Hello Everyone :)

Happy Labor Day! I'm glad to here you are all doing well! Sounds like Mom and Dad had a super fun trip! Maybe you flew over my head :) Sad to hear about all the games that were lost. Don't these teams know winning is the only important thing in life! :) Just kidding! Is the whole family doing fantasy football again? Let me know who wins :) How's school? work? life? Also tell the ward I love them and miss them :)

So we had some cool things happen this week! We have 3 new investigators and our less-actives are all super close to coming back to church! On Tuesday we had a new missionary training which was really fun to see Everyone from the MTC! I seriously just love them all soo much! We had some really great training from president and from our assistants. After our training we had so much motivation we decided to go trackting. So it's raining and we are having doors slammed in our faces and we are just smiling because it was just such a good day :) Anyways we knock on this door and this man starts talking to us, I started talking about Joseph Smith and he stops me and tells me that is his name! Yeah crazy... We Found Joseph Smith! Haha But we have an appointment with him on Wednesday to teach him more so that's pretty cool :)

On last Sunday we were visiting a member family and after we asked if there was anything we could do for them, she told us she actually just had a speaker at there Youth Standards Night cancel so she asked us to fill in. So on Wednesday we taught the young women about friends and education. It was fun to spend time with the young women, they are so funny. I hope I was not that immature though.....I probably was :)

So this week we ran out of our car miles, so the last 4 days we were kind of sitting ducks. On Thursday we had a few rides to places but we mostly just walked. Nancie told us that she threw away her coffee pot, she said there is no reason to have it in the house, because we are commanded to not drink coffee. She is seriously like the prime investigator ever! We visited Zanaya (the 12 year old girl we met last week). She was asking all sorts of crazy questions and throwing bible versus at us. Who would have thought the hardest investigator we would have would be 12. We just told her that the only way she can know if what we are teaching her is true is to pray and ask God. I love how strong the spirit is when we testify of prayer. Our Heavenly Father really is listening to our prayers, and he always answers us! That night was pretty crazy. So we had gotten a ride with a less active home and guess who left the phone in their car?! Yep, it was me! I guess I really haven't changed that much :) Haha anyways the elders we supposed to be meeting us. They rode their bikes to us, just to give us blessings in the dark. They left their bikes with us, so we wouldn't have to walk and then called to get a ride home. We have the best elders here! It is so neat to see elders who are so selfless and honor their priesthood. I just love them!!

We visited a less active on her birthday and she started crying and told us how we love her more than her very own family. I've really learned so much about love and how much it really means to people! I will forever LOVE this woman with all my heart!! This week will be week 6 which means transfers are next Tuesday. I really just love this area so much, so I'm guessing I will stay :) There are only 3 sisters coming out (one of them being Sister Graham!!) I want to go to transfers just to see her :)

On Friday Night we got a call from Nancie and she was in tears. She told us she was going to be cancelling the baptism but wouldn't tell us why. We got a ride over there and it got pretty intense. Her husband, who has been pretty supportive for the last 2 months, all of a sudden told her he doesn't want her to get baptized, that if she gets baptized she won't even be his wife. We were just standing in the middle of them, while they were yelling at each other and we weren't quite sure what to say or do. He finally just grabbed some beer and left for a walk. We asked if she wanted a blessing and I've never seen so much fear in someone's eyes. We were scared to leave her alone. We just prayed all night for her safety. It makes me so sad for the women, who are scared of their husbands. She has such a strong testimony and we are still planning for her baptism to be this Saturday at 10 am. But we can't put her in danger either, so that's been kind of tricky. Please keep her in your prayers. She really is truly amazing!!

Riding bikes this week was lots of fun!! The looks we got were priceless :) Also skirts and bikes are not meant to join together.... So one of the highlights of our week could have been being pulled over by a cop on our bikes :) Haha we had seen a member from our ward and he had pulled over to talk to us. The cop came, with back up, just to make sure we were alright. It was pretty funny "Why were you talking to that man?" "How do you know him?" Anyways just know the cops are looking out for us :)

We studied a lot about gratitude this week! When we stop and look at what the Lord gives us everyday, we realize we have SOOO Much! The important thing is to express our gratitude to our Heavenly Father! Everything we have is from our Heavenly Father and he asks us to thank him! In the story of the 10 lepers, let us be the ones who go back and thank our savior for healing us. He is always healing us and giving us strength and it is so important we thank him every single day!!! Look at your blessings, look at the specific details of your life, be grateful for what you have, and stop complaining, Because you are Blessed! Now go express your gratitude to your Heavenly Father!!

I Love you all so much! Study the scriptures, they bring happiness and help in times of trial! Pray always, heavenly father wants to hear from you and he gives us strength. Be grateful and serve always! We are so blessed and we need to be serving others :) Thank you for all you have done for me! I know I would not be where I am without all of you! I pray for you and thank Heavenly Father for blessing me with such amazingfamily and friends!

Love you all more than a vanilla ice cream cone :)

Love, Sister Samantha Tracy

P.S. My ward mission leader was just being funny, so we all took a picture of him :)