LOTS OF NEW INVESTIGATORS

Hello all!!! Sam, that penguin is so cute! I love it :) Is it the type of clay that you bake? The tables look really good! How long did it take to do that? Three years? Something like that. AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM! Lest you doubt my affection in any way I will tell you that you can expect a letter from me brimming with devotion sometime this week. I will write it today :) I meant to write it last week so that you would have it on your birthday but I didn't write it down on my to do list so I forgot. Well, this week has been a really great week! WE GOT FOUR NEW INVESTIGATORS! We got one on Tuesday. Brittney. She was a referral from Brother Dela Fuente. She is so sweet! She is super excited to learn about the church and the gospel and she wants to be involved in the church as much as possible. She loves coming to the activities. :) We got another on Thursday. A few Sundays we had tracted into a girl named Ashley. I think I told you about her. It was right before we had dinner with Whitney. Any way, Sister Reese and Sister Erickson taught her when I was on exchanges and the lesson went super good. They weren't able to set up a return appointment right there though. So we had been texting and calling and trying to set something up but with no response. So on Tuesday we stopped by. We knocked a few times and then just before we left, who should come walking up the stairs. Ashley! We were able to talk to her for a few minutes and then set up an appointment to meet with her and teach her more. Bingo! New investigator. We got another new investigator on Saturday. His name is Mark. He was an investigator a while ago, but he was dropped. We got back into contact with him because Ryan had let him borrow his scriptures and he came back on Monday to return them. We got to talk to him and set up an appointment. His lesson on Saturday was really good. We didn't teach the restoration like we were planning to, but we learned a lot of stuff about Mark that we needed to know. We have a lot better idea of where he is coming from and so how to help him and work with him. The end of the lesson was my favorite part. We were talking about how he would know if our message was true. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with him. Then we asked him if he had ever received an answer from God before about anything. He said yes. The answer had come in the form of the questions and doubts about the church that he had been attending. He said that it happened over time but he broke away from that church and he knew that was the right call. We asked him how he knew that. After a pause he said, pointing to the scripture we had just read, "I guess through the things it mentions here. That's what I did." It was so cool to see that connection happen for him and to have been an instrument in helping him to make that connection! Then we got another investigator on Sunday. Remember Sydney, Antwains girlfriend? Yup. She came to church! That was a miracle because we thought that they had broken up, and Sydney doesn't have a phone so we had no way to contact her. So we met with her and Antwain after church and answered some of her questions about church. She said she had really liked what she saw and she is excited to learn more :) WOOHOO! And lets give credit where credit is due. Bishop wanted us to get 40 lessons this past week. ...That is a lot of lessons. We usually get around 20 and that is the mission standard that President Shumway has set. But, we tried to do what Bishop wanted, so we worked really hard to get lessons, and though we only got 21 lessons, I honestly think that we wouldn't have gotten as many investigators if we hadn't been been working so hard to get to Bishops goal. Really quick, funny story. So me and Sister Reese have kind of taken up matching up the older members of the ward. It is so hard not to do because there is no reason that these people should not be married! Any way, so we have some fun conversations before bed at night. And so far our match making is totally working out and coming true!!! It's pretty crazy but we are totally calling it! By the way, Sam you should move out here. There is a guy in the ward named Caleb and I think you might get along :) He is super smart, he speaks Spanish fluently, he travels for work (so he wouldn't be around all the time lol), he has been to Jerusalem, he plays the piano, I think he sings as well; yeah, he is just great :) So...just sayin'. Well, that's all I have time for. Got to save some stuff for the letter! I love you all so much! Have a great week! Keep being awesome! The gospel is true! Love Sister Cryer (Letter dated November 3, 2014) P.S. I have been learning so much about the atonement. Something that I have known for a long time but have just started to really connect and understand is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is how we access the atonement. A lot of people think that we lay too much store in our works. That we work out our own salvation and that we believe we are saved because of our works, but that is not really true. If you look in the scriptures it tells us that in order to be saved we must rely wholly on the merits of Christ. So, by the atonement and by grace we are saved, absolutely, but it that saving is made conditional on our faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Ah! This is just so cool. I could think about it for hours!