Sep 12, 2011

Hello all,

This week was pretty good. It wasn't quite as eventful as last week, but there were still some great miracles that happened! We were tracting on Thursday and met Amanda Griffin. She came right out, sat on the doorstep with us, asked us just great questions, and was really interested. The great miracle about it was that we had been tracting a street, and we weren't exactly sure what we were going to for the rest of the day. We were kind of getting a little down on ourselves, but getting to meet her was great! She has heard about the church before, but had no real knowledge about it, and was just really curious.

The greatest miracle of the week was definitely Martha and James. We taught them about the law of chastity this week, and that was a bit of a problem, because they are not married. What they are is referred to as common law marriage, basically meaning they have been living together for more than 2 years. I am not sure if it gives you any kind of benefits, but the church does not recognize that as a marriage. They have been living together for 11 years, and the reason they haven't been married yet is because she is on a different insurance company, and has a few medical problems, and if they get married, she might lose her insurance and all of the benefits. So we were really worried about that and then on Sunday morning, we saw them at church and they just said, "We are going to do it. we are going to get married" it really caught us off guard, but they admitted that it is something they knew that the lord wants them to do, and that he will provide a way for them to do it. Every time we meet with Martha and James, we are just so blown away by the amount of faith they have and their willingness to live the commandments.

Last night we went to this interfaith convention for 9/11 in downtown Dallas and that was a great experience! It was cool seeing all these people from all different faiths getting together to remember the tragedy 10 years ago. It really makes me appreciate all those that serve in any capacity be it the armed forces, the police or the fire department. It takes brave men and women who care about us citizens to devote their lives for our protection. It also helped me appreciate our knowledge of the plan of salvation. I am grateful to know where we are headed once this life is over. God has a plan for us! It was a wonderful evening and the whole week was great!

Elder Layton