Almost Done in Seattle

Family,

Another wet week has flown by.  Luckily, the sun is shining today.  I hope Utah is as green as Washington when I see it. This week we have seen some success taking out several members with us.  We have had a hard time with that in the past because we can never find anyone not working when we need them to go to a lesson.  The branch president's son has said that he would help us any day. He served a mission in Chile and returned about 4 years ago and wants to help out.  Also, the recently returned missionary to our branch has wanted to come out.  We had both of them come our with us this past week.  It should help the work out a bunch to have members ready and willing to come to lessons.

Sad story of the week is when I kicked a soccer ball into the face of a recent convert (she is 10 years old). :(    The best way to get Spanish people together and have a branch bonding time is to play soccer. Playing sports literally is a good missionary tool...until you hurt someone.  We decided to join in and, of course, we weren't playing as hard as the other people.  My companion played as goalie, and I just tried to get rid of the ball if it ever came my direction.  I saw the recent convert several times and said sorry, but we also got some candy and were I was able to apologize more officially.  Good thing we have a good relationship with the person I pegged in the face...I don't know how an investigator or someone else would have taken it.

We found a new family that we have a lesson set up with tonight.  We have, on separate occasions, met both of the parents and they seem really awesome. Hopefully all goes good in this lesson tonight and we can help them progress. We also meet another lady this week that we had a lesson with and seemed pretty solid until we showed her the Book of Mormon.  I guess it is a little scary to people at first.  She did tell us though that she would read a chapter of it and see how she liked it.  With the power of The Book of Mormon, we are thinking her heart will be softened.

The mission is pretty excited for this next weekend when Elder Aidukaitis of the 70 will be visiting our mission. He is the assistant executive of missionary work. They announced that he would be coming this past week while we were at zone conference, and they usually announce such things months in advance, so I was quite surprised when I heard I would get to hear him. The Lord is hastening his work!

Love you all,

Elder Seattle