We're No Angels

I am ready for a bright, Hawaiian Christmas Day!

I suppose I had better get this out of the way first. Next P-day for me will be on Christmas day and it is the only day next week I will be able to communicate with family and friends. (Now that we have a heads up, we can avoid what happened on Thanksgiving).

We have been doing some great work here in Lincoln heights. We have lots of Swahili work as well as English work to do, and now we never have a moment with nothing to do (unless the 5 lessons we scheduled for the day all at once cancel on us. It has happened more than once now; but if it hadn't been for the fact we would not have been able to find some promising prospects.)

Most the people we have been finding at first seem like they want to meet with us and want to hear us out, or at least pretend they do. Once we return to talk with them again they tell us they forgot and are too busy at the moment to meet with us, then once we return again, then they don't even answer the door and ignore us, even though we know they are home. At least we have a large teaching pool already, we will have lots to do. 

Speaking of, we have found some solid people to teach! Notwithstanding the great Swahili family's we already are working with, the English has been prospered considerably in the past week.

Enjoying some good childhood memories.
(We were showing Elder Cohen Candy Land for the first time.
It got pretty competitive at the 5th round) 

We walked up to this guy's front porch, and in his window there was a sign that said. "is there life after death? Trespass and find out☠️" 

So once the guy came out (I'm going to call him Rick) we asked him about that sign, and if he actually believed if there was a life after death. He had told us that he was unsure; since the death of his mother he has wondered about the destination of her soul and if she was alright. We told him that we share a message from God, given to us to bring us peace of mind and joy of the soul.  We also told that we know where we come from, where we go and why we are here in this life. We were able to set up a time to come back. Once the time for our lesson came, we were able to have a wonderful lesson with both Rick and his wife. It turns out Rick's mother knew some few parts of the Plan of Salvation already. She was spiritually lead and was able to discern them from the Bible and teach her son, so when we taught him he was like, " Oh, I already believe that..." for this and that all over the lesson.

Apple pie and glazed doughnut pancakes.

These members feed me way to much, and way to well.

Sorry if I had more time I would write something spiritual to share, but I lack the time. 

I do apologize,  I forgot to send last week's email and all the text above was that email. I will just add to this email and hopefully the plague that are described in it will not be added unto me. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

I don't know about you, but we were not able to have a white Christmas, in fact we had a wet Christmas, all the snow melted because it is so warm. (According to my African companion, it is freezing,  he doesn't know what's coming. Right now it's only 40°F, during February last year it was - 30° plus windchill. ) 

We are teaching this guy who is struggling with smoking. He had been making good progress reducing his intake from 2 packs a day to only a few cigarettes a day. Then we told him that the time was now to quit and give up his cigarettes. He was not to enthusiastic about it, but he did give us what he had, (which we promptly threw in the trash when we got home) then we promised to visit him each night to strengthen him in his conviction. Things were going fine, until recently he stopped returning our calls and is no longer home when we visit him. We fear that he has broken into his old habit and gave in to his vice.

Not Bad, I still like the Festival of Lights Back in Utah better...

We are brainstorming ideas to get with him again. He may be feeling guilt or shame. That is something we all feel when we break any of God's commandments, but that does not mean that there is not a remedy for this. God has promised us that so long as we return unto him he will remember our sins no more, and we can enjoy all the blessing a he has in store for us. 

D&C 58:42

42 Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.

We have been meeting lots of people that keep telling us to come back.... After the holidays .  With how things go for us they may never be quite "ready for us to come over, we are so busy". We shall see how all these potentials go. I will keep you all posted if anything cool happens. 

Add captionThe Joke of the Spokane Police Force

We have been doing a lot of caroling lately. Boy they are so much more effective than just knocking on doors. The people feeling like they owe it to us to either talk to us or even have us over some other time. 

We have gone out with our ward as well as our zones, but the coolest ones are when we go with our ward. Because we are teaching lots of Swahili people and quite a few of them are coming to church. We learned a Swahili Christmas Hymn! I have a video that I will send to my family, and hopefully they will find a way to share it with y'all. Anyways we all had a blast singing and getting to know more people. The kids were so excited to be knocking on doors. They ran to the next location with great enthusiasm each time we were going to another home. 

We got Dave, the pastor, to come to our church last Sunday. However, he has certain conditions about that. The only one of note was that we had to go to his church on Christmas Eve for his special service. It was a bit of a surprise for me, because I have never before attended another church service in my life, so the drums and guitars were a bit unsettling for me, not to mention that we all got candles and  stood up to sing with every song. We met quite a few interesting people there. While we talked with them, I kept reminding myself that I could not proselyte in another church (mission rules. Overall it was a decent experience (I just can't get over the band.) 

Well, this had been a good Christmas for us, we were able to play Settlers of Catan and eat two great meals with two great families. 

The Most food I have ever seen at one place at the same time that was not a store

I hope you all have had a merry Christmas, and had the chance to remember the true meaning of Christmas. 

Here is a nice little video that can help you if your struggling with the true meaning, if you are not struggling you should still watch it because it's a good share video:

The Reason Behind Christmas

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/video/inspirational-messages/2013-11-018-the-reason-behind-christmas

Well the time has come for me to close. Be as it may, while we were caroling in big groups, and I must confess we stepped all over the governors grass. We're no Angels but they all loved our singing.

Thank you all for your great messages and responses to my emails, I hope you all have a good night's sleep after all those sweets. 

It's Happening

Me and My New Companion, Elder Cohen

I got transferred to Lincoln heights!

I tell ya, this is the most stressed I have ever been while driving. Already there have been multiple times where we should have been involved in accidents because of the intense driving of the locals here in the big city, but I'm okay, and so is the car. (my parents would be proud)

So I realized once I got to the area that I may have said that I was going to be Marshallese, but it is actually going to be Swahili.

Elder Schelenberg, Elder Bartschie and I
last day of last transfer 

My companion is fluent in both English and Swahili, already we have been able to visit lots of Swahili families. My companion even taught Come Follow Me for them in Swahili at church yesterday. As for me, I do a bit more than I thought I would. When we teach the people we teach ask my companion to translate so I can be apart of the conversation (they are a really patient people). This is such a cool area to serve.

The members here are very missionary minded. There are a few things they do that I am not used to, nobody is perfect. Anyways, we have lots of opportunities to have members come with us to teach in this area. We have it set up so that a member will come with us every Tuesday and Thursday night, for the whole night driving us around and participating in lessons (I have not had the chance to participate in this yet, but it sounds sweet.)

Me, Out and A Boat

There is a whole mix of different people and communities in Spokane. When we volunteered at the local food bank lots of Slovak people came in. Among them there are Swahili, Marshallese and Spanish people all over Spokane with all the Chinese population down in Moscow. We have a lot of work to do.

Magic Zone Leaders

So far the people we have met have been nice, but there was this one guy who was overall interesting! We entered his yard and on his porch he had a small knee high gate, we pass it and knock on his door, we knock just once or even the same way so we taped on the glass of his door to see if we could get anyone to come to the door. Once he came out he was in a foul mood. He said "did you open the gate on your way in!" we say yes. " Well, close it on your way out!" "how would you like it if I came to your home and knocked on your door!". To that we responded by telling him that we both lived far away and that it would be very hard to find (which is true) and to that he says, "Oh yea give me your address, you think you're being funny!" (apparently it was not this guy's day). Then my companion says that he was from Kenya and at this point he finally gave up. Everybody else has been quite a bit nicer than he was. 

He dropped his GAINS!
He was a disappointed schellen. (inside jokes) 

Thanks for all the support and love that ya'll send my way, if you want to send me anything you will have to go to my blog, there you will find the address for my mission office, from there they will send it to my current address in Spokane. 

Once Again, It's P-Day

The Moscow Dream was Finally Realized

I know what you might say. "But Elder Willis, P-day was last week". Well, I am back, and I have more to tell and more to share, for today is Transfer Day.

My time in Moscow has come to an end, I am leaving the mother land to travail in the city of Spokane, Lincoln Heights, to be exact. 

A Bearded Dragon

A Reptile Show - This is a Ball Python

From what I am told, this place is very low income and there are lots homeless in that part of town. I also hear that it is primarily Martiwlus work as well, so I am going to do a lot of standing around not knowing what is going on.

Not much has changed since the last email I sent you all.

We managed to find more referrals for the YSA missionaries. We tracted into Lilly, a young woman who just lost her uncle, but upon hearing about the plan of Salvation, wanted to meet with us again.

We made water!
(The water in the building was turned off,
so we took all the ice and melted it.)

I, unfortunately, have to go early, we have to sign a lot of journals and I did not realize how much time passed by. 

Happy Thanksgiving

The hour of our second feast on Thanksgiving -
After that I could barely bend over, I was so full

Now is the time we can show most of our gratitude, when we are placed before a bountiful feast don't forget to show your appreciation for both your host and the Lord for the opportunity to gain weight and every moment that follows.

Sorry I could not talk last Monday, our mission President let us get ready for the week like laundry and groceries, but we could not message or email because we would get that chance later on Thanksgiving. (We get all day to relax and enjoy the fruits of our labors).

Remember Bibek, the man I was talking about who is from out of town? Well we had a fantastic lesson with him, teaching him about the Restoration. He said that it all made sense, and that he would keep reading the Book of Mormon. He even invited us to his home out of country (if we ever go that way that is). He is so humble and now wants to meet with us soon every day this week before he goes to Rexburg where his friends are going to school. It pains my heart that we have to hand him off to the YSA elders. He is such an awesome guy to teach.

We Got Fed By Some Members We Served -
there were so many leaves

In other parts of the work, we have Ashkan! He is a lot like Bibek, not from around here, but he is super humble and ready to learn. We had a fantastic lesson with him the other day. We taught him about what we call spiritual C. P. R (that is, church, prayer and reading the scriptures). He already has a background religion and to our surprise had already been practicing these spiritual sustaining attributes for many years before he had met us. We even talked about more than we had planed, like fasting, and how the first Sunday of each month is a little different from the rest, and now he is excited to come to church this Sunday.

I'm sorry that I don't have too much more time to write about the week. Even though we had the whole day off we spent most of it relaxing, talking and watching some of the awesome videos on the Gospel media App

I will have more. Tune in next time to hear the latest on Transfer calls! 

My Companion is Quite the Cook -
he uses a lot of coke and sugar in his recipe

That's right folks, next week I will find out wither or not I will be staying in Moscow. Remember, before you worry abour sending mail or any packages, that I won't be going anywhere until next Thursday.

GOOD NIGHT!