Hello :)

Wow. What a great week. Things have really been picking up here in Des Moines! We found three new investigators this week which was amazing. The Lord really blesses those members who are focused on missionary work. And I will explain those blessings later on.

First I just wanted to start off by saying that I am so grateful to be a missionary. It's the best thing I have ever done and I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve. I do have a testimony of this work. I know that the best way to help others is to bring them unto Christ.

On Monday we stopped by the Henry's who are members of the ward and they are probably our best ward missionaries as well. We committed them to inviting Ian and Bethany (husband and wife) to have dinner with us on Sunday. They had been to church before to see the baby blessing of another family. And the Henry's have had dinner with them before just never with the missionaries present. So they were pretty much ready to meet us. Yesterday we had the dinner and everything went great. Ian is from Nigeria and came here when he was 18. He went to a Catholic boarding school and was baptized into the Catholic church. Bethany grew up as a Southern Baptist in Illinois. But they have recently been looking for a church to go to. Well dinner went great. They are both very talkative and it was awesome to hear there stories and just have them interact with the Henry's and us. Afterwards Brother gathered everyone around and we shared the message of the Restoration with them. They were very accepting and when we invited them to pray about if the church was true they gladly accepted. We then invited them to be baptized and they said if they knew that the church was true they would be baptized into our church. They were so prepared and it was amazing to see them grow closer to God just in the 2 hours that we were with them. The henry's have definitely got the right idea about missionary work.

On Saturday we met with a 23 year old man named Say who doesn't speak English. he is from Burma and speaks Karen. So we had a good friend of ours, Aung Yo Trae there to translate for us. We held the lesson at the church and gave him a quick tour to help him feel comfortable. We then taught him the Restoration and he accepted everything and due to Aung's awesome translation skills he accepted the invitation to be baptized as well. It was an awesome lesson. it was great because we asked Aung to translate the Joseph Smith story into Karen and while he did I felt the same amount of Spirit that I would have if the message was shared in English. What a testament to the truthfulness of the that event. No matter how it is said or given the Spirit will always testify of it's truthfulness! Amazing!

I love you all. Thanks for all that you do. It was a great and full of a lot of great miracles. Just so you know, our District found 12 new investigators this week! That's amazing! I love you all. I appreciate all that you do.

"Regular scripture study will fill your day with the influence of the Holy Ghost. Consider taking time each day to read them. In this way your ability to recognize the needs of others will improve and you will be strengthened to fill those needs."

I love you all!

Elder Caleb James Wardle