Hello everyone!!

I hope you are all doing well! Things are going great right now even though there have been some struggles. I am so grateful to know though that all trials and challenges that I go through are to make me stronger. (Trust me I definitely have needed to remember this this past week). I hope that you too recognize that God makes us stronger by pushing us to be what we are capable of.

The area here is progressing rapidly right now, and I am so Grateful I have this opportunity to be a part of it. We have quite a few investigators with baptismal dates and it is great to see the progress they are making. We taught Keith the Word of Wisdom earlier this week, and the lesson couldn't have gone better. We asked him what he understood the Word of Wisdom to be, and he replied with, "I need to quit smoking." He then made goals in the back of the Word of Wisdom pamphlet of how many cigarettes he would smoke per day until he quits all together on October 3rd. We challenged him to only smoke 10 the day that we saw him, and he himself decreased the number by 2 every day as a goal. What is amazing to me is how willing he is to quit. That is a sign to me that he is the elect, and that he is ready to make the covenant of Baptism. He is totally immersed in the Book of Mormon, and reads chapter after chapter. The day we went over to teach the Word of Wisdom lesson he told us that he wanted to re-read a couple of chapters to understand what was going on. I love his excitement to follow Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and how badly he wants to change his life for the better! With Selena we have hit a bump in the road. Her family has told her that she is not ready for Baptism, which has resulted in her not believing that she has fully repented. This past week has been a roller coaster with her. At first she was getting ready to be baptized last saturday, and then she wanted to wait till October 5, then she again was ready to be Baptized September 28. This all happened within the space of a couple of days. What broke my heart was that she KNEW without a doubt that God was telling her that baptism was the next step for her, and that she would be ready on September 28. She willingly disregarded that witness, and it tore me up. I have such a great love for Selena and it hurt me to know that she denied not only God but Jesus Christ. Ever since she denied that, she also has doubts about the Book of Mormon being the word of God. We have decided to put her and her family on pause since they aren't keeping commitments, and I hope that as we do this she will realize that she wants this gospel in her life.

My companion and I are getting along great. There are times when we don't totally agree, but we are able to compromise and that way the work isn't inhibited in any way. We have been working on teaching in Unity, and although we still aren't the best at it we continue to work on it. We have been coming up with ways that will help us achieve this. As we have put these ideas into practice the lessons we teach are more powerful.

We had a remarkable experience with an investigator by the name of Chelsea this week. We haven't been able to see her in awhile because of her work schedule. But we were finally able to meet with her this past week. We talked with her about the Restoration and gave her a Book of Mormon to read. When we gave it to her and invited her to read it every night she was ecstatic! She said that she knows that the Book of Mormon will help her in her life, and she was so excited to be able to read it. We invited her to come to church and she told us that she would love to if she wasn't working. So yesterday before church we texted her, and she said she was sick with the flu. However, she mentioned that she really wants to come this week. The amazing thing to me is that she genuinely wants to read the Book of Mormon, and wants to come to church. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes. So this week we are going to follow up on that with the date of October 19th.

This week I have been totally immersed in the Book of Mormon. I am learning so much, and principles are jumping out at me that have never before. Something I have also noticed is how many times the sword of laban is mentioned in the Book of Mormon. I can't help but wonder what the significence of that sword is, because it appears to be passed down through the prophets. This week I also studied Chapter 10 in Preach My Gospel. I learned that I need to make sure I apply the scriptures to my investigators, and help them to understand how the scriptures apply to them in their lives. I also learned that members are the key to missionary work. Without them progress cannot be made. From what I have learned I am going to be better about apply the Book of Mormon stories to my investigators lives, and working more with members along with serving the members.

I challenge each of you to be actively participating in the missionary effort. Try to find those around you who need the gospel in their lives. Don't worry about offending, if you do it out of love there will be no offense. We as missionaries are here to ASSIST members in missionary work. What great joy will you experience when you brought someone into the gospel. You also will help them feel welcome into the ward, and they will remain active members of the church. Remember "EVERY MEMBER A MISSIONARY!"

Love y'all!!

-Sister W. Williams