Coming Unto Christ in Arkansas: Fort Worth, Texas!!!

Samantha got her mission call on Thursday!!!!!! She is going to the Texas Fort Worth Mission, English speaking and leaving September 13. I am so happy for her and I am so excited for her to be able to be a missionary and for her to preach the gospel and see the changes that people make and the blessings that come from that.

This area is on fire. A couple weeks ago, we were really lacking in investigators but we have tons now! And there are so many of them that I am excited to see them be baptized one day! I really think they all have a lot of potential. When we were doing a lot of finding, I was worried because I didn't want to be finding we would be dropping a week later. But I wanted to find solid investigators that would get baptized! I really feel like we did that.

Hermana Petty is great! This week we set the second date of her mission. She has said that they had been inviting people, but just that no one had accepted. While we were in the lesson with Yoli (our date), and it was time to set the date, I decided that I wanted her to be able to have that opportunity of actually inviting to baptism and setting the date. But then there was a minute of an awkward pause before it happened. Which is kind of funny now. But it kind of felt like she didn't quite know what to do. And because of that experience, I'm not sure how often people were being invited to baptism before here in Memphis. But Hermana Petty set a date with Yoli and it turned out really good. We tried to set the date for July 22 because she and her boyfriend aren't married yet but then the boyfriend asked if it could be a little later than that because she's pregnant and due in 3 weeks. So that was a little awkward but funny. So we ended up setting the date for August 12 which is really far away, but I think it'll happen.

On Tuesday, we had a lesson with Miguela (our first date) and we needed to reset her date. Her daughter and son in law are the elders' investigators and she hasn't been wanting to set a date because of the situation they're in and she doesn't want to get baptized without them. But Hermana Petty and I had prayed about it and felt good about July 15 as a date for her. It would give them enough time to figure out some things as far as their situation goes as well as time to reteach her all of the lessons in the meantime. We invited her and she still didn't want to commit. :( She wants to be baptized but didn't want to commit to a date. So we testified of the blessings of baptism and promised her those blessings and suggested that we pray about it with her. She agreed to that. I told her I could say the prayer and that she didn't have to say anything except for Amen at the end (because she usually does recitations while we are praying) because I wanted her to really listen to the prayer. We prayed and the spirit was so strong! We asked Heavenly Father to help us know if July 15 would be a good day for Miguela to be baptized. After we finished the prayer, we asked her how she felt. She said she felt very good! We are so excited for her baptism and she is too! The spirit was so strong in that lesson and I know it's the right thing for her. As we were finishing up the lesson, she even said she would do it with or without her daughter and son in law.

This week I studied the beginning part of How do I Improve my Teaching Skills in Preach My Gospel. I noticed that it says to rely on the spirit so many times in just a couple of paragraphs! I also came away with 5 things I need to do to make sure that I am a good teacher.

Prepare

Be worthy of the Spirit

Be real

Testify

Follow promptings.

I know that if I do those things and if I really rely on the spirit then I will teach with power!

Love you all!

Hermana Keller