Claiborne Street

My new companion is Elder Andersen. He's from Eugene, Oregon and has been out a transfer longer than me, which means since he doesn't know the area I'm driving and kinda have to lead the companionship, which has been a bit stressful, but it's all good. My MTC companion is training this transfer so I really shouldn't complain. I definitely miss Elder Clarke. He's now a district leader with one of my MTC homies, but me and Elder Andersen get along pretty well. 

Fall is definitely here. The trees are super colorful!  I miss Oregon so much...I think the thing I miss the most is just being a normal person: wearing actual clothes, listening to good music, hanging out with friends, that kind of stuff. I feel like I've been kicked out of society

Lately I've become super grateful for the plan of salvation. The knowledge of who I am, where I came from before this life and where I'm going after this life, brings so much joy, comfort, and purpose to my life. It's such a blessing to have that knowledge, and share it with others.

The way we found our investigators that are getting baptized is kind of a cool story. We were talking with a less active woman on her porch and reading in Alma 13 about how angels are preparing people in every land to hear the gospel.  Then this mom and her daughter come walking along and the less active member yells at them "Hey! Get up here and listen to these boys!".  She's great for referrals for that exact reason. Anyway, they come up to the porch, we teach them, they're totally prepared to hear our message and are super accepting of it, so we set up a time to come to their home and teach them. So we teach them for a few weeks, and then the bishop and his family invited them for dinner at their home. Other than them we were really struggling to find people to teach that are ready to progress, so that night I said a prayer asking that we could just find one person the next day that's ready to progress towards baptism. A couple of hours before the dinner they called us up and asked if the daughter could bring her boyfriend. He ended up coming and is super solid and reads the Book of Mormon all on his own and everything. The Lord answers prayers. Now because of that one less active member's referral we're teaching the mom, daughter, daughter's boyfriend, daughter's sister and sister's family, daughter's sister's brother-in-law and his family, and the whole lower block of Claiborne street because that's where the sister lives and everyone in the neighborhood is always at her home. So yeah, give your missionaries referrals cause it makes us super happy!