Halfway!! What?

I cannot believe this week will mark my halfway point! Where does the time go. I have thought a lot this week about what I have learned and all my experiences in the first half of my mission. The good times, the hard times. Through it all, I know the Lord has been there for me. Some of my most treasured things are the friendships I have made with the members and with other missionaries. I have made friendships that I know will last for the rest of my life, and have inspired by so many incredible people and missionaries. And President and Sister Craven have of course had a lasting impact on my life as well. I think the biggest thing I have had to learn is that Heavenly Father is always there. His Atonement is there to help me to overcome my weaknesses, big and small. Through the Doctrine of Christ ( I have learned so much about the Doctrine of Christ from President Craven) I can truly change and become the person I want to be. Another one of the biggest things I have learned is the importance of contagious optimism. Always looking on the bright side, and being grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord every day. They surround us every second. Heavenly Father wants us to focus on the good things in our life, not to focus on the hard or bad things! Do your absolute best, and leave the rest to Him. And be grateful and happy for His tender mercies. That is one of the biggest lessons I have learned. 

SO transfers were this week, and my new companion is Sister Chandler. It it fun because like I said, she came out with me and sat next to me on the plane. She is from Springville.My district leader right now is going home this transfer, and he is a little burned out. My new companion and I are only hitting our halfway mark this week, and so we are trying to "keep our steam" and trying to keep working our hardest every single day and not be burned out! Yesterday we were talking about how grateful we are for the opportunity to serve and how crazy it is we really only have 9 more months. 9 more months of our lives we get to spend in the service of God. We have 9 more months to serve, and eternity to think about it. So we are going to make it count! 

The Elders in our ward, and us all came out on the same transfer. So we've all been out 9 months. And Elder Teichert was my district leader in the MTC. He is hilarious. He's like my brother. He reminds me of Steve. 

We are teaching this family that is incredible. It's a Mom and Dad and a 12 year old daughter. So Sister Wright met them on an exchange, and talked to the Mom outside her apartment complex. She talked about how she wants a better life for her daughter and wants her standards to be high. But they were out of town for a week, but we finally caught up with them. We were able to teach them about the restoration, and then invited them to Young Womens on Wednesday! (Mom and Dad, remember Heather who came to South Jordan? She is the Young Womens President!) The girl had a blast. And while we were in Young Womens with her, the Bishop stole the parents and went and talked to them for a long while. Had a good conversation. And they have friends in another ward, we found out, that the Dad works with. And Sister Chandler knows their friends in another ward because she served there! It's so perfect! So then they came to General Conference, loved it. They felt the spirit so strongly. They have been through a lot and they came to the Sunday AM session and they felt like every speaker was speaking to them. It was so neat. Then they invited us over for dinner last night. And.. they have a baptismal date for OCTOBER 26TH! We are so excited for them. They are incredible. 

GOD IS SO GOOD. As we were going to the appointment with this family, a lady named stopped us on the street and was like "Hey I need to talk to you. My friend always tells me to talk to you guys". We talked with her and found out she has a member friend who as been trying to get her  to meet with missionaries for a while, she told her she sees us around the complex a lot and her friend told her to stop us. So she invited us over for breakfastSaturday morning. (yes.. we get fed a lot...) and she made this big breakfast, and her member friend was there too! It was perfect! And guess what.. this member is from a different ward so I I didn't know her, but Sister Chandler served in her ward and does know her! So there is definitely a reason why Sister Chandler is here! It was incredible we taught about the Restoration and the member told us about how she was baptized when she was 8 and she wanted everyone to know about the gospel, and went door to door the day of her baptism and was trying to give everyone Books of Mormon. She went on a mission to California, and she got to share it there, but now one of her friends invited the missionaries over to learn about the gospel she's like "This has been my dream since I was 8!!" She was definitely moved and bore powerful testimony to her friend. She also has a baptismal date now. November 2. She wasn't able to come to the church to watch conference, but she watched it at home. We'll follow up with her to see what she thought. 

Anyways.. so many miracles! Heavenly Father is so good. He is real. I loved conference, of course the spirit was so strong and I learned so much. I thought of how I have changed since last conference, and what life will be like next conference!

We had MLC this week as well, and got training on Christlike Leadership from the Assistants and President Craven.

We have 2 exchanges this week (YAY!) and 8 this transfer. It's so crazy going out of your area twice a week. We make it work though!

Love you all. Thanks for the support.