Elder Lawrence!

his week had a lot of ups and downs..

Starting with the bad...

The biggest down was our most progressing person Dean, had a Ulcer(I don't know how to spell it).  He made it through a possible fatal surgery but did not make it through recovery. His family knows he wanted to be baptized so we are seeing if they will give us permission to take it to the temple. Hopefully this doesn't stop the rest of his family from investigating. 

On a not so bad note, we basically found a mob it's a huge country family out in the sticks who absolutely adore us. The mother doesn't really like that we read from the book of mormon but she wants us around because keeps God keeps prompting her that she us or her family will be lost. 

At their house it's pretty much just an interview with us and then one person will come over and ask us tons of questions and we will teach them for a bit then all a sudden they are needed inside and a different person takes their place. It is a really fun opportunity, their house is also basically the party house of the neighborhood. 

When ever we go over they introduce to a neighbor or a cousin or someone it's the biggest finding pool I have ever seen I mean just in the family alone they have 9 kids and 2 parents. All of the kids are teens or young adults. So,  they have girlfriends or spouses. Its crazy! I loves them soo much. 

However, the mother doesn't let us read the book of mormon when talking to her and it's really funny because we will be talking about a principle and we will quote it to her and she will fill a strong spirit and adored what we say. When the day comes that she does read it will be funny because she'll recognize everything we have quoted to her.... on a different note her kids do a lot of street fighting and they made their own pact that if anyone messes with us that they will stop it real quick.... that was a first for me. 

Another huge highlight of the week was I got to go on exchanges with Elder Lawrence his first time ever leading out in missionary work. Planning took a little while because he was a bit nervous. 

He tried to just do what he had already tried but I called him out for it and we kneeled in prayer and begged and pleaded with God on what we should do that day. We both received a really strange answer that we needed to completely re evaluate and drive to one of the town's far away. This meant we would have to skip dinner till we came back at 9 because there's no places to go out to eat till then.

 It was a long bike ride. It was hard but because we followed the prompting God provided. This area has really been struggling to find people to teach they have just gotten bashed back to back consistently. But today God led us to two single moms whose family's have strayed and who were thinking about suicide. We were able to comfort then and show them the hope of the gospel. We were inspired to share " life is about what you feed yourself" the spirit touch both of them they deleted all social media and have since called the Elders twice since the exchange to talk about what they have been reading, it was a huge miracle! We had many more overall we found 5 decently solid people for then to teach in that one day. To top it all off as we are heading back in one guy pulls over in his truck and asks us if he could take us out to eat. We through are trucks in the back and he took us to subway... he was someone who had lost contact with missionaries in Florida and has never seen them for 15 years but God told him to drive that night and he is ready to take the lessons again. This exchange was just insane with the miracle we had. I'm a little jealous I don't get to keep teaching them. 

Love y'all 

Elder Jarvis