April 18, 2016 -- Spring Cleaning Is A Great Time For Service

The past week it has been warming up in Oneida. It has been getting to the 60's and 70's so more people have been out to talk to and everyone is more friendly. Elder Smith and I have been looking for new ways to find people so we were brainstorming ideas one day and we came up with this one. We decided we would go service tracting. This is where we go knocking on people's doors and offered to rake their lawns. The people seem very surprised when we tell them that we will do this for free. It really opens up the hearts of people and provides a great opportunity to strike up some good conversations.

Elder Smith and I had the opportunity to speak in church this week. He gave a wonderful talk on the history of the Bible and I was asked to speak on self improvement. I was surprised that Brother Neshimoto asked me to speak as I was getting out of his car coming back from Utica on Monday. It was a little short notice but I was glad to accept. We were coming back from playing basketball with a bunch of other missionaries by the way, so that was fun.

I'm looking forward to the pinewood derby this week. The pinewood derby here is as competitive as church ball in Utah. A member in our branch is building Elder Smith and me a car to race so that should be exciting.

The sky is blue, the church is true and life is good

Love,

Elder Carlile