We Could Leave Your Friends Behind

(sorry I wanted to make a nice title for my mission friend without a hat) - inside joke

Hello! 

So many exciting things have happened this time round.

We have been finding a lot more people than we usually do, but I will only talk about the promising ones today. 

These aren't all my groceries...a lot of food.

There is a college student who referred himself to us a little over a week ago, but he gave us very little information in his background. We were suspicious that this person might have malicious intent for us. We investigated where he lived and tried to look at our past records to see if we had any information from previous missionaries in the area about this person's address, but this is a college town and there are lots of move ins and outs constantly, so the records we did have are incorrect most of the time.

We Had to Rake a Lot of Leaves

Eventually we gave it up and just went straight to their door and rang the door bell and to our surprise a young man opened the door and immediately invited us in.  So we were thinking "uh oh, this guy is going to Anti us and we are going to miss our appointments because they always beat around the bush". But much to our astonishment he wanted to know more about Christianity. He wasn't even the guy we were looking for!

I wasn't kidding.  It was a lot of leaves

This young man had been raised in another faith and had spent about a year in America. To him the thought of Christianity always made him curious. It also helped that the person we were looking for (his roommate) was interested in learning more about our church because all of his friends who came with him from his country, went to either BYU Provo or BYUI and had good things to say about the members there.

So let's recap. The guy we were talking to was not the man we were looking for. But he was interested because of the interest in the church of the man we WERE looking for. This man we were looking for was very interested because of what his friends have told him about the example of the saints of the church.

Zone Conference Pictures

This reminds me of one of the videos we showed to some members recently. It is about a mother who has things on her list to accomplish for the day, but because we are human beings life has different plans for us. As we follow the example of Christ others will see the difference it has made in our life, and much like our friend from another land, people will want that difference in their lives as well. 

Fun Times at a Restaurant

“You never know how much good you do.”

https://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/mormon-channel/mormon-messages-2014/2014-00-008-you-never-know-360p-eng.mp4

Our two people on date for baptism may not make it to be baptized this Saturday. It's sad, but true. We have been plowing through all the lessons we need to teach them so that they could make it, but the last lesson they had with us erased all doubts, they are not ready. The biggest reason, they don't believe in prophets, especially Joseph Smith. 

More Zone Conference

More...

We have made plans to help revive their date but we feel like they have a long way to go now. In the Lords time they will be ready for baptism again. 

Sorry, we have had a lot on our plate today, I wanted to talk about a little more, but I don't have the time. 

and More...

Ya gotta love the pictures.

And More

Last One

Lazy Day

Leaf Day,
We Joined the College in its  Day of Service

Hey everyone, despite what has happened in the past week I am feeling slow today. So today will be a little short.

We had another Sacrifice Saturday a few days ago. This time we were in Pullman, Washington. 

I can't describe the feeling when you cross the state border but the work over there is on easy mode. People are actually nice to us and would really be willing to take time out of their day to speak to us and learn from us.

We were lucky enough to find a few people for them to teach (or at least go back again and see just how interested they are). 

We were able to have more lessons with our "on dates". They are very stressful. I am also told by my companion, that when we are meeting with this couple in particular, once they start asking "questions" my face turns red (it's not from anger or from embarrassment, so what could be causing this?) Anyways these questions always have something to deal with something that has happened in church history. Each and every one of the topics he brought up are things that would look controversial without context, but because we have been focusing on church history in our personal study we were able to provide the full story to each of his "difficult questions".  

Other than the "difficult questions" this couple is great (to protect the identity of this couple, I will call them Amy and Terry) . Amy is such an angel, and has a strong testimony of what we have shared with her, but Terry is the guy who doubts and tries to make us look bad in front of Amy, but it doesn't affect her. In fact she has such a strong testimony that she testifies often to Terry and sometimes rebukes him for some of his "almost Anti" questions. We are so proud of her and the progress that they have made together. 

Never Seen So Many Leaves in My Life. 
We got them all Raked.

Hey, I am sorry I don't have much more to share, but here is a spiritual thought. 

If you are familiar with the story of Ammon (Alma 17), he is a young man who wants to help those who fight his people come to a knowledge of the Lord. After some time he eventually finds himself in servitude for those he is trying to teach, and one day when he is assigned to watch over the kings sheep. 

Alma 17:27

27 Therefore, as Ammon and the servants of the king were driving forth their flocks to this place of water, behold, a certain number of the Lamanites, who had been with their flocks to water, stood and scattered the flocks of Ammon and the servants of the king, and they scattered them insomuch that they fled many ways.

I like to liken the scriptures unto us in our time and day. Imagine the sheep as us, the men who scatter them as Satan and those who follow him and finally Ammon as Jesus Christ. (Disclaimer: this thought is strictly for the imagination, and in no ways is to be taken and accepted as cannon to the Book of Mormon. For a full understanding of my analogy you just need to read Alma 17.) 

Our Groceries Last P-Day

Satan and those who follow him try to scatter us from our shepherd. They have an array of many different techniques and approaches to do this; but mainly by distraction and diversion

 are we ever lead astray. We need to focus on the path that our shepherd leads us on. If we make all that we do in life focused on the Savior and his teachings, we cannot be lead astray. Even if we are ever lost after having been confounded and scattered, we have the Savior who fights for our cause and will never stop the fight to bring us back into his fold.

Not Even Wenslydale?

The Library Pump

Things have picked up drastically recently, and like the scripture in the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants says we have been sifting the Wheat from the Tares. (I can't believe how many people we were teaching were Tares)

For those of you who don't know what I am talking about. A Tare is grass or poisonous weed that is similar in appearance to wheat. It cannot be distinguished from wheat until it is fully grown. Here is the scripture: D&C 86:7 "Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned." So basically a Tare is somebody who is not ready for the message of the Gospel and the Wheat represents those who are.

The Snow Came.  It was a lot.

Amidst plucking up all the Tares in our area we have come upon fields of Wheat, white and ready to harvest. In other words, we have dropped a lot of the people we have been trying to teach because they just came out and told us they are not interested, or they won't respond to any messages. But we were able to find lots of new people to teach. Each one is having good contact with members and missionaries in the past.

The first family: they were super nice and let us in and gave us some water, we were able to use this opportunity to share what a missionary's purpose is and they had lots of questions. We eventually found out that the husband of the family had a best friend while growing up, who had been a great example and even served a mission, so he was very interested in finding our more about what we did.

The Old MTC Gang

Eventually the time came where we had to go, but not before we were asked what our church believes, faith or works? After a small discussion and us telling him that the question  was like asking what blade on the scissors was more important. That without faith works are dead, and without works faith is dead. He seemed to like that answer and said we could come back sometime.

The next guy is not as promising. He goes to a local church College called New Saint Andrews (which is only one place of many in this town that teach and preach Anti). Whenever we hear that somebody is from that school in particular we prepare ourselves for an aggressive assault on our our faith, but with this man it wasn't quite like what we expected.

He also had a best friend who served a mission, and he wanted to know more about our church from the source, because he was all together very familiar with Anti information. So we didn't have much of a bible bash. It was actually a discussion, he wanted to know why we though that the Gospel (the Bible and the churches) changed after the death of the Apostles as well as why we claim to be the only right church which lead to a whole hour of discussions.

The Sky is Pretty

In the end we had already told him about the Priesthood, (power and authority to act in God's name). Why many different people thought the church had to be reformed, (because they could plainly see that what was taught and practiced AKA the sales of indulgences among many others practices were not what Christ taught). And even the First Vision with Joseph Smith and his experience with God, (if you either have not seen it or have no idea what I am talking about, go to https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org and search for the Restoration video, it explains it all). All in all it was not a complete waste of time, like we said, he is not as promising.

Pretty Again

Anyways, after last P-day that is when the temperature started diving. Immediately after we P-day ended a snowstorm took us all by surprise. Suddenly it was knit cap and gloves season and still is. 

We met the most crazy man I have ever had the chance to comprehend in my life (no he did not have the Wenslydale? (inside joke).

He claimed that he knew what food was, that you could only eat grain seeds that have sprouted. He said that he could go into his past lives, that he remembered what it was like to talk to Cain and Able as their father Adam and many more things did he say which cannot be written here for I am forbidden by my companion. Just know, that this guy was crackbrained.

Halloween was a bit of a disappointment. All the missionaries in our mission had to stay inside from starting from 5:00 to the next day. Not just because they want us to avoid the drunk mayhem which is good, but it is because people like to dress up as missionaries. So our mission president know that we are not getting into or causing trouble, he makes sure what we just stay inside for the night. (I am only telling you this so I have an excuse to not be able to tell you any cool Halloween stories, because there are none).

My Companion, Elder Wang, and I

Well, that's a lot to talk about, and I haven't even mentioned my companion Elder Wang. He is so good with English. He is even pretty witty, even so sometimes he gets a little lost, but I am positive that the holy Ghost helps him pick up right where he left off. 

We taught some people a few days ago who were struggling to know if God loves them, to make the long story short we basically told them this. "You yourselves being parents love your children right?" They say "yes". "Well we have a Father in Heaven, and He loves us more than we can understand, so much in fact that he sent His first born son to suffer and die for us. That is how much our Father loves us". By this time we were able to get our point across and show them God's love for us.

Thank you all for your love and support, especially for reading my email. (man they are getting long).

Pictures, it's been cold and we have been taking lots of pictures.