To whom it may concern! 04-09-08‏

Today is a pretty good day! The tripanionship as we call them is going well. I'm getting along with both my companions and we work hard all the time! Word on the street is that President may leave us in this threesome for a while. Obviously it all happens with revelation and we can't really predict it. People a lot of the time just like to pretend they know what's happening to get a rise out of people. I'm fine with whatever the Lord inspires the president to do!The work is progressing tons! We got 3 new investegators the other day. Two came from tracting and one was a referral. We have 3 investegators that have agreed to be baptized when they recieve their answer that the Book of Mormon is true. We will soon find out if they are keeping commitments because whether or not they get their answer all depends on that! There are many humble and kind people here. Tracting is much more fruitful. Those we find are not always golden and they rarely have a support system so they're more difficult to work with. Ultimately though it's what we must do when we don't have referrals.Conference was absolutely amazing! I would have to say Jeffrey R. Holland's talk on christianity was definately among the favourites (<- that's how they spell it here) for me! I also loved priesthood session! I think I saw Jace in the choir. Amy, Sarah, Courtney, Lindsey or Kiley, maybe you know whether or not my eyes were playing tricks on me. It was a choir from the ogden and logan institutes so I figured it was definately possible.I'm loving the hard work. We've got a lot of promising people here and soon I expect to see some of the fruits of the labors that have been going on here for so much longer than I've been here. I'm learning to be increasingly bold with as much charity in my heart that I can muster. Even with the hardest of hearts and the most stubborn of wills there is a glimmer of hope in their eyes when I stand up for what they often try to trample under foot.For instance, Denise is a woman likely in her 60's. Now often those who have been around a while are those most stubborn. We were talking with her and mentioned Joseph Smith. She (almost cursingly) said "Pff, Joseph Smith!" I stood as tall as I could and I said in essence "Denise, you can tell us you think we're wrong as much as you want, you can insult us and you can even try to shake our testimonies. We KNOW in our souls that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and we'll not stay here if you chose to talk of him in that way." Her eyes softened. I proceeded to tell her how the restoration can affect her life NOW and for a moment I could see in her she felt the truth. Quickly she realized what had happened and returned to the offense to tell us that the bible (of which she doesn't read and has no copy) is the only word of God. She's a nice woman but is caught in a state of blind faith. I loved the talk given on blind faith this last conference and how we do not believe it to be beneficial. We don't practice it. Our faith is rooted in the Lord. We only trust so purely in Thomas S. Monson because we have seen that he is indeed Gods mouth piece.I do love this gospel and the work is as marvelous as Doctrine and Covenants says!Stay strong, Trust God, Don't worry.
Love,Elder McCarty