75th week in Spokane

This week was pretty exciting with the weather and all. Like I said last week, we had about a foot on Tuesday when I emailed, then we got about another six inches the rest of the day. On Wednesday the temperature dropped to about 5 degrees and we had blizzard conditions where the wind was blowing so hard with the snow that you couldn't see anything in front of you, not to mention it was cold! Plus that night I was with another missionary and when we came in for the night, we couldn't drive up their driveway so we had to park at the bottom and walk the rest of the quarter mile home! On Thursday and Friday the temperature dropped down to -20! I think that I mentioned last week that we have passes to go to the local gym here in town in the morning to run. Well, Friday morning was definitely an adventure going to the gym at -20 and then coming out of the gym all sweaty and having everything freeze almost immediately! Going to the gym every morning has been awesome!! On Saturday and Sunday it snowed again another 18 inches! It was fun shoveling all that! Well, that's the weather report, as far as the work is going, we had a great week! Taught a whole lot of lessons, but unfortunately didn't get to find any one new to teach. On Thursday Elder Tamblyn and I gave a training to the zone about finding and tracting, We think it went pretty well. That day was also interviews with our mission president, and that was awesome like usual, I love my mission president, he's just always so full of love for everyone he talks to, its awesome! He was able to give me some good council on a few questions I had for him, it was great! And then that same day, Joseph was able to get interviewed by him for baptism, and President felt really good about it and is sending Salt Lake a recommendation for him to get interviewed again, its gonna be awesome! We were asked to give talks this week in sacrament meeting and were told we can talk on whatever we want. So on Saturday I wrote my talk and then that night we talked to a really neat guy that wasn't too interested in us teaching him, but he had a few questions that we weren't able to address right then, and so we invited him to come to church to listen to us talk and he said he would. On Sunday morning I wrote another talk that was directed right towards him and the questions he asked. Since we cover two wards, in the second ward, one of the speakers didn't show up (because there was about a foot of new snow on the ground and she's old) so it just so happened that I had another talk handy, so I gave that. It made me happy because I was excited about my first talk ha-ha. But things are going really great here, we had four investigators come to church and we have a baptism this Friday!! Ed Brown. It has really been amazing to see the change that has taken place in that home as the spirit and the gospel has come into their lives, I love it! So this whole transfer I've had it in mind that I'm going to stay another transfer because Elder Tamblyn is going home, but during my interviews the mission president asked about what I thought about moving the zone leaders to a different area in the zone, and I think its a pretty good idea, not that I want to leave Bonners Ferry, I love it here, but it makes sense to move the zone leaders into another area. So now I have no idea what to expect when transfers come around, which is this week! Crazy how time flies! Love you all!!

74th week in Spokane

We had a great lesson with Joseph this week, we were going to teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but while we were with him we felt impressed to teach about the word of wisdom. Turns out that until about three weeks ago he was an alcoholic and he is addicted to coffee. He committed to quit coffee and then, three days later, he didnt show up at church so we asked his brother why and he said that since joseph hasnt had his caffeine fix he woke up with an extreme headache! But he is doing good and is getting interviewed on thursday! We were finally able to meet with tiffany again. and they decided not to get married until june 15 and they dont want to move out and so she cant get baptized until she gets married in june. when we asked them why they said because they dont want it to look like they were just 'getting hitched' ..apparently they would rather look like adulterers instead... Its pretty impossible to move ahead spiritually when you are knowingly living in sin. So we'll keep visiting them here and there but theres really nothing we can do. We had way good lessons this week with Ed and Jeremy. we also taught the word of wisdom there and found out that Jeremy smokes and Ed drinks tea. So they committed to quit. We have a stop smoking workshop that we teach thats guaranteed to quit smoking in seven days. so we got all the supplies for them and then come sunday, jeremy didnt show up to church and wasnt there for our lesson afterwards or our lesson yesterday. not sure whats goin on there. but ed is doing really great, he'll be getting baptized on march 4th!!! Things are going really well here. the zone as a whole hit a record high in the lessons taught this week! thats really exciting! We have a goal that every companionship will baptize in march. So far we have three out of the five that have people with a date set already! Its crazy Elder Tamblyn goes home in less than two weeks! Its kinda weird knowing for sure that I'll be getting a new companion and that I'll be staying in the same area. But he's doing great! He's a great example of enduring to the end! But dont worry, I try to remind him he's going home soon as often as possible! Ive been a bit concerned lately about slipping into old habits when i get home. So Ive been praying alot about that this week and ive been reading in mosiah in my personal studies and ive been able to get some great insights on what i need to do to avoid that. especially from chapters 24 to 29! Its been really nice to receive answers to prayers like that through the scriptures! We were able to get a free two week pass to the gym here in town to run on the treadmills and this morning was our first time, we both ran two miles... it felt great! and from being sick for a week, i was able to loose five pounds! only got 15 more to go!! (i hesitate putting that info in here, because now you know how much ive gained on my mission!) But no worries here, you'll never see it when i get home because it'll be long gone by then! By the way, it snowed about a foot here this morning! well, love ya!!

73rd week in Spokane

We had another awesome awesome week! Elder Tamblyn and I both got the flu. I got it the first part of the week and he got it the second part so we didn't get near as much work as we had hoped, but with the little time that we were able to get out, the Lord blessed us! I'll start with the bad news. We weren't able to meet with tiffany this week, we got a call from them and they decided not to get married yet, so that's really frustrating. I'm ready to go lay down some Alma 39 on them! And they didnt come to church. But on to the good news.. One of the lessons that we taught was with Ed Brown, and he had a friend over, Jeremy Chipman. We read straight out of 2 Nephi 31 with them and invited them to be baptized and they said they would on march 4!! And they both came to church yesterday!! So thats a good thing. also one of our investigators that comes quite often, but just for sacrament, and has been coming for years, his wife is a member, we invited him to stay for all three hours and he did for the first time! So that was really exciting! Also in the first ward, we had Elder Risemay come and speak in our sacrament meeting. He's an area seventy and his talk was awesome! Unfortunately none of our investigators came to that meeting! Happy Valentines Day!! Love ya!!
I forgot to tell ya a couple things! First, we got a little bit of snow this week and Elder Tamblyn was driving and we came up to this big turn in the road, but we just kept going straight and ended up off the road a bit. Then when we called the member that we were going to they called it 'dead mans curve' we wonderred why and then we just happened to glance off the hill that we almost rolled down, and sure enough, we would have been dead men!! It was pretty funny! The other thing that I forgot to mention is about Joseph! He decided to get baptized! But since he is from a polygamist background, he has to be interveiwed by an apostle, so that is in the works and once that happens, he'll be baptized! Things are goin great here in bonners ferry! love ya!

72nd week in Spokane

We had a GREAT week! Two of our investigators decided to get baptized. Joseph decided to but we can't set a date for him yet, it will probably be in March, near the end of the month. So that will give us plenty of time to make sure he is truly converted! Tiffany decided to get baptized too! She is getting married this Saturday so that she will be living the law of chastity. She is solid! She is really ready to make the changes necessary in her life and is tired of procrastinating! We were able to set a date for baptism on February 26! The only road block that she needs to overcome now is smoking, so prayers on her behalf are very much needed. We had just a really great lesson with her last night and we were able to focus everything on Christ and baptism. It was great! On Thursday we're going to be teaching her about the word of wisdom and get her on track to quit smoking and drinking coffee! I love teaching the word of wisdom! Its gonna be awesome! The zone is doing really great too! we are excited about whats happening and whats going to continue happening! We also had three investigators attend church this week.. so that sure was a blessing! The neat thing is that yesterday I fasted that Elder Tamblyn and I would be able to have a baptism together before he went home. And then the Lord blessed us that night with Tiffany! Missionary work is amazing! I studied this whole week in Jacob 5 to try and really understand it and some of the things that really stuck with me from it is just how involved the Savior is in our lives, and just how much He is involved in the missionary work. It is His work and He has hired us to help Him. I cant tell you enough how grateful I am to be a missionary! Love ya!