Hello Family!!

Well It's been a really good week here in St. Pete! We've been working really hard in this area, and we've seen some awesome results. The first part of the week we went on an exchange, and for some reason I was the one that stay in the area. So me and Elder Moffitt (zone leader), had absolutely no idea who people were or what to do. Consequently we went tracting quite a bit and visited names in the roster....that we had no idea who they were. Ha it was pretty funny knocking on a door and not knowing if you were going to run into someone who was less active, fully active, or find out that the person no longer lived there. We were able to set up some return appointments with a few less active families, and after that exchange things really seemed to begin falling into place here.

One of our new investigators is named Marquesha. And I'm not making that up. Ha we were going through some old records in the apartment and found her name. After calling her she invited us to come over. Well we went over one morning and were able to teach her the Restoration of the gospel, and leave her with a Book of Mormon. She's really funny and seems to have a sincere desire to learn more about it. We'll be visiting her again this week, which should be a lot of fun.

Another new Investigator is Brooklyn. She ordered a Book of Mormon and a Bible online, so we got to go take it to her. She's 21 and just moved for Syracuse, NY. She has two kids and is currently living with her mom. She's really open to learning about it, and we were able to share the first lesson with her. Brooklyn loved the promise at the beginning of the Book of Mormon, and she said that she'll definitely be reading it. We have a return appointment with her this week as well.

Someone else we found was Linda. We went to go visit with a part member family only to find out that they'd moved out, but Linda had moved in and was interested in what we had to share with her. She has had a really tough life, and is struggling financially. She wants to know more about what we believe, and took us up on the invite to come to church with us. We got a ride for her, and even though I wasn't completely expecting it, she showed up! Ha she was participating in all the meetings as well. We will meet with her today.

Other then that we're just working with some of the less active members of the branch. It's a pretty cool environment to work in a church unit that's so close knit.

I hope you all have a great week! I love you and am praying for you.

Elder Kade Bartschi