May 16, 2011

Hey Y'All,

I have had a pretty good week here in Rockwall/Heath.

To start off; on Tuesday, Elder Lyman had a leadership-training meeting in Richardson, so the other district leader's companion (Elder Sinclair) and I got to go on an exchange for the day! We rode around in Dallas, and talked to some people on the street, and tracted in sort of a scary-ish part of their neighborhood. I sure learned a lot from Elder Sinclair and we had a blast working together!

On Wednesday, I was on an exchange in Sachse. The Sachse Elders do not have a car, so we were riding bikes for the day. So Elder Nelson and I rode out to this community called Woodbridge, which is about 3 miles from the apartment. we got to the street we were going to tract and shortly after beginning to knock, a storm rolled in. Both Elder Nelson and I were way excited to see it. Although the purple and green clouds kind of worried us, we just enjoyed our rainy day. When we got finished with tracting, we were sopping wet! We had so much fun in the rain!

Last night was probably the highlight of my week though. We met a family (the McLemores) that are members, and they really want to get back to church, it's just hard for her to make it by herself when he is at work on Sundays (he is a cop). They agreed to let us teach their 11, 7, and 6-year-old children. We will start that in about 2 weeks because this weekend, Mia, the 7 year old is turning 8 and she is having a birthday party. They are such a nice family!

Then, while we were tracting, we knocked on this house and a 20-year-old young man came out named Blake. He told us he was really busy, but we persisted. We told him that there was a prophet on the earth and that kind of caught his attention. He again told us he was very busy, but to come back in a few hours, so we returned last night at about 8:30. When we got there, there were a few people at his house and they were all playing games. He took us really quick into his bedroom and asked us about "this prophet" we gave him a quick watered down version of the restoration and invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray. He agreed to and asked us to come back in 2 weeks. Lately Elder Lyman and I have learned that it is absolutely okay to be bold with people. Before we have just asked people what they would think if there was a prophet, or what that would mean to them, but I felt the spirit teach so much stronger through us as we taught boldly that there IS a prophet and because of this, there ARE amazing blessings to receive!

This week has been amazing for sure! I am grateful to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. I can absolutely feel them help give me strength. I love you all!

Elder Layton