The Lord sure works in mysterious ways!

Hey guys!  We went to the Civil Rights museum today for Elder 

Anaya's last P-day.  It was a really cool experience.  I think he 

is ready to go home.  I will definitely miss him a lot. 

This week was pretty good.  We had a good district meeting on 

Tuesday that was super fun.  We played Jeopardy.  Our team 

ended up losing and as a result we had to eat the gross bean 

boozled stuff.  It was so nasty!  

On Wednesday we had a really awesome lesson with this guy 

named Jose.  He was a referral that we received from Georgia.  

Because of this referral I found out something crazy!  Do you 

remember Elder Hadfield from my MTC district?  Well he was 

the one that sent the referral!  Crazy right?!  The Lord sure works 

in mysterious ways!   

Thursday we received some of the leftovers from Hurricane Harvey.  

We spent most of the day trying to stay out of the crazy rain from 

the hurricane.  We decided to go to the mall and try to talk to people 

and make contact with some potential investigators.  Saturday we 

spent most of the day finding people again and had a little bit of 

success.  We are hoping Ricardo gets baptized this Saturday but it 

is not looking super solid.    

I had a really cool experience during my personal studies this week.  

I was reading my patriarchal blessing again and I noticed a line in it 

that I had never noticed before.  In my mission section there is a line 

that says some of the people I serve with and around, along with the 

people I bring into the Gospel, will be some of my best eternal friends.  

I always took that to mean that we would be good friends forever from 

this point on.  But now I have come to the realization that I knew these 

people before this life and they knew me.  This Gospel is amazing!  

Another cool thing that happened this week is that an investigator gave 

me a guitar.  His name is Randy.  He is more of an investigator/friend we

have made out here.  We met him at a car dealership one time when we 

took the car in to get fixed.  He saw that we didn't have fidget spinners 

with us so he said to call him in two weeks and he would give us some. 

We called and he invited us out to lunch.  So we went and and he gave 

us the spinners and we talked.  After that we have just kept in touch and 

become pretty good friends.  He now takes us out to dinner about once 

a week.  He is super awesome.  So now I have a guitar.  The only thing

is President Hansen says I have to send it home.

I'm grateful for all the cool experiences I had this week.  I love that the Lord

works in mysterious ways and I love that this Gospel is so amazing!  I'm so 

grateful that I get to share this gospel as a missionary.  That I get to share it

with the people I am serving with and the people I am serving in the ALRM!   

Have a great week!  Love you guys! 

Love Elder Merrill

CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

Ricardo with Elder Merrill & Elder Smalley

Elder Smalley & Elder Merrill

The gifted guitar