Great story

hello everybody.

i am going to copy and paste the email that i wrote
to my president this week, because you all should know the story too.
it's the story of the fifteen year old on probation that i mentioned
last week, but i didn't share the details because i was too busy
sharing the other story. i got chastised this week in my interview
with president trayner for not sharing this story in my letter to him.

"hello, hello. so, as requested, here is the story of azalea:
it's neat to look at it from the two different sides, now and in thef uture. from our side: the night before it happened, we were planning and i was looking at the map to find a street to contact. this one neighborhood in the bottom far away corner of our area stood out to me. i asked sister petersen about it and she said she couldn't remember ever contacting it. so we decided to go to it first thing in the morning. when we pulled into the neighborhood, sister petersen realized that she had just recently contacted almost that whole neighborhood just weeks before with sister smith. but since we already made the trip out there, we decided to contact this one little street that they hadn't hit. and then of course it was the last door on the street that the miracle happened. we knock on the door and a very sleepy looking fifteen year old girl answered the door. we had just woken her up. we got to know her alittle and then told her that we share a message about jesus christ and how we can strengthen our family relationships by living the things that he has taught us. we said that, still not knowing mucha bout her. she let us in, and we sat down and talked about the doctrine of christ.

Her side: she told us that just the night before she had stayed up half of the night crying and praying, and asking for things to get better with her relationship with her mom. azalea has been locked up three times, and is on probation, and she and her mom do not have a very good relationship. she expressed to us that she even had thoughts of suicide, and that is what brought her to be praying so desperately. we were able to promise her that through jesus christ things with her family could be better. she could be forgiven of all those past things she's done and start a new life. she could have god's spirit with her to guide her and help her make good decisions. that even if things with her family never improve, she has heavenly parents who would always be there for her. we set a baptismal date with her for the 31st of october. she has been reading in her book of mormon and been preparing for that day.

at times like these i know that the spirit of our father in heaven really is here in mcallen and is truly preparing people to receive us, and preparing us to find them. all miracles aside, this week was kind of disappointing (not discouraging). azalea didn't come to conference and we had to drop two of our investigators with baptismal dates. but it's okay. we have faith and we will find more and help the ones we have..."

this week we found caleb at his parents home alone, doing the deed with his girlfriend. it was really awkward and i'd rather not re-hash the details. hah. but we had a "you need to get off the fence and make a decision about something...anything.. or there is nothing else wec an help you with" lesson with him. it was sad but it went well. he is really thinking and meditating on his life and if he wants to choose to be happy or choose to keep getting into trouble all the time. we're hoping that with some time alone to think he'll figure his life out.

anyhoo. general conference was great. i hope everybody enjoyed it. i am running out of time. hope everyone is happy and healthy and well.

until next week.

brittany