Week 52. One year!

 The official day is the 30th but this is the email. It's been an awesome year and this week has honestly been one of the craziest so it was a good week to end the first year. A lot was left out sadly or y'all would be reading for a while but here are the highlights:

Kevin - so this is the mute and deaf Kevin and he really wants to be baptized. So last Sunday we had ASL Sisters over zoom and they tried teaching him but it wasn't so great, then this week they had to bail so we weren't sure what to do. We got a bunch of pictures of Jesus and a member who knows ASL and taught them the plan of salvation and the Atonement of Christ. According to the translator they understood it pretty well which is awesome! Please pray for him

Transfers - it was crazy as always. We took a slightly longer way down for a cool pic, and then had fun talking with a bunch of missionaries. Had fun talking with everyone and then I got my new comp, Elder Harmon. This guy is so awesome. It's only been like 4 days but I've honestly loved it and am getting along with him great. The drive home was long but we got chick FIL a so that was nice. 

Alana + Tasha - Tasha came on Sunday and seemed to enjoy it and said she had questions. So we met with both of them right after transfers and had the best lesson with them ever. It was mostly for Tasha because this time she was asking the questions and was invested in the answer. It was super cool because up until then she didn't talk much and just seemed interested in activities. But after that we had an even better discussion on prayer and the things that were holding them back and it honestly went so well. Please pray for them.

Tatum - we had so many great lessons. This was Sunday night and we started by talking about The Things of My Soul by Elder Rasband. We focused more on temple recommend and she finally goes, "I'm holding myself back. I need to stop procrastinating." And Harmon goes, "you just got told by the Spirit." 

It was pretty awesome and we went over the questions and she shared her testimony and it was legit. 

Spiritual thought:  so the thought I wanted to share was Matthew 14

    29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

   30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

When Peter walked on water he did it because of His faith and focus on Christ. But he began to sink when he doubted himself and lost his focus on Christ. There are a lot of times when we don't necessarily doubt God but we doubt ourselves and the trust He puts in us. And I just wanted to remind all of you that no matter what you think about yourself God thinks the world of you, He sacrificed His Son for you, and He trusts you to do the right and receive all the blessings He's promised us. 

I hope you reach out to God this week and feel those blessings, feel His power in your life. 

I love and miss y'all 

Here are pics

Week 51. Blaine Rocks

 It's been an awesome week with miracles, blessings, some sadness, but even more joy! I freakin love being a missionary, here's the highlights:

Amy - had a super good lesson with her about looking down the road. That's a good talk. She completely recognized what she was looking at right in front of her that was stopping her from going forward smoothly and she committed to coming to church. She still didn't but things are changing for the better. I'll follow up with her this next week. 

Finding stories -  so we were knocking this apartment complex and this lady in her car rolled down her window and asked for a Bible. I usually always carry one with me but we only had Books of Mormon at the time so we handed her one of those and talked about it. Super cool. Right after we knocked on another door and talked with another lady who had just started to build her relationship with God and really loved our message. So we will hopefully see both of them again soon. We found two more, one was already religious but was open to the message and seemed to be struggling a bit seeing God in his life, so hopefully we can help him. The other had us sit down and he told us his beliefs. We related with the similar things and made sure to really listen. We left each other with invitations and so hopefully next time his heart will be softened and he can hear what we believe. 

Rileys - Super fun family, I've talked about them before. This week we taught the Armor of God and afterwards they brought us a few pieces of armor to try on so look at the pics!

Ryan - a miracle right here. A while ago I put a Free Book of Mormon and Bible on Facebook Marketplace. And I mean like in June. Then this Friday I get a text from this guy who is reading the Book of Mormon, on his own I think, and had questions. Super cool. If any of you remember Taira, my first baptism, I also met her from Facebook first, so hopefully something similar can happen or I can at least help him with his studying. Fingers crossed!

Transfers - we got transfer texts and sadly Elder Hansen is leaving Blaine. He's going to be my first companion I've only had for one transfer and I'm not a fan. He's freakin awesome and one of the best missionaries ever. I'm going to miss him. We'll see who the next one is next week tho. 

Spiritual thought - this week for District Council we talked a lot about the efforts we put into finding people who are willing to listen, but one cool thought that was shared that I want to share with all of you is this: 

God has promised to place prepared people in our path, but for that to happen someone had to help them be prepared. 

We are all supposed to do that, missionaries, members, even non-members. As we show our love, example, and light we can help others be prepared to want to learn more. Earlier I talked about a Lady we met who had just started her relationship with God. Before that happened she had told us about a pair of girls (missionaries maybe) who shared scripture verses with her and how later her boyfriend invited her to church. All of those things helped her be ready for that moment, and I'm so grateful for them. 

We can all help people to have that desire, or preparation needed to let the seed of faith grow. And I know you can all do it. 

I love ya all so much! Here's the pics

Week 50. A great week!

 Hi. If you don't read anything else, read the spiritual thought. And shout out to Bryce: Happy Birthday. Love ya, here's the highlights:

Hansen's B-day - I made him breakfast and brownies and we had an awesome day doing missionary work. Had some awesome lessons, a packed day, and amazing food. 

Exchanges - I went to another Area with Elder Martin. He's pretty cool. We had an awesome lesson at dinner that night. He asked a riddle and then the importance of asking questions to get guidance and answers. Then that night we both pulled out our yo-yos and had a trick battle. It was pretty impressive because he had a fixed axle and I had a loose Estring so we did different tricks. He's a cool elder. 

Gregory - so this guy. Missionaries have been in contact with him for a while, and so we called to see how he was doing and get this whole spiel and why the story of Sampson is false because no guy is that stupid and why would God make long hair so important. I felt really bad for him. That he read that much but took away so little. I tried helping him out, but I think he wants the Bible to be perfect and doesn't realize it was written a crap ton long time ago, has been through so many hands and translations, and the meaning of its verses has been disputed for centuries. So obviously we are going to be missing some details. 

So we talked about faith and the importance of that. Talked about Noah building the ark out of faith, but then Gregory went off about that and how it would've been impossible. And I said God literally performs miracles. I asked him if he believed in God and listened and set up a time to see him in person and so please pray for Gregory. 

Jeremiah - this week was definitely good but it had its weird parts too. This man posted on Facebook that he needed help and to find a new direction. So we hopped on it, met him at the park, and then this man proceeded to tell us what he believed in for the next hr. It was wack, the guy went through some wack stuff. Some stuff was similar, but the rest was kinda crazy. But then he gave us some time to talk, but we actually had to get going, but... in his spiel he said there was no prophet anymore. But he also said God works in seasons. So I said for a long time it was an off season and prophets weren't around, but the time has come again for prophets and it is amazing to have that guidance. Invited him to look into our prophet. So who knows what will happen there. 

Carnival - so our ward holds an annual carnival with lots of games and such. We were asked to make fries, which was a roller coaster of effort. Then we did a pie eating contest, axe throwing, and talking to as many people as possible. Some less actives showed up and other friends so it was pretty awesome. 

Alana + Tasha - had a lesson on Tuesday with them, then they actually came to the carnival even though it was as everyone was leaving. We talked for a bit and got them both committed to church and volleyball next week, and Alana for church this week! So she came and stayed for the second hr this time and asked us why only young men pass the sacrament so we sat down and talked about that and it was pretty cool that she asked a question like that. Hopefully we can help both of them continue to grow their relationships with God. 

P-day!! - we went to the fair today! It was pretty fun. I did deadlifts for a pencil and did a lot of walking around and seeing a bunch of cool stuff, but not buying anything cause I'm broke. They even had a rodeo! It was pretty cool. We ran into some members there and afterwards ran into one of those Christian dudes with the big banner and weird pamphlets. So funny! When he found out we were LDS he handed Hansen his banner and took out a pamphlet that just said multiple reasons why my religion was wrong (a lot of it was written without context  made me mad, but luckily I didn't read it til we got home). Well since he gave us something we traded and gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read and pray about it. Then I handed him a picture of Jesus without our number on the back and asked him if he wanted it. He seemed really surprised that I just had a picture of Jesus in my pocket, and I said, "I always have a picture of Him." Which I think might have pressured him into taking it because he didn't  it was super funny but, hopefully we helped clarify some misconceptions he had and show Him that we are all trying to follow the same Savior (which is actually the opposite of what his pamphlets said) but oh well. We will see if anything happens. 

All in all a great day.

Spiritual Thought - PRAYER IS THE BEST. This week my testimony of prayer has grown a lot. God loves hearing from you and He loves answering prayers. One of my favorite scriptures is Helaman 3:27 "Thus we may see that the Lord is merciful unto all who will, in the sincerity of their hearts, call upon his holy name" 

Which I actually found after saying a prayer asking for a scripture to share with others. 

I prayed for inspiration and received, I prayed for confirmation and received it, and I prayed for someone who's going to be baptized soon but was struggling and found out the next day her problem got solved. Literally prayer is amazing. I hope y'all never miss a chance to pray and call on His holy name, cause when you make it sincere He will answer. 

I love ya all, have a great week. 

Week 49. Never thought I'd need sunscreen in Washington

 Hello there. Here are the highlights:

Creydts -  I'm pretty positive I've talked about them before, the parents are converts and the children are still deciding. One really wants to be baptized so that's cool. But this week we went over to help with family history and the grandma was there (not a member) and was getting super excited about family history. It was pretty fun. 

Exchanges - Elder Wallace came to Blaine with me for the day. We had a great time, I taught him some yo yo and he taught me riptide on the uke, but the coolest thing was getting a lesson with a super busy friend that we have. She loves the church and we got to read Alma 7 with her and had an amazing discussion on it. Hopefully we can see her again soon. 

Rileys - awesome member family. After dinner we had an object lesson with the commandments on index cards. The lesson was to show that when we keep all the commandments Satan can't get us (it's pretty hard to rip 22 index cards at once). All the children tried and failed, but the littlest accidently ripped one in the process: the law of chastity. So that was funny

Eric - The Elders had met him before on the beach but we found his house and had a nice chat with him. One thing that was funny was how he told us his neighbor would probably love to have us over and agree with our message. His neighbor just happened to be a less active member 

Saturday -  lots of service today, got real dirty, almost died, and met a less active member who moved in a month ago and hadn't moved their records. That was pretty neat. She also fed us so it was even cooler. 

Buckner - another funny story. We did the finger and can lesson. It's about building your foundation on Christ. So you place your finger on a Book of Mormon and smash it hard with a can. All the force goes through your finger and doesn't hurt it. But this family didn't know that so all of their expressions when Hansen did it was so funny 

Cunninghams - super awesome lesson. They are a new couple living with parents but the parents were gone this week and they were so much more open then what they usually are. So we had an awesome lesson and they even asked questions! It was great. 

Today - so for p day one of the Bishops offered to take us to Mt Baker for a hike. It was so awesome and fun doing it. It was the chain lakes hike. Idk how long it was but it took us about 6 hrs which was a bit long but we stopped and got awesome photos and played in the snow so it was great. Literally exhausted tho because I was running around and being a stupid teenager didn't wear any sunscreen. Wearing collared shirts with a burnt neck is not fun but it was completely worth it. 

Spiritual thought - we are talking a lot about goals this week and so I just want to encourage y'all to involve the Lord with it. Ask Him for help. It doesn't matter what type of goal it is, He will help because He loves you. Here's a scripture:

Alma 37:37 - Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good;

I know that to be true. I've seen it time and time again. I love ya all and miss ya, but I know God is by my side helping me. And if you pray and ask Him to stand by your side and support you then we can be side by side with Him. 

Hope ya have a wonderful week!

Week 48. Missionary work is awesome!

 Hi y'all. Still alive. Doing great. If I could wish for one thing it would be for Washington to get AC units. Here are the highlights:

ZC - Zone Conference was awesome! Had some amazing speakers about teaching like the Savior, being more like kind dogs that live on roofs, and becoming a butterfly. Those last two sound silly but were actually super awesome. Talked about our own spiritual metamorphosis and how we are going to have those hard times to make us into something beautiful. Reminds me of a song: Diamonds by Hawk Nelson.

DC - super awesome, I didn't have to teach. More in spiritual thought. But apparently at lunch beforehand I was voted most likely to be an English teacher if I were to teach.

Hansen - this is the old returning lady and we met with her again and talked about the plan of salvation more and she loved it. She showed us how she got Book of Mormon tapes and then we even looked up some of her family for family history and there's some work to be done so that's awesome!

Watch party - we were invited to watch 2 devotionals with our district. Unlike General Conference, our attention wasn't the best. Luckily I already watched one of them. It was a great time though. 

Saturday - we had a ward breakfast and that was fun. Then we went to Bellingham for a social media training and that was pretty great. Talked to Sandra again. And got dinner at the place that used to be a Taco truck but they upgraded to a building and it was super good.

Spiritual thought - so this Sunday was all about missionary work and that's what we talked about in District Council too. But what was cool was how Elder Hansen related it to farming and how there are a lot of hard steps and when it comes time to harvest it happens to be the easiest and fastest times, but how we have to do the hard things to get there. 

First we have to cultivate. Cultivate relationships with others so they know how much you care about them, so when the time comes to share they know you do it out of love. Plant the seed. This one is pretty easy and there are a couple of ways to do it, just slowly introduce the gospel, whether it be by example or talking about it in natural ways. Helping that seed grow is one of the hardest and longest times. We may get discouraged a lot because we can't see anything come of it. But just because it hasn't broken the surface yet, doesn't mean it isn't growing, doesn't mean we stop. We keep doing our best to help them feel the spirit and support them with their goals and questions. 

Eventually comes the harvest: they love the gospel just as much as you and realize, recognize, and have felt the joy that comes from it. Too often we think too much about the hard work that goes into it, that we forget why we are doing it. We do it because we know it brings joy, eternal happiness, and eternal blessings. Don't forget that you are giving the greatest gift when you are helping others come unto Christ. It's hard, but so worth it. 

I love you all and I hope you're doing great too. Talk to ya next week.