"After the trial of our faith comes the conversion."

These are the Memorial Day Shirts they picked up at Walmart.  Classic Colton. 

I had a super eventful week this week. Ram is doing really well. He is really progressing and accepting Jesus Christ and it is so cool to see the changes in him. He hasn't missed church since we started teaching with him and he is loving it. We are still in a long process of finding more people to teach but I know the Lord will bless us for our efforts. 
I got to try waffle love for the first time ever and it was so good. I had heard lots of good things about it and it truly lived up to the hype. 

But easily the craziest experience I've had on my mission happened this week and probably the coolest as well. I was on exchanges with Elder Quinnelly to do some baptismal interviews for him. We were headed to the first one and all of a sudden we saw a pretty big cloud of smoke go up in the air and we thought somebody had just burnt some leaves or something but as we kept driving it became pretty obvious it was a house fire. As we approached the street of the guy I was going to interview, Jake, we figured out the house was on the same street as Jake's. As we pulled up we could smell it and saw the house just up in flames. We were one of the first 10 people on the scene and so we parked and sprinted to the house. We saw people just hysterical. Screaming and crying and wailing. It was crazy. We ran up to them and asked if everyone was out of the house and they said yes which was good. Afterwards Elder Quinnelly and I talked and we were both prepared to run into that house to try and get someone out if we needed to. Luckily we didn't have to do that otherwise it may have been an even crazier story. The fire trucks got there probably 5 minutes after we did and so we got to watch the whole process which was pretty cool but the house was completely destroyed. About 15 minutes after we got there a lady motioned us over and asked to give one of the residents and her daughter a blessing and so we did. Before the blessings, they both were bawling uncontrollably but by the end of the blessings the tears had stopped and they were very calm. Super powerful moment for me. We found out it was the daughter's 14th birthday which was really sad. But what was sad was seeing this family with no hope. They kept saying we have lost everything. All they could see was the negative. And for good reasons too. They literally lost all of their belongings in the fire. Nothing was salvaged. But no one was even hurt. God protected their family. Why did their house have to burn down? I don't know but I do know that God can use it for their benefit in the long run. We got to explain that to them and just offer them comfort and counsel and it was a super cool moment. I love being able to be an instrument in the Lord's hands and bring hope into people's lives. Easily one of the best part's about being a missionary. The scripture I want to share this week says, "And after their temptations, and much tribulation, behold, I, the Lord, will feel after them, and if they harden not their hearts, and stiffen not their necks against me, they shall be converted, and I will heal them." For us to become truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ we must go through trials. After the trial of our faith comes the conversion. Christ lives and loves us and I know that to be true. I hope you all have a great week! Happy Memorial Day!

They went on a long hike in the mountains for Memorial Day.