Week 103. Led by God

 Hey! As some of you may know, I'm coming home soon, pretty crazy. So the last email will be on Thursday 

Moving - we switched apartments and now I'm back at the Trinity, except instead of being in a studio we now have a huge one bedroom, one bath. It's crazy to think it costs less and it's pretty nice. 

Blessings - Moving took a lot longer than we expected and so we weren't able to plan our day. So we were trying to figure out what we should do when we got a call to give a missionary a blessing. So we did that, then got a call to give a blessing at the children's hospital. Super cool story of this family and their daughter. So cool that God had made us free and in the area to help those people 

Mos - we finally got to talk to him again! He is still planning on being baptized in Dec and coming back in Oct. We'll have a longer talk with him next week 

Chess - we met with Grant again and played chess. Same dude as week 77. Asked him a lot more questions about why he left the church and found out he hasn't been reading scriptures or praying, so that about sums it up. But I almost won him this time and got out of 2  very close calls before losing. 

Hanni - had another lesson with Hanni and it didn't go as planned but we were able to help her feel some peace. Then she came to church and loved it! She made instant friends with some members and is planning on going to so many activities. She's awesome. 

Caitlin - Elder Suchomel recommended we take her to the see the temple so we did. We talked a lot about why we have them and what they do for us. Since then she keeps talking about how much peace she's felt and how she wants to go again. Then on Friday she got surgery and was all drugged up when she came to church which was funny 

Burned hand - we made a skookie, skillet cookie, and Elder Nuzman went to grab it with a oven mitt and a towel and someone the heat didn't ruin either of them but went straight to his hand and gave him a gnarly second degree burn. We went out at midnight, got some burn cream and now he just wraps his hand. It was a fun night

Spiritual thought - 1 Corinthians 3:7-8

So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.

This is similar to what I shared for my departing testimony, but it talks about how we can work hard and do our best, but in the end it's God who gives us the miracles. And how at times even if our efforts don't seem to be working God will give us miracles so long as we are being faithful. 

So if you're having a hard time at the moment, just know that as you continue to be faithful, God will give you the miracles you need. 

I've seen it on my mission and I know it to be true. I love you all and I'll see you soon

Pics

Week 102 Tiny Watermelon

 Ollo. Another one for the books. Here were the highlights:

Elder Moon - went on exchanges and got to walk and bus around. Had a fun lesson with Janice, a sweet old lady. And then his bishop fed us dinner that night and we taught them and their children short message, and it was the first time I had taught children in a year 

Elliot - this week was the last week of institute for me because they are taking a break. Big sad. But afterwards we met with Elliot and brought Riley to the lesson. We talked about faith and Alma 32 and it seemed to go over well. We'll see if he experimented with the seed or not. Riley shared his testimony at the end and it was super awesome 

Azalee - in a crazy turn of events, she is actually leaving the ward before me. Her deployment got moved up so we said bye and she gave a departing testimony on Sunday. We shared the Dare to Stand Alone video and got her in contact with the ward over there. 

Hanni - she is this awesome referral, who just moved to Seattle and wanted to meet with missionaries again. She had in the past and loved it, so she found us online and requested a visit. We talked about the Restoration with her and she was super excited about having modern day prophets and knowing what she can do now to prepare for the future. We gave her some talks to listen to and we'll see her next week. 

Elizabeth - another new move in. She got baptized in March in Tacoma and moved to Seattle. She's originally from Kenya and it was super fun talking with her. She loves the scriptures and made jokes about how tall I was, and hopefully we can help her come to church next week. 

Tiny watermelon - went on splits with Elder Slade. He's a cool guy. We were talking to people in the store when I discovered a tiny watermelon. They're probably something I've seen before but I just couldn't remember. But we had some conversations because of it and although it didn't lead to someone wanting to take the missionary lessons, it did lead to me buying a very delicious watermelon 

Caitlin - we gave her a blessing on Thursday because she has to get surgery on her foot. Then Larry invited her over to his house after Church. And so despite her no longer being able to play basketball, she is still having fun and coming to church now. She commented on how she loved coming back and was sad she hadn't been back sooner because she feels the Spirit. We encouraged her to pray more and have a lesson for next week. 

Spiritual thought - so this one was stolen from a talk. He was speaking on recognizing God's hand in our lives. And he goes the best way is to have a missionary mindset. If you ask the missionaries how their day went they say great, even if they only just had rejection all day, because that morning their toast was perfect and they knew God did it. 

It was a funny narrative but completely true. We can have a ton of things go wrong in our lives but if we remember God and the small good things he gives, we can still find happiness and peace knowing God is still caring for us.

Love y'all

Week 101. This is the Lord's work

 Hey. So it's late again but this one is a bit longer so you can take your time to read it until I get the next one out. However late that'll be  until then here are the highlights:

Elliot - last Monday we met after basketball and talked about Prayer and finding answers. It was super cool because he kinda wants to believe but is holding himself back a bit. Very smart dude but struggles understanding faith because it's a new concept but he's willing to try. 

We saw him again this Monday. Basketball was awesome and we were making all of our baskets. It was fun and we set up another lesson for Wed. So follow up will be next week

Zone Conference - we thought it was going to be an 1½hr but it turned out to be 3. It was actually fire tho. Just a ton of things that we can improve on but also some fire spiritual thoughts like Hebrews 9:1 and us being worldly sanctuaries called to a divine service. And how God speaks plainly to help us improve. 

Joshua - we were doing personal study in the morning when we got a call from Cathy (front desk lady at the Institute) and she said someone had walked in looking for a Book of Mormon so we skedaddled over and met him. He's a super cool guy and trying to find God's plan for him and he came to church! 

Kenny - he's moving to Renton, so now we have 5 to pass him off. Our last lesson with him was super cool and we talked about baptism and the Holy Ghost and priesthood authority. He's still thinking and learning but it was really neat to bring that up and help him understand that is a possibility. Hopefully he likes the other Elders 

Disco - went on exchanges with Elder Lund and got to see one of my old comps visiting the mission, Will Harkness. We visited some people and met this cool guy who has upgraded his whole house to be voice activated and a ton of other cool stuff. Hopefully he went to church 

Caitlin - we met with her on Saturday and we went over the baptismal interview questions and she answered all the questions truthfully, even the last one where it asks if she is ready to be baptized, and she said yes! It was super funny because she basically said the fear of disappointing her parents was the only thing stopping her. Pls pray for her parents' hearts to be softened and for hers to fill with peace. 

Carter - we met her on the bus a couple days ago. She had some friends who went on Missions and wasn't really interested but took our number. Then she texted us and asked if we wanted to be fed. It was so nice of them. We watched the Restoration video and although they weren't interested they were super nice 

Missionary prep - the class here is awesome. The kids are so hyped. This last Sunday they all went onto the UW campus and talked to people about the Gospel. It was so cool seeing their energy and desire to try missionary work. 

Spiritual thought - Romans 3. If you haven't read it pls do. It shares a very awesome testimony and Doctrine on faith vs works. It shows the absolute necessity of being saved by grace and a belief in Jesus Christ. And at the end Paul establishes the law through faith. That when we believe in Christ that we will also believe what He asks of us and do our best to become like Him. 

I really liked that and I know that one without the other is not enough. Remember why you do the things you do and that'll lead you to faith. And remember that if you don't choose to follow Christ it isn't a complete faith. Love y'all and hope you enjoy reading for a couple more weeks 

Week 100. Wednesday P day

 So this Monday wasn't p day because of our temple trip on Wednesday. But I still got the email out late so it didn't change that, but it does mean I have some temple pics

Alex - we went on splits today for a bit. So it was just Elder Brown and I walking around Capitol Hill area. This guy recognized us and asked us to meet him in 5 min, so we waited for him on a bench and he came and told us he was trying to find God and change his life. It was super cool meeting and talking with him and we got his email to talk more. 

Magic - because of lack of time I wasn't able to teach my new comps how to play the game, it didn't matter tho because as it turned out, Elder Brown won his first game ever and got all their numbers. 

Kat - we've been talking with Kat about tithing. Her parents aren't jazzed that she was paying and so she's stopped. So we've been talking with her and trying to encourage her to follow God's will. Then she tells us these stories of how God's also been encouraging her and answering her prayers on if she should pay tithing. Now she just has to listen to Him, and I'm sure she will.

Riley - he wanted to talk about temples this week so we talked about the temple covenants and how just like preparing for baptism you can practice living the covenants before you make them and still receive some blessings for it. Then the next day we ask how his daily scripture study was and he talked about how he read 1 Nephi 1-4 and how he saw them living the temple covenants. Super cool

Cody - he's returning to the church and we had a really cool dinner with him where we talked about how it's hard to know things and build faith. We taught him the power of belief, and how choosing to trust and believe is just as strong as saying "I know"

He shared his testimony on fast sunday and it was really good

Spiritual thought - if you've read everything else and are still looking for a spiritual thought then you should re-read the email. I believe there's something in each point except the magic one that you can take something away. Matt 7:7, "seek ye shall find"

Love y'all