Hey Y'all!

This week was such an amazing week! We were able to find success in so many different ways! Oh and this week was Elder Tingey's birthday! Now I'm not exactly sure how to describe the great week we had, but what I can tell you is that the lord has blessed us with so many tender mercies. One tender mercy was food. :D We Have literally been fed by the members at least once a day for past 2 weeks or more, save for one day. And through a service organization we are trying to work with, we received 6 bags of food! It doesn't matter if they're members or not, they like to give us food. We have been so blessed. Because I'll be leaving in two weeks the members are requesting that I sign them up on the days we don't have haha! That aspect has been the greatest miracle here. I love the members so much. I pondered for a while about whether it is possible to go through the whole mission in several areas, and to love every single person I meet. I have often felt that there is only so much love that you can give out to people, and that there are only so many people that you can truly care about. That meant to me that saying goodbye to someone meant that my love came with me. BUT! That is not the nature of Heavenly Father! He loves every single one of us. Millions, Billions, Trillions of us. And I'm saying how come I have sooo many friends I don't need on facebook?? But we can do it. We can have perfect love for each person we meet! But it's going to take some help from the man above who knows how.

I am so grateful that the love we have for those we meet can last. I will always love the people here in Cary soo much! And somebody that I have come to love a whole lot is Gloria.
Here's the finishing touch to her story :)

Gloria got baptized!!!!!!! And confirmed!!!!!! We realized at the last minute that she really wasn't expecting the confirmation part. That was our bad haha. After teaching her for more than a span of 6 months, there was a lot that she had forgotten, and that I had forgotten if we had taught or not.

Now I gave a pretty good story last week of Gloria, but we ran into one last bump in the road. Thursday around noon we got a phone call. Gloria was calling off the baptism!! WE GOT SO NERVOUS! We talked, and talked, and talked, trying to figure out exactly what her concern was. It came down to tithing, and being able to stay strong. But she was pretty nervous. We talked to her for a total of 1 hr and 45 mins. Holy cow! We had to slow down so much, talk simple, and explain very well to her the doctrine she didn't understand. When we reached the end of the conversation we asked if there were any more doubts or concerns and she said, "What do I need to bring tomorrow?"!!!!!! Ah that was a huge scare.

Her baptism went super well. She was very nervous and cold beforehand, but afterwards there was such a big change. It was incredible. Someone who had such fear and doubt, was so happy. Last night I was thinking about the whole experience, and I realized that Gloria is a few years older than you and Dad. To have such a huge change was such a miracle. And her family is going to change immensely. A scripture I read this morning was in Alma 19:6 about king Lamoni. I think it describes the change she had really well.

"Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that king Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God—"

I love you all so much! I know that we can be changed just as Gloria, Lamoni, his wife, and Ammon!

Till next week! :D
Élder Johnson