VCR Thefts and Car Wrecks in WA

Fam,

This week we had several interesting things happen.  We are still facing all sorts of trials and troubles much like McKay, but at least you can have a couple of experiences to make you smile during the week.  First off we were in the church for a church tour (not actually giving one but there is a rule that a priesthood holder has to be in the building when it is being used so we are often called when the Hermanas have a tour).  We were sitting in the foyer talking to a member when in walks a detective from the Seattle police department and asks us who he can talk to about a break in. Turns out he was walking his dog at four in the morning in the neighborhood and saw two people carrying a VCR and thought they may have stolen it from the church.  We walked around the whole building with him and everything checked out fine. The mystery is why two "suspicious people" as the cop said were walking around at 4 in the morning with only a VCR, and that remains to be unsolved.
 

Next story: we were up in Skyway (new area that we started to tract last week) and a set lesson fell through (yes it still happens and often too, we are starting to wonder if setting up appointments makes any difference at all) so we were on our way to see a former investigator in the area. First off, you have to know that Skyway is a pretty sketchy place, and I always tell my companions before we go up there that you never know what can happen. We were walking down the street and were about 20 yards past an intersection when a van passed us going towards the intersection. A couple of seconds later we hear the woman driving scream that she has no brakes.  We turn around just in time to see the van clearing the intersection and go across a parking lot of an apartment complex across the street and run into a metal garbage bin/ side of an apartment.  We ran over just as 5 women bail out of the van. To make the story shorter, it turned out that they just had a friend change their brakes a couple of minutes ago for $10.  Moral of the story: Don't go to Skyway and have your brakes changed by someone fixing cars in his front yard. Luckily, nobody was hurt and the only damage was to the van and a little to the apartment.  I am so glad that my companion and I were not in that intersection when this happened. Just 20 seconds later we had crossed the street. The Lord lives and protects his servants!!!

On the more spiritual side of things, we did find a guy in Skyway that is pretty interested in the gospel. He was a referral from our zone leaders, and we just had our first lesson with him. He is from Oaxaca, Mexico and had several friends in the church when he lived there. He went to church 4 or 5 times with them. He had never read any of the BOM though. We do have to overcome several small challenges with him, but I think they will be overcomable.

After several weeks of trying to contact a man that we met on the street 3 or 4 weeks ago, we finally got ahold of him and had a great lesson on Saturday. He was interested in the church and agreed with everything we taught and was eager to have a return appointment so we just had one this morning.  We thought we had found a golden investigator, but he told us this morning that he was baptized in our church 3 years ago!  Hahaha.  We got his information so that we can search for his records.  He has baptized in a different part of Washington out of our mission, then moved to California for several years, and had just moved back to Washington when we met him.  He said he had no idea where the church was here and that it was a miracle that we found him. You would have thought he would have told us in the first lesson he was a member. hahaha.

We continue to battle to move the work forth in Renton.  We have several people that have a lot of potential and that we are working with.

 

Thank you for everything.

Your son/brother,

Elder B