71st Week in Spokane

Went on exchanges this week with Elder Van Kampen in Libby, Montana and we had an awesome exchange! We were blessed with a new investigator that we were able to teach the restoration to and invite to be baptized and he said he will when he knew it was true. We were also able to put one of their current investigators on date for Feb 19! It was a great lesson! She is way solid and way prepared! Lynette Stone! You've gotta meet her, she is just hungry for the gospel! All because of the Book of Mormon! She started reading from it and just cant get enough! She has no doubt that its true! The Book of Mormon is amazing! I know its true! I love being able to watch as people read from it and are completely changed by it! What a blessing it is to be a missionary!!

70th week in Spokane

Elder Burns didn't send a blog entry today. Apparently his computer time was very short, we only got personal messages from him. Its transfer time again. He and Elder Tamblyn are both staying in Bonners Ferry. He thought that was a good thing. If we do hear more from him we will post it.

69th Week in Spokane

This week was definitely an exciting one! It started out with a companionship in our zone having some difficulties and so we went on a 24 hour exchange with them where I went to their area with one of the elders and the other elder came to our area with elder Tamblyn. It went really good except for two things.. one. elder Tamblyn got sick, and is still sick. and two. It snowed about 7 inches! So it was pretty exciting and we were able to help the other elders out. So when we got home the next day about three o'clock, elder Tamblyn went to bed and I went out and shoveled for a couple hours! We've got a pretty big driveway and with seven inches of snow, it took some time! Not to mention the temperature was in the low teens! Well, the next morning, there was about another seven inches on the ground! So we went out and shoveled that out of the way! And then of course by night time, it was raining! And it rained all the next day.. and about half the next and then everything froze! Before I tell you what happened next, let me remind you that missionaries have a mile limitation that they are allowed to drive per month. Also, for mom's sake, I'll spare some of the details until after my mission!! So in our area, there's a shortcut that takes you up the side of a mountain, its called Blume Hill Rd. (in case you want to Google map it!) Well, we had an appointment at the bottom of this hill at six and then right after we had an appointment at the top of this hill. So obviously we took this short cut that would save us about twenty miles. So here's the problem. There was a sign that said "not maintained in winter". Well, this sign has been up for about two months and I've been up and down it countless times, especially since we're teaching someone who lives at the bottom, and there's never been any problem at all, we just pop our truck into four wheel drive and off we go. And this night, there were fresh tire tracks going up this hill, so I never thought twice about it. So we went up and it was no problem.. until the last 200 yards.. it was solid ice! So we kept going up it with the momentum we had and that took us about 2/3 of the way up.. then we started sliding backwards. But luckily the side stopped us because there was a little bit of snow there, just before the ditch. Well we tried a few times to get out but with no luck, Whenever we tried we would just slide backwards. so we thought we'd just try to back down to where there wasn't any ice. Well that didn't work either because we had zero control while we were on that ice. So we called up a guy in our ward that sells chains and asked him to come get us. Well, he didn't bring any chains and so when he came, the exact same thing happened to him, except he was bounced into the opposite side of the road into the other ditch, which was a good thing because this ditch was only about six inches deep. So he tried using that to get him to the top of the hill and that didn't work so he decided to try backing back down the hill using this little ditch. he got down almost all the way to where there wasn't any more ice when his tire popped out of the ditch flinging his back end across the road to where his back tire was hanging off the other ditch. So they got out, called a tow truck who then came and got both of us and we got home at about 11:00 that night. So like I said, I'll have to spare you the really exciting details for when I get home.. for moms sake! So that was our little adventure this week! As for out teaching. we were able to start officially teaching a part member family, who finally agreed to take the missionary discussions!! So we are very excited about that! There's also a few other very exciting things going on right now with our teaching that I look forward to reporting on as they unfold a little bit more. I love you all!

68th week in Spokane

This week we were at meetings for two days. a zone leader meeting and a zone meeting. It went really good, we had a lot of really good trainings, but they were both about two hours away and so with pday thrown in there too, we didn't get as much teaching done as we would have liked. On Wednesday it snowed about four inches and then by the end of the day it started to rain and it rained all the next day and then when it stopped raining the temperature dropped down to single digits and so everything turned to solid, thick ice! It was interesting going tracting! We were sliding all over the place! In our zone leader council we talked a lot about setting goals, in our mission and also in our life, it was a really good training and I'm really trying to live to meet my goals. Well, there's not much more to report on, we were able to meet with Joseph again this week and he came to church so that was really good! We got a lot of really good things lined up for this week though so that's good. Yesterday was Jessie Torkelson's one year mark from her baptism which means that she's be going to the temple really soon! So I'm way excited for that! Its gonna be a really neat experience! Well I love ya and hope everyone's doing good! Oh ya one more thing.. I hit my 18 month mark! Love ya!

67th week in Spokane

We had a great week! Probably the highest teaching week I've had in this area. And we were able to find quite a few new people to teach! All but one came from tracting so that's good! Someone I forgot to mention about last week is a guy named Joseph Black. His family used to be a part of the FLDS group in northern Arizona. His two brothers broke away from it and now live here and have since joined the church. Joseph just moved in with his brother and so now we're teaching him. It was kind of interesting at first when we were trying to figure out what to teach him about. But of course we are teaching him the normal lessons and having him read from the Book of Mormon like everyone else. He just needs to gain a testimony of the current prophet. We were also able to meet a less active member this week named Brother Brittenham. Man oh man, he is the biggest story teller I have ever ever met! He told some pretty out there stories, hopefully someday when I get home I'll be able to tell you more about it! We had a great new years eve! We went over to our ward mission leaders house because his family went out of town without him. We cooked up some crab, lobster tail, squid, and shrimp! We had a pretty good time and then we finished it off by watching the best two years! Well I wish I had a bit more time to tell you everything, but unfortunately, I don't! love ya!!