Elder Ben

Greetings from Seattle!

OK this week has flown by and honestly I don't remember part of it. The weeks and months are blurring together to much. From what I remember though we have had a kind of roller coaster week. First off the women that was on date for baptism isn't on date anymore. It is an interesting situation in that she loves the church and I think she knows it is what she needs to do in her life. She just doesn't want to change her life to form to it. She has investigated the church for 2 and a half years now.....and will continue to be that (I hate to use these words but in this context it is true) "eternal investigator". Elder Wilkins and I are convinced that sometime in her life (maybe a couple of years) she will realize that wickedness never was happiness and be baptized.

As far as the mom and her 8 kids that we were teaching we really have no idea where they are right now. All we know is they moved out, and other then that we don't have any info. So if they want to continue investigating the church they will have to get in contact with us somehow. Really nice family though. I hope that they found a good place.

On the happy side of things we have a guy that is moving here from Montana this week or early next week that wants to be baptized. He has already had all of the lessons and has been attending church in Montana for the past 4 months. He says that he loves the church, and the only reason why he has waited to be baptized is he wanted to be baptized in a Spanish branch and they don't have that were he is now. We found him a place to rent with a member here, and he is excited to move. We have known about him for about a month and a half now but it seems like he is finally coming to Seattle.

Also a member family is adopting a couple of kids and they have been coming to church for about a month now. All of them love the church and the kids have even asked to go back to church later on Sunday evening. I think that we will be starting to give the lessons to one of the kids that is 9 years old.

Another good thing. We were in a really sketchy part of town Friday night checking up on a referral that we received from some other missionaries. Turns out the guy wasn't home even though we had set up an appointment. We decided to walk around and see if we couldn't find anyone to teach. I'm sure that it was the spirit telling us to do it because no person in their right mind would walk around this place at night. We ended up walking for a bit and seeing a Guatemalan bakery. We have driven by this place many times and have never seen it. It is a tiny shop stuck in between two other shops.  Literally only about 10-12 feet wide. Anyways we decided to check it out end ended up meeting the owner and his family. Turns out he had heard of the church before because his cousin that still lives in Guatemala is a member. We ended up talking to him for an hour and a half about the church and he really seemed to like it. We will see what happens with him.

Other than that, not to much to report.

Thank you for the support,

Elder Howell