Elder Dustin Carr

Well, this last week was pretty sweet, on Tuesday I was on exchange with Elder Booth who has only been out 6 months now, but really reminds me of myself. He struggles a bit with pride mostly from his great knowledge of the scriptures, but he has an excellent personality that can open up a gospel conversation with seemingly anyone, and his explanation of things really makes this gospel feel like a living gospel - a way of life. I also truly admired his fire and desire towards this work and I can see how great of a potential he has to be a great leader in this great mission! We had an AWESOME day too! We were able to contact a bunch of people, and for once I enjoyed tracting! haha. The best part was when we got to teach a lady who had been struggling with suicidal tendancies and had been meeting with the Jehovah Witnesses for the past two weeks. We taught her about her relationship with God, being that He is her Heavenly Father, and how she can develop a relationship with him. We also helped her to recognize how the Holy Ghost felt as it truly was present in that discussion. By the end, she said her first real prayer, and felt like the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ truly was the answer she had been searching for - She finally felt a connection with her Father in Heaven. It was a sweet moment, and the week just got better from there on out!

 

This Friday was Lani's Baptism! It went great! There was a great turnout from the ward and a lot of support, plus Brother Edwin Brown (formerly the Elder Brown who taught Lani) came and baptized her and most of her family were there to support her as well! So it was an excellent week as it ended with the first baptism the Essex ward has had in over a year :) hopefully we'll reach our goal of having 2 more by the end of this year! :)

 

Lastly, we taught a new family on Saturday. Two weeks ago we went to contact a less-active family who actually had a note on the records that said "do not contact", but we felt to do so anyways and ended up meeting a new family that had moved into that home - a lady and her three daughters. We got to teach them this Saturday with Edwin Brown, and we had the sweetest restoration lesson! it was so great, the kids were into it the whole time, and she TOTALLY related to Joseph Smith and accepted our entire message. By the end the kids were so excited and pleading with her, "can we go to church!?!? please!?" haha. Well unfortunately they couldn't make it due to her husband wanting to be sure that he knew exactly what they were getting into (and he wanted to go with them but had work yesterday). So I don't blame him for being a good Dad and making sure his wife and daughters are into righteous things, but we are just really hoping and praying that his heart will be softened and he will be accepting of our unique message and the decision she and their daughters are making. It sure will be a toss up because this next week will be their first week to come to church together, but with it being General Conference weekend, it could give them the wrong impression of our normal services. So we are really hoping and praying that things will work out well this weekend and that we can find the perfect fellowshipper family for them this week :) Hopefully I'll have some more exciting news for you about them and the rest of the great progress next week!

 

From New England with Love,

Elder Dustin Carr