Where are Thou Inspiration

Some Fun in Spokane

I have been trying to think of something clever to write about for the past 4 hours, but nothing is coming to me.

Transfers are the topic of the week: 

My companion is leaving and I am staying. My new companion will be Elder Shepherd.

This has been the strangest transfers I have ever seen. Nothing is happening besides a sister going home because she completed her mission, and my companion leaving. Nobody else is leaving, so that's nice.

More Fun

BYU came up to Spokane the other day. 

They challenged Gonzaga at basketball and it was a slaughter. We couldn't watch of course, but we heard that BYU won, not just by some small margin either, they killed it. I don't think many of the locals around here like missionaries right now. We knock on a door, they open up and say, "You're from the same church as that BYU aren't ya?" and it just goes down from there.

We have finally made a plan with out pal Moses. In 4 weeks he will be ready to be baptized he just has to choose the day and time after March 21st. It could be the next day or the next week, but it is finally going to happen. 

So with my Swahili companion going, I will no longer be apart of the Swahili work in this area. Elder Cohen will still be going over to our ward to teach the Swahili class, but that is the only time we will see him. I will now just be focusing on the English work in this area. It will be refreshing to teach lessons in English primarily for a change. I also hear that Elder Shepherd is a really great missionary, so I'm excited.

More Fun

So the kung-flu is in Spokane now. 

The hospital we go to to give people blessings has some guests who get special treatment. Upon their arrival, all roads leading to the hospital were blocked off by the police. We are told that the patients are in a special room that is air sealed and all secure, so we should not have to worry about any chance of disease anytime soon.

.My First Chicken Hearts - They were good

Last story. 

A lady came into the family history center and told us that she wanted to be a member.

She is awesome. We had asked her why she had this interest in the church and she told us that it started when she was 12. She said she had been really close to the Holy Ghost her whole life, that she had been lead all her life to do big things to prepare to serve the Lord. She was a doctor among a few other things, but we were awestruck in her desire to meet with us. 

She will be baptized, but not in Washington...

Join us next week for more

And A Contrite Spirit

Great Hike on P-Day

If you couldn't guess, I have a broken heart.

This was my second Valentine's Day in the mission. I just need a valentine of my own, maybe next year . (Job 7:13) 

Winter is coming to a close. I can finally go out without any thermals on and still be comfortable. At least until the sun goes down, then the temperature goes down like our hopes, when somebody tells us they will come to church then don't show up☹️. 

Anyways we have some difficult news. The only people we can count as having gone to church are now people above the age of 8, so now we won't even come close to getting 29 people to church again on paper. But it's alright we manage to still get loads of people to join us every Sunday for the Swahili classes my companion teaches. 

View From the Hike

This week we went on lots of exchanges. I first went with Elder Weight, our Zone Leader. We had a good time talking with lots of homeless people. A few of them had left everything behind at a place they once called home to get away from toxic relationships. Many of them were looking for ways to put their foot in the door of the community, mostly looking for opportunities work. We pointed them in the direction of a street with plenty of businesses to choose from. We also invited them to church telling them that some of the members might have better advice than we would, but unfortunately none of them managed to come to church still. I just hope they found what they needed. 

Cool Pictures from the Hike

We found that one of the people we are teaching, besides having enough on his plate with stressful work, has been having sleeping issues. He has a problem holding his breath during the night and this causes him to wake up and loose valuable sleep time. 

We told him that his burdens would be eased in such a way that he could bear them, (much like in Mosiah 24) only if he tries to rely on the teachings of Christ. He has told us time and time again that meeting with us has already been a huge blessing in his life. Now he prays daily without being asked, and he even reads the scriptures and finds peace in them. But he is unsure about what more he can do to improve his life. We hope he will take our words to heart and deepen his conversion of Christ. 

Hike

The other exchange was a handful.

We visited a Swahili person even though my companion (the actual Swahili speaker) went to the other area, so that wasn't very well thought through. But we had a good lesson anyway, I guess the spirit translated for us or something because I had no idea what was going on.

We visited an appointment complex full of old people, who all stank of Marijuana, I can't believe just how many places here in Spokane are just full of that smell, it's getting old fast. 

Today we went on a hike, and it reminded me al lot of Utah, except it was muddy and I couldn't keep from laughing because nobody else (even a few from Utah) brought good hiking shoes, and they all kept slipping. I got some great pictures though so look out. 

Ants Invading our Apartment

1 Nephi 7:17 

"the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord." 

(how's that for a scripture, moment!)

Service and Dumplings

A lot of cool things happened again!

First what I want to mention something I forgot to put in my last email, not only was last Sunday Fast Sunday, but the date was also a palindrome (for those of you who don't know a palindrome is a word or phrase that read the same back word as forward. Here is an example: Taco cat, reversed is taco caT. Last Sundays date was 02/02/2020).

Among the cool things that happened that day, one of the Swahili people we are teaching, walked up to the pulpit and bore his testimony of God's love for him. Of course we could not have understood him if it weren't for my companion translating for him. The most exciting thing to ever happen in a fast and testimony meeting is when one of the people I teach: goes up in front of all the people, most of whom were total strangers, then shares something personal about their relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Seeing this man go up was just an awesome experience for us.

The same day we also had a general authority join us for sacrament meeting: Elder and Sister Stapleton. They also bore powerful testimonies of the truthfulness of the church, and of some of the blessings of serving missions. It was sweet.

Anyways, back to the present, our week was full! 

We were talking about Boots,
and they convinced my companion
to put some "Boots" on

I don't know what it is, but lately we have been having to reschedule lots of appointments with the people we teach regularly, and in many of those times our schedule was empty. We get a call, either for a blessing at the hospital or someone else needs help in the area. Here is an example from Tuesday. We had planed to go finding in a certain area but instead we received a call for a person who needed a blessing. How soon we asked? Now, they said.

So we went on our way to give a person a blessing. We are not sure what was wrong, we asked the nurse and she only told us that she was very sick. This person had tubes going everywhere, even in places where I had previously thought it was not possible. I will not give any more details on the matter, except to say that it was an amazing experience to give this person a blessing.

Like I had previously stated last week, last week. We are trying to get as much people to church as possible. So far every promise to go to church we have obtained from the English people we teach have been hollow and empty. They commit and tell us that they will be there, but no such luck. If it were not for the Swahili people we teach we wouldn't have anyone at church. Speaking of which yesterday was ward conference. 

We have an awesome bishop. He does all he can to help those we bring to church feel welcome. He gave a talk about the love and care others have shown to him and how should follow the example of Christ and care for all people when we can. At the end he bore his testimony, but this testimony was different. Since the Swahili missionaries started working on this area the bishop took it to himself to learn Swahili. His testimony yesterday was completely in Swahili! Many people in the ward looked confused, I guess they thought somebody fell asleep with their finger on the gift of tongues button because it was good!

These are called mandazi I think.
They are basically African scones.
Just fried bread, and it's good

Next on the list: Service and Dumplings!

We do lots of service at Food Banks. This place in particular is massive, and is usually full of Slavic patrons who are in need of weekly sustenance.

On the day of question, we were having a slow day. We started off by dropping off the elders at the service and proceeded to go to some scheduled lessons that were far from this service. We then experienced disappointment after disappointment. Each of the scheduled visits we had planed and confirmed, had canceled or failed to show up when we were ready to meet with them.

Slightly infuriated (because of the waste of the waste of time and miles) we went back to the service we dropped the other Elders off at.

Once we showed up about 5 minutes past until it was time for us to go. Needless to say, we were having a bad day.

On our way to the car we encountered a funny guy. He was from China. He was well dressed in traditional Chinese clothes and had a big bulky suit case.

Once he saw us, his eyes brightened up. He waved us over and asked if we could help him carry his accordion. He had told us he was a performer, 35 years in practice, and he was going to the local dumpling festival. We all walked back into the building where the the Food bank service was held, and found that he was in the wrong place, and that it was just down the road from there. He told us that we should go by there around 1:00 and get some dumplings. We thought it was a good idea for lunch so we went right ahead.

These are called Mandazi I think.
They are basically African scones.
Just fried bread, and it's good.

Later once we got there, it was PACKED! There was an hour long wait for all you can eat dumplings, it was a bigger hit than the anticipated.

Once our friend found us he lead us right through the line, gave us a plate of dumplings for all of us and told us to try them. We could feel some of the eyes on us for cutting the whole line, and our friends only care was to show off to us. He then took us over to a piano in the room and played a traditional Christian Chinese song. Wow! He is good on the piano.

He then wanted us to get some ice cream which also had a pretty big line but we couldn't take that much advantage of his hospitality. 

Around this time there was some traditional Chinese dancers in the middle of the room, and boy it was cool to watch. (I'm sorry that all I can do is tell you what happened in an email, but I did take a video, I will send it to my family and they will put it someplace where you could find it)

What a cool experience. 

I have spent enough time on the email now, so I will turn in, but not before a nice scripture moment. 

Today's scripture is Jeremiah 1:5, it is for when people say they they don't know of God loves them, or doesn't even care for them.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations

God knew us before we came into this world, he has a plan for us and has given us the tools necessary to make that plan possible. He loves us and cares for us. He is happy when we are happy. He is sad when we are sad. Much like our parents, He is there for us in every scenario and in every heartbreak. He will comfort us in times of trial and will provide a way for us - always.

WE GOT 29 PEOPLE TO COME TO CHURCH

Dapper cowboy at BootBarn.
I'm definitely going back after the mission

BUT DANG! WE GOT 29 PEOPLE TO COME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY!

For this transfer we all wanted to work on getting the people we are teaching to church. Last transfer we focused on finding people, now that we have a big teaching pool we need them to go to church to meet the members. Once they begin making friendships with the members, they will start coming on their own. We will have to hardly have to do a thing. This is how it's been for the past few weeks. Lots of the people we teach have great friends in the ward, and a few of them even set up their own rides. 

They talked me into this - Zone Unity, I guess.
I'm bottom left.

So the story. We have two sets of missionaries in our ward - the English missionaries and the Swahili missionaries. Though I was called English speaking, I serve as one of the Swahili missionaries. So besides me, there is another set of missionaries who brought 13 of the people they are teaching and we brought 16.

We have some great news! 

The person we have been working with for the longest time just told us that he wanted to be baptized!

A huge service project in Spokane city center,
helping the homeless get some free stuff. 

It is a big deal - especially for this guy this is a big deal, my companion, Elder Cohen, has been working with him his whole mission so far (because he has only been in this area for about a year). This guy is a leader among those who come to Spokane from Africa. He speaks multiple languages fluently and they all go to him for help with bills, taxes and etc... They would all follow his example and take lessons from the missionaries, or at least be curious about what he is talking about. He also knows where a bunch of Swahili speaking people live, so if he became a member he would be of great help in helping us find and teach them.

We saw some weird art while tracting.

I'm sorry that I don't have more time to talk about this awesome week. The Chiefs won! I guess that's it. 

I took lots of pictures this time. 

Sorry this was not as good a Pic as I wanted,
but the style of these houses were amazing
and we wanted to show people. 

We stacked all those boxes and packets of cans, I was sore.