Hello from Idaho!: Can You Feel the Love?!

Hey y'all!

Every week when I think of what I'm going to write in my group email, I look back in my journal to see what happened this week. When President Bartlett got here he committed us to write in our journal every day for the rest of our mission.... since then I haven't missed a day! So now every week for my email, I always have lots to say! (Hey that rhymed...haha)

Last Tuesday, July 12th, was Dress Like a Cow Day at Chick-fil-a! No, we didn't dress like cows, but we happened to go for our district lunch after district meeting. We got free food anyways! haha #PerksofBeingaMissionary ;)

We finally got to meet with Elijah again. He is our 16 year old investigator. He was hilarious when we were teaching him! Although he was all over the place and acting kind of crazy, he was paying attention and interested in everything we had to say. We read the introduction to the Book of Mormon. He totally understands why it is important to know why it is true. I hope that he will put forth the effort to read it and pray about it!!

Wednesday was Sister Davis's birthday. I put a few decorations up for her when she fell asleep so she woke up to a little surprise. :) We went to lunch with our black lady friend, Julia. Again, there were lots of hilarious conversations. When we got home that night, Sister Rotz (the lady we live with) put on a mini surprise birthday party and invited some people from the ward over. It was so nice of her!

Barbara is still progressing in the gospel! She loves it and wants to be baptized so bad. She just has so many problems that she is being tried with right now--physically, emotionally, mentally....... She just needs to stay spiritually strong! I am excited for her to be baptized in 2 weeks. :)

Every week I think I talk about the Osuna family.....4 weeks ago they were baptized for themselves....this week they went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! It was so beautiful! I'm so grateful for my 2 years of high school Spanish because I've retained it pretty well--well enough to communicate with them a little bit. :) They are hilarious. But with that aside, it was beautiful to see them perform baptisms in the temple. I have so much love for that family!!!

CRAZY DAVE HAS AN OFFICIAL NAME TAG!!!! He is now a service missionary for the bishop's storehouse. In the 7 months that I have been working with him, he has come extremely far!!! I am seriously so proud of him. He's trying to be a full time missionary.... He even went to the mission office and met with President Bartlett to ask questions! haha He's doing missionary schedule and studying for hours a day. Dave is on a ROLE!!! It's amazing. I love Crazy Dave so much. We took some pictures of him at the temple. He's so precious.

One of our YSA people has a friend who is now taking the lessons with us. Her name is Emily. She is super fun, cute, and has great morals. She is from Boise, Idaho so the majority of her friends were LDS but she never looked in to the church... A decade later, she is now interested in being baptized! She came to church this Sunday. We mentioned that we need a place to live and she asked if you had to be LDS to house missionaries. The answer is No! She might even be interested in letting us move in with her!!! We'll pray that that can happen. :)

Yesterday we had the opportunity to speak at an assisted living place for sacrament meeting. Even though there were only about a half of a dozen people, I felt the Spirit and realized even more how important the sacrament is--even for old people who can't do too much with their lives.

I LOVE the people here so much more than I can express!!!! As I see people progress in the gospel, I gain a love that I haven't felt anywhere else! I wish all y'all could have the same love for these people that I have, because it is just amazing.

Ponderize: Alma 26:12

Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast

of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this

land, for which we will praise his name forever.

As a missionary, I can't become better or perform miracles without the help of God and Jesus Christ. I am working on relying on Him to become like Him... I need to give whole self to Him. I was reading a talk called, "The Fourth Missionary" and one part said, "God cannot work on what He does not have, and He cannot have you, unless you give yourself to Him." I want to give my whole self to Him to consecrate my work as a missionary!

From Idaho to you,

XoXo

Sister Carling