44th Week in Spokane

We had a pretty crazy week! We live at the Merrill's, they are in their 80's. anyways, Thursday morning Sister Merrill wakes us up at 2:30 in the morning and says, "Wake up Elders, the neighbors house is on fire and so is the field behind our house and its getting closer, we may have to evacuate!" So of course that woke us right up! We looked out our window into the back yard and all we could see was flames and smoke. So we got dressed quickly and went outside. Fortunately the neighbors house wasn't on fire, it just looked like it from our house, but the field behind and all around it was and also our fence around our house was on fire. By the time we were woken up there were fireman already there and trying to contain it. they were able to get it completely out by about 630, it was a pretty crazy night! Also this week we were able to meet with Jared a few times and he was interviewed for baptism and he will be getting baptized this Saturday!! So we are very excited for that, and its been good because with every lesson that we've had with him has been in a member's home so it has gotten the members excited again for missionary work and that's been cool to see happen. Also this week we were able to tract into a part member family that hasn't been active in a long time but they said that they would like to start coming back to church so we asked them if they wanted to take the missionary discussions over again and they said that they would. So we are going to be working with them plus they have two kids that have not been baptized, but luckily we know how to fix that! We've been working with a guy who was baptized years and years ago that hasn't been to church in years but we have set goals with him to stop smoking and to receive the Priesthood and he has been coming to church regularly now and this week we went over the stop smoking workshop with him that's a fool proof way to quit smoking in 7 days, if you hold true to the 15 steps it covers. He has been going at it strongly for five days now and he says he feels better now then he has for a lotta years. The program has to do with your eating habits and also a lot to do with prayer and faith and relying on the Lord. And yesterday he met with the Bishop and set a date to be able to receive the Priesthood!! Just one more thing about what we did this week.. on Monday when I got out of the shower to dry off, a massive spider fell out of my towel, so I ran and got a jar and put it in it. Well all throughout the week we kept looking for more spiders and we ended up finding eight spiders! We put them all in the same jar, hoping that they would fight but they never would. We wanted to see who was the toughest spider, so we named them all.. jameson, petey, thor, the judge, thing one and thing two, jose, and bertha. the first to die was petey, then thing 2, the judge, jose, and thing 1. So all we had left was the two biggest, jameson (the one in my towel, a wolf spider) and thor (a hobo spider). and then last night we found bertha. she was bigger then both of them, and it looks like she's pregnant too. So we put them all together to see what would happen and immediately thor and bertha double teamed on jameson, it was a crazy intense battle!! And then while thor was chewin on jameson bertha very sneakily snuck around and latched onto thor's back! So the winner is bertha! Then this morning we found a massive centipede that we will be having fight bertha today at noon! Well that was our week, I hope you enjoyed the spider chronicles, I hope you tune in next week to receive further updates! I love you all and I'm excited for the work thats goin on here in east Wenatchee!

43rd Week in Spokane

This week was good, Jared is progressing really well, coming to church, reading from the Book of Mormon, going to institute and young single adults and meeting with us three times a week. He is pretty much the definition of a golden investigator.. He is still going strong for July 31.. he doesn't even consider himself a visitor any more, he says he's already a member! We taught him this week about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity and he said that he has lived that way his whole life! With every lesson that we've had with him we have taught him in a member's home, so his whole conversion is pretty much text book. As for the rest of the work in the area, its been pretty slow the past couple weeks, we've been knockin on doors like crazy with no luck there. However, we did get a lot of return appointments so hopefully those will lead somewhere. Last night we were tracting at about 8:30 and we knocked on this guys door who has M.S. who said he's not interested unless we could heal him. So we taught about Priesthood blessings and read from James 5 and then gave him a blessing, it was a cool experience, he asked us to come back tomorrow. Well we keep working hard and have faith that the Lord will bless us with miracles as he already has and continues to do so!

42nd week in Spokane

I hit my one year mark last week! Its all down hill from here. Its gone by really fast and everyone keeps saying that the second year goes by even faster, we'll see about that.. Its hard to believe that it has already been a year, now when I look back and say "what was I doing a year ago from today?" now I would already be on my mission, kinda weird. But this year has been so good, I've learned and grown more this one year than I have the other 22, it seems like it anyways. And yet, there's still so much that can be learned. that's one great thing about the gospel, there's no end to learning, there will never be a point in this life where I can say "I've learned it all" I love reading the scriptures because each time I do I learn something new, even if I've already read it a hundred times. During this first year I have read the Book of Mormon three times, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, the Old and New Testaments, and half of Jesus the Christ. It has been an awesome experience! I've also listened to and read the two general conferences. In the Book of Jacob in the Book of Mormon, it says "For, for this intent have we written these things that they may know that we knew of Christ and we had a hope of His glory many hundred years before His coming and not only we ourselves had a hope of His glory but all the holy prophets which were before us. Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophesy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea" This is why we are so blessed as Latter Day Saints because we have all these witnesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer. So many people are afraid of the Book of Mormon and afraid of the idea of a prophet in these days, but we rejoice in them because it is all just further evidence that He lives and loves us and still speaks to man today. He is the same yesterday today and forever, never changing. He speaks to us today through prophets, I know with all my heart that thats true. And with all these witnesses we obtain a hope, a hope in whats to come, a knowledge and a security of whats to come. All these witnesses give us direction and purpose in this life insomuch that we are not tossed to and fro when Satan sends forth his mighty winds, we have a foundation, a foundation that cannot fail because it is built upon Christ. Because we have all these witnesses our faith becomes unshaken and we can know of a surety, just as we know that five plus five equals ten, that God has a prophet on the Earth today and that Jesus Christ leads and guides this, His church, the church of Jesus Christ.
    Last Sunday a member in another ward brought her friend to church and he absolutely loved it so he wanted to come back, so he came to our ward this week because he lives in our ward. After church we sat down with him and got to know him. His name is Jared Heath. We taught him the restoration and he said that it all just clicked with him and that it all makes perfect sense. We then shared with him a couple verses in Alma 7 talking about baptism and we invited him to be baptized, he said he would and that he never really understood the purpose of baptism like he does now. So he is getting baptized July 31!! It was a great blessing to be able to teach him.
    This last week we had zone conference, it was really good, it was exclusively on the Doctrine of Christ. The Doctrine of Christ is our purpose as missionaries, to invite all men to have faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. We learned at zone conference that there are a lot of changes that are going to take place, some immediately and some not until next year. We will no longer have interviews with the mission president or zone conference every transfer, We will have them every other transfer so that it can give the mission president more time to work with us individually in our own areas. And all these changes are for the church world wide, not just our mission. Also they are changing the curriculum in the MTC. There will now be a set of eight lessons that are going to be taught, and this will start in may 2011, but we will receive training on those eight lessons sooner then that so that we can be ready for the new missionaries. The lessons that the missionaries teach aren't changing, but how missionaries will be taught will be different, more effective. Because the whole purpose is to truly convert the missionary and have them know and understand what it is they are teaching so that they can teach it according to the people's need, adjust it to meet them. With this new change in curriculum and especially with this last general conference, I feel like there is a sense of urgency to strengthen ourselves, to increase our faith, to learn more fully the gospel and use and apply it in our lives. We need to do it now. The Lord needs strong faithful disciples in these last days as He is preparing us for His millennial reign. No more procrastinating, we need to become His Disciples, all of us, we need to prepare ourselves inwardly to be able to protect us from the outside influences. Satan's most powerful tool is that of complacency, do not get complacent. Always always look for ways to improve, always search for ways to better serve the Lord. I feel this sense of urgency to bring people to Christ, bring them to His flock so that they can be prepared for whats to come in the very near future. The prophet and apostles are no longer talking to us about food storage, now their focus is on strengthening us from the inside, spiritually. So listen to their guidance, search the prophets, search the scriptures. These witnesses are here for us so that we can be prepared, so that we can obtain a faith that is unshaken. We cannot afford to take them for granted any more.
   

41st week in Spokane

We had a way good week, Elder Mudrow is awesome, this is going to be a great transfer! He is way hard working and obedient so I'm excited to be able to work with him! Also this week I held my first district meeting so that was fun! It was Elder Mudrow's 21st birthday on Thursday so we celebrated and went out to McDonalds for lunch! So here's a funny story. On Saturday we were tracting at about 8 o'clock at night and we come to a house with a lot of cars parked outside so we figure that there's probably a party going on so we walk up and there's big windows we have to walk past to get to the door and when we did people inside started yelling "Mormons" and yelling "no" and telling us to leave, but we didn't and we went up to the front door then we here someone say alright alright I got this and he answers the door and is drunk but eventually invites us in for a few shots and some pizza, my companion said no we can't and they kept trying to convince us and then he went back inside and these two girls came out and told us that everyone in there would never again at any time ever listen to anything that we have to say, but tonight they might actually listen so I said alright we'll give you ten minutes but then we gotta get going after that. so we went in and there was about 20 people all in their 20's and everyone shouted for joy when we came in, the deal was that we would play ladder golf, or redneck golf, for ten minutes while we talk to a couple of the guys there. So we did and then the score got to 19 to 20 and you win at 21 so by then everyone at the party had gathered around to watch the Mormons play and we wagered a bet that if we win then the two guys we were playing would have to come to church the next day and if they win then we would have to stay and play another round of redneck golf. So the bet was on and we lost so we stuck around and played again with some of the other people there and it was cool because the whole time we were there we were just answering questions and teaching about the church. We ended up staying at this place for about an hour and about twenty people learned about the church that otherwise wouldn't have and now hopefully one day they will let the missionaries in again. So on the fourth of July we didn't really do anything special since we have curfew before it even gets dark so we were already home when the fireworks started going off but we do have an awesome view of the whole valley so that was kinda cool. Well we were able to find a few more people to teach. This one couple, the Cramers, seem to be somewhat promising, When they answered the door they invited us right in and we were there for almost an hour getting to know them and teaching about the church so we are excited about them and we'll see what happens, our next appointment with them is tomorrow. Well that ought to do for now but I love you all hope you all had a good fourth!!

40th week in Spokane

Unfortunately I was sick all this last week and so not a whole lot of work got done like we were hoping. I had something like strep throat with mono type symptoms where I just had zero energy and I completely lost my voice. But its all good now, I'm on the down hill of whatever I've got. Well, we got our transfer calls last night and.... I am staying here and Elder Andersen is getting transferred to Post Falls Idaho. My new companion is Elder Mudrow and I know absolutely nothing about him so I guess I'll find out tomorrow! Our district leader here has finished his mission and went home today so I've been asked to be the new district leader so I'm excited for that, it will be a way good experience. Something funny that happened this week is we were riding down the hill on our bikes and Elder Andersen was ahead of me when all of a sudden a car pulled out in front of him and so he had to slam on his brakes, his back tire came up over the top and he went over the handle bars, his helmet hit straight into the guys tire and he banged up his knee and hand pretty good. Well the guy got out of his truck and came to see if everything is alright and Elder Andersen was like ya I'm fine I'm fine, would you like to hear a message about Jesus Christ? And so he got his information and we went over there yesterday and taught him and he seems pretty promising haha he's Spanish though so we are giving him to them to teach but pretty funny situation I think!! Sometimes the Lord leads you to people and sometimes the Lord leads people to you, and apparently sometimes he lets you run your bike into their car to get their attention! Well I hope and pray that I will be able to be the kind of leader that the Lord wishes me to be. I love you - Elder Burns