May 19

Hello family!

Wow this past week was challenging but wonderful!
So on Tuesday we had a mission conference with President and Sister
Craven and they talked a lot about how we (all of our areas) are
losing too many of our baptismal dates and so we need to think about
what kind of changes we can make to be more effective and help people
make it to the baptismal covenant. We are trying to get back to the
basics and do more and to work our tails off.
And so because Sister Gunther and I were trying to do better this week
of course we'd meet some opposition, so there were moments that just
felt like failures but truly by the end of the week we saw the little
miracles that had been happening all along and we met some of our
goals that we hadn't done before yet.
I would say much of our success came via working with members this
week. We had wonderful opportunities to go out with the sisters in the
ward and to have them join us in lessons which, believe it or not,
makes a significant difference in teaching people.
The tender mercies of the week were:
Garrett and Jodi are expecting their first baby this week!! :) so they
just met with the bishop and we will teach them about the priesthood
so that Garrett can be baptized in a few weeks, work towards the
priesthood, and then when Jodi is ready he can baptize her. It will be
such a blessing for them as they are just starting their family and
the new baby. :) I love them!!!
We also just found a new investigator through a member this week. Her
name is Charlotte and she grew up here in Charlotte, ha! She was very
sweet and the first day we went over to contact her, she opened up the
door and invited us in right away, I mean we hardly introduced
ourselves before she warmly invited us in. I so hope she continues
meeting with us.
The Hansens had us over for dinner and also invited their oldest son's
best friend who is a nonmember. He was a very sweet kid and we are
trying to get with the rest of his family as well. We talked about
prayer and Brother Hansen shared a time when he had a prayer answered
as a teenager and it really set the tone for the Spirit to be there.
Also, we had dinner with the Souza family yesterday. They are a
Brazilian couple who are so kind and they have one son who is getting
baptized in two weeks. They asked if we would teach the son to help
him prepare for baptism and of course we were delighted to. The Souzas
both served missions themselves so it was fun to compare the
differences between then and now.

Well, I am about out of time but I think I covered the whole week.

I hope y'all are doing well! :)
Love,
Sister Rust