86th week in Spokane

Another great week here in Sandpoint, Idaho! The sun is shinning, the lake is glistening, and I can't even get in it!! We had a really great week! I wanna start with telling you a story that happened on Friday. We went up to our old house to check out its progress (because it had a fire) well, the kitchen is completely gutted, they found asbestos so they had to take all the insulation out of the walls and ceiling. its gonna be a while before anyone moves back in there. Well, just outside the house, they have a little trail that goes up a hill with a little campfire ring and then a little past that is an awesome lookout to all the valley. So I ran up there to check it out.. its only like a hundred yards long. Well, I got up to the fire pit area and I heard a noise, like the brush moving, so I turned and looked and about ten feet to my left was a moose! The brush noise came from it going from a laying position to a standing one. By the way, when I was in Utah, me and another guy were chased by a massive bull moose and that was pretty intimidating even though the guy with me had a gun, so needless to say, without hesitation, I turned down the hill and ran! My companion said he's never seen anyone run so fast! haha unfortunately, because I was running downhill, I got a whole lot of speed, so much so that when I tried to stop when I got to the car, my feet slowed down but my body didn't and I fell haha.. I got a bruise on both sides of my hips, my butt, my right knee, left shin, and got my right palm all cut up! It was pretty exciting! but I would much rather all that than a hoof print on my face!! Gladly, the moose didn't chase.. I dont think I gave it enough time to think about it!! So that's my big story for the week! Kinda funny I think! As far as the teaching part of this week, it was really good for that as well! We taught more this week than we had all transfer! Kathy is the lady that is preparing to get baptized in Clark Fork, she is supposed to be doing it next weekend, but I don't think shes gonna be ready for that day, which is fine, it needs to happen when she's ready for it to happen, but she is pretty solid and she will get baptized, I'm confident about that. We made some great progress with Carla this week as well, we talked about the word of wisdom again, and she committed to quit smoking and cut back on the alcohol, which is huge for her!! It will be really good for her to be rid of those addictions so that the Spirit of the Lord can be felt by her more abundantly. Also in Clark Fork, we got a phone call from a young man, he's a teacher, that two of his friends want to get baptized! We went and taught one of them, because the other was sick. and the spirit was way strong during that lesson, he's a really neat kid, his name is Johnathan and he's seventeen. He has been reading from the Book of Mormon and knows its true and from God. He is preparing to be baptized on June 11! Only problem is that his mom has not yet given him permission to do so, his dad has, but not his mom. So we will be working on that. On Thursday I was able to spend the day in Bonners Ferry, and that was such a blessing! I was able to go teach Gerald Rate and Jaak Sanders, and that was awesome! We talked heavily with Jaak about the Book of Mormon, and I feel like we made a lot of progress with him. With Gerald, we read from the Book of Mormon, 3 nephi 14 and that went way good because he had said in their last lesson that he wasn't really interested anymore in the church. Again, we were able to make quite a bit of progress with him as well. On Saturday we had dinner at the Palmers. Sam Palmer is the one that got baptized last month. Well, it turns out that they have been talking to a lady named Lisa about the church Lisa is someone that our bishop told us to go see about a month before, but we hadn't ever been able to make contact with her. But the Palmers had given her a Book of Mormon and she has been reading it and absolutely loves it! She said that she has never read anything that has rung so true to her and that she will more than likely be joining the church very soon! So that was good to hear!! Hopefully we will be able to teach her this week and invite her to be baptized!! Oh yea! other big news... Joseph Black finally got baptized this weekend!!! I am way happy about that! I really enjoyed teaching him! He's in Bonners Ferry. Also on Sunday, Elder Van Dyke and I gave talks in church in Sunnyside! I feel like it went pretty good, I think that it was my first time being assigned to talk on a talk from general conference. It was from Elder Kent F. Richards of the Seventy “The Atonment Heals All Pain”. I had fun talking on it, I shared the story about when I cut my leg and at that same time I was going through the repentance process preparing to serve a mission and how through the Atonement I was able to be healed spiritually and physically, it was fun! Well, I think that's all from me! I sure hope everyone is doing great! Love ya!