Happy Valentines Day!
Well this is the last week I'll be emailing you from Gulfport (or at least for now)! Ha we found out about transfers on Saturday, and this is what happened. So since our first day serving together I've been telling Elder Ames that he's going to be training a new missionary next transfer. So when the phone rang at 7:45 on Saturday morning and it said President Summerhays on the caller ID, we were both thinking that I had been right. Well....I was wrong. Really wrong. President informed us that he'd like me to be a zone leader in St. Petersburg, and Elder Ames would become the district leader and stay in Gulfport. Ha neither of us saw that coming, but we were pretty excited about it. We'll be in the same zone, and get to work with each other still. I feel a bit inadequate, but I know it's going to make me grow a lot.
So other then that, we've had a pretty good week here. Our most consistent lessons were with some of the less active members of the ward. Last week we got a referral from one of the branch members for Patricia Reynolds. She joined the church a couple of years ago, but she hasn't attended in quite a while. She doesn't feel like she knows much about the church and is a little lost, so we started right at the beginning. We taught the first lesson and she was able to refresh her memory, and feel the Spirit that comes when you discuss the Restoration. Our branch does a FHE on Monday nights where they study scriptures, and she committed to attending that.
We're just about done teaching Ben Sandrowitz the lessons as well. He was the less active member that we contacted my first week here, and he's attended every Sunday since then except for one. Ha some people simply need the invitation to come back. The branch president suggested that we review the discussions, so we've been doing that on a weekly basis. I'm bummed that I won't get to finish teaching those to him, but he's doing really well. It's amazing to see the difference in a person's life when they go from being less active to full activity. Ben is in the middle of a divorce right now, and we've been consistently talking about getting him to to marry in the temple the next time around. It's definitely a goal that he has for himself.
We had a couple of good lessons with Marquesha this week. We showed her the Prophet of the Restoration DVD and she really enjoyed it. At the end of the movie she kept telling us that she couldn't believe that that actually happened. She wasn't able to attend church with us this Sunday, but we're hoping that she continues to do well. I'm sure Elder Ames and his new comp will take care of her.
Well I love you all! So I hear that bkb is over, but I know that's not going to slow anyone down. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kade Bartschi