We Did Three Exchanges This Past Week!

October 18, 2016

Dear Family & Friends,

It was a great week! We did three exchanges this past week in Carmichael, Rancho Cordova, and North Sacramento. It was cool to get out and spend some solid time proselyting this week. On my exchange with Elder Escoton, he came to our area from North Sac, we taught our new investigator named Margene. Margene is probably in her late 70's. Our bishop called us the other night and gave us her name and address and told us to go by. She had met with missionaries before in another ward in the stake and was very close to being baptized. But because of her health she couldn't go to church and ended up having to move away to her grandsons house. Her daughter in law contacted our bishop and said that it would be a good time for missionaries to start going back to see her. So on Saturday morning we went by and visited with her for a little while. She really loves to talk! Haha it's a good thing we have had quite a bit of practice listening during our missions ;) After she told us about all the struggles and challenges she had gone through over the past few years of her life we started talking about God's plan for her and kind of the purpose behind the trials we all face. We shared some scriptures and discussed them with her and it was cool to see the bitterness she was holding within her heart all started to fade away and was replaced with a peace and comfort. She was very thankful for us coming over and told us that we better keep coming by haha. Her health still isn't very good but we know there can be a miracle provided and hopefully it ends with her being baptized.

We live with the administrative Elders and they tend to get drawn into the office quite a bit so we did a little team up in their area to try to find some new people for them to work with. I went with Elder Page and we went to work a little in the Fair Oaks 4th Ward. We tried to see a few potentials but didn't have any luck. Right at the end of the exchange we stopped to see another potential and ended up contacting a young girl sitting in her front yard. Her dog came running up to us so we had it follow us back towards her. We introduced ourselves and found out her name was Samantha. We talked with her for a little bit and somehow ended up talking about the power to seal families. It caught her attention and she really liked the idea of the YSA ward. We gave the sister missionaries her info and they went by to see her a couple days later. Turns out she came to church on Sunday and loved it. Now she is getting baptized in two weeks!! So crazy how fast that happened and that just goes to show that you never know just who is prepared to receive the gospel now. We are excited for her.

Sydnea is doing awesome! She is still set to be baptized on the 29th so we will be meeting quite a bit this week to get her ready for her baptismal interview this weekend and then next weekend will be the big day. It will be such a cool day for her and her family. We are hoping to get them out to the temple this week as a family to take a tour so that'll be sweet.

Love you all so much!

-Elder Gammell