That title says it all.  We are having such wonderful experiences here.  It is fun to be able to serve in the Purdue singles ward as well as the Lafayette 3rd ward.  We attend an institute class and associate with the young kids and bring refreshments for after the class.  Our teacher is teaching the New Testament and he is very knowledgeable.  Last week we brought watermelon for everyone.  Haven't planned anything for this week yet.

We are beginning to know a lot of the kids by name now.  Between them and the 11 full time missionaries we have here in Lafayette, they keep us young.  Last week as part of our preparation day, we went to the institute with the young missionaries,  and had lunch, (that we provided.)  There are six young elders and five sisters.  We had some good discussions about all the old books in the institute Library. 

They also kept the ping-pong table hot with all their tournaments.  They even roped me, Sis Whiting,  into playing with them.  They were very patient with me and I had a lot of fun.  The young missionaries range in age from 19 to 26.  It is amazing that some of them wait to serve their missions until they are older.  Two of them have already graduated from college, one of the girls has a degree in engineering and one young man has his degree in construction management. 

We had a very interesting day on Saturday.  We had an appointment with the Lewis family.  They are a young family with two children who are less active.  The Stake President ask us to visit them and see if we could help.  They were very kind to us, welcomed us, and were quite open with us.  Sister Lewis explained how they had just gotten inactive over a period of time because they found other things to do.  She is a convert to the church and he has always been a member, but she seems to be the stronger of the two,

After visiting with them a while, they told us they still loved the church  but just had other things going.  So I ask them what they wanted their next step to be.  Sister Lewis responded that they needed to start coming to church again.  She said she had been called to be a Primary teacher before she was ready and that fear had played into it also.  After visiting with her we turned to Bro Lewis and ask him, what he thought his next step should be.  He replied that he was not ready to take that next step.

Their children are 4 and 8 year old boys.  They were pretty rowdy.  Bro. Lewis' grandfather had just recently passed away.  He had been a Bishop and Bro. Lewis talked about how he had taught and baptized his wife and of the great influence he had in their lives.  So we ask him if he wanted to be that same kind of example and influence upon his sons.  This made him stop and think,  So we further ask him what it would be like in 10 years if his sons didn't have the values and influence of the Gospel in their lives.  He became very sober and suddenly realized that things needed to change.  He talked for a while and then we told him that we were here to help in any way that we can. 

The Lewis family invited us back to help them.  We are going back and doing family home evening with them next Sunday.  This will take a while, but we hope to be able to help them develop testimonies and turn their lives around.

On Saturday we also knocked on a lot of doors of people  who are less active.  We did find one family that we made an appointment to come back and visit with this week.  They were two sisters that had 5 or 6 children between them, living together.  They were both baptized when they were little.  Their children need Primary, they need to learn values so they can find success in life.

We are finding that Saturdays are the best days to find people at home.  I think everyone works during the week.  It is definitely feeling more like home because we have gone into the homes of so many ward members.  There are so many PHD candidates here.  I am amazed of the quality of the people with whom we associate.  We are very blessed.  They are educated in ways that we are not, but are also educated and experienced in ways that we can help, and love them.  This is such a great plan.

We have so many adventures every day, and meet so many people, it is difficult to keep up this blog with everyone, but I will try and record things more regularly.
.