Finding

Dear Craft Family!

     I'm so glad that things are going so well back at home!  I've been praying very hard for little Memphis and I'm glad to hear that things are looking up.  I can't believe school will start in 10 days though!  Have fun Natalie ;)! haha  Don't worry if you have any questions I'm just an email away and Fremont's not too scary.  You'll do fine. :)

     Transfer calls were this morning and we found out that both Elder Neeley and I would be staying here!  That's just fine with us.  He will now tie with Elder Dalrymple and Elder Haupt as being my longest companion for 2 transfers at the end of this next one haha.  We are being very blessed and look forward to the great things still to come from Lake Nokomis South and Minneapolis.

     This week was another wonderful week for us here.  Brother S.P.'s baptism was amazing and something like that can make any week a good week!  I feel so blessed to have been here at this critical time to be a part of his teaching and conversion process.  With his job as a Special Education Teacher there is no way if we would have taught him any other time of the year that he would have been able to commit as much effort and time to learning and building a testimony like he did with all the other distractions he would have had.  It really has given me an even stronger belief in the timing that it takes for people to learn about and accept the Gospel.  Brady wrote me about not having coincidences and I fully agree.  It was Brother P's time and now we are all anxious for the time in a year for their sealing and the blessing that that is going to be for their family.  I look forward to what the future is going to bring for them.

      I don't think I've told you about this before but if I have I'm sorry haha  we've had a mission focus of getting "2-3-7" to keep a balanced proselyting effort.  We focus on getting 2- FIs (Future Investigators= people who we get their info. and either set up an appointment with or they tell us to come back) average per day.  The other numbers are 3- investigators that attend Sacrament Meeting, and 7- lessons taught to investigators with members present.  This is ultimately leading up to not just having people baptized and then not having anything else going on in the area and having to rebuild after them.  We've been able to reach or surpass that 2-3-7 goal the past 2 weeks in our area and had a sweet miracle this past week I wrote in my weekly letter to President Clements about.  Here's what it was:
"We have been very blessed as we've been committed to our goals here.This past week we didn't have as much finding time and were concerned about making the goal we had set of 2 FIs per day.  Which has been a critical goal for us as people have been baptized and setting dates.  We know that finding now is what will help the work after these people make their covenants, so that's what our backup plan and most of our focus was for yesterday.  We had some Weekly Training Evaluation calls we needed to accomplish last night and could have easily justified going in around 8:30 to do it, but because of Elder Neeley's zeal and determination we decided to keep going and called to reschedule with the team we were going to call until after planning and encouraged them to do the same and go out and find for that last 30 minutes.  The Lord truly blessed us for our small effort.  Right after we got off the phone we started knocking some doors and in the middle of a contact with a man out on his porch a woman whom we had waved to as she walked by during an earlier contact on the street came up behind us and said. "excuse me.  I don't mean to interrupt but could I have one of ya'll's Bibles?" haha (you'll have to excuse my grammar for the quote)  So I went right down and talked to her on the sidewalk while Elder Neeley continued to talk to the man at his door.  With my ensuing questions she proceeded to tell me how she was just living with a friend and had had a Book of Mormon probably 10 years ago but got rid of it when she had to move.  She said when she saw us she remembered how she felt as she read and wanted to read it again.  We eagerly gave her a copy and promised her of the guidance by the spirit she had felt as she acted in faith to come find us and that the Book of Mormon would bring that peace back into her life.  She gave us her phone number so that she could come meet with us at the church hopefully this Wednesday and was excited to start reading again.  The amazing part for us was that we had knocked on her friend's door just after getting off the phone to reschedule our call to keep finding with no answer and instead she later came to find us.  After that miraculous faith building miracle with Kay we found 3 other FIs on that street we're going to see tonight.  This experience really helped us to feel as though we were guided by the Lord and blessed to stay in that area a little longer and find those that are searching."
It was an amazing experience that we were apart of last night and even though I just copied that from my letter I had to write President earlier it was such a great experience that I wanted to share with all of you.  I know that the Lord really does go before and that angels prepare people each and every day for us to teach.  If we listen for and act on promptings, no matter how small they may be or insignificant they may seem, like staying on one street or walking a block over to the next one, there are people prepared and placed in our path.

      We are now hoping to continue the blessings of the Lord in coming to the Minneapolis zone.  This transfer has been great and I look forward to serving with Elder Neeley for another six weeks.  We have some great goals that we are very committed to and hoping to accomplish the next couple of months and transfer with the Lord's help in Minneapolis.  Thanks for all your help and support you guys give to me!  I love you all and look forward to hearing from you next week.

Love, Elder Craft