed away a few years ago, and Christ's true and restored church offers that.  : )

So this last Tuesday, during a lesson with her about prayer, the conversation turned towards her joining the church, and I felt impressed to ask our gentleman friend what he thinks his neighbor still needs to do to know this church is true and decide to be baptized.  His answer was, "She already knows it's true! She's just nervous about what would happen.  So she just needs to make the choice and go into it with faith!"  We then asked her if that was correct and she replied, "He knows me too well."  She asked us a few more questions and then made the decision to be baptized and to pray about a date.  She then said the closing prayer - telling Heavenly Father that she has made her decision and she is ready.  On our next visit, she explained that she wants to be baptized as soon as possible, so we set her date for Aug. 11^th. : )  She also has the goal of making sure that she can go to the temple in a year so that she can be sealed to her husband for time and all eternity on their anniversary date.
 
This was quite an amazing experience and it was incredible to see how much the Spirit directed those lessons and her decision, because without it, none of that would've happened.  : )
 
From Maine with Love, Elder Dustin Carr