Seattle Update

Mom,

I was excited to hear that Daniel did so well at his race.  It is kind of hard to think that he was so close and I couldn't see him. Haha, he was literally about 8 miles away from me...

It is nice to hear that Corey is having his farewell on Sunday.  It is going to be 100% different in Africa, and I am excited to hear of his experiences.

Hey, could you send me Mike's home address? It would be nice to write him one of these days. I can't believe that they got into a wreck on the highway and everyone walked away with only minor injuries.

It seems like the church is coming out with a lot of new approaches to contact people.  The mormon.org experience was pretty good for us in this mission. Although we didn't see the full impact of it because it wasn't in Spanish, the mission in total had a good use of it.  We were able to see the results of it and compare it to other places in the states, and Seattle, Washington has seen the most success!  A lot of good members referring their friends and people being interested about the billboards.  It is cool to hear about the Facebook approach.  We heard that it was being piloted in several missions and it was cool to hear that McKay is getting a chance to use it.

 As far as Renton is concerned, the branch is doing well.  The Hermanas had 2 baptisms this past week, and Marco is looking forward to his own baptism this next Friday!  He was able to attend both of the baptisms this past week and one up in Bellevue the weekend before that.  He is progressing well, and we are excited for him.  I can't help but think that we almost lost him this past week though.  We made a mess up of not seeing him about 5 days in a row because he lives out of our area and other things came up. Totally not supposed to happen, and it was our fault. One day we were eating lunch, and both Elder Mitchell and I got the same feeling that we needed to go and see him.  We left right after to go to his house, and we found him in a very down and depressed attitude.  He isn't in very good situations right now, and he was really questioning what God was doing.  Using scriptures and the gospel, we were able to give him excitement for the future, but more then anything, he just needed us to be there at that moment for someone to talk to.  It was a huge testimony builder for me on why you have daily contact with investigators...yes, Satan is real and will seriously get in the way of any spiritual progression anyone tries to make.

I think Marco is the only investigator right now that is really putting the effort forth to learn the gospel.  Others have interest in learning but don't really make it anything of a priority.  Other things seem to always come up to distract them in their lives and make it very difficult to get them on any progression.  We seem to get a lot of referrals from other missionaries that are tracting though and run into Spanish speaking people, so I know that there is the potential in this area to be great.

Well got to run.  Love ya Family,

Elder Ben Howell

Marine Recruits on Parris Island

Hi Mom!

I'm glad you enjoyed the Valentine's photo - it took about 15 tries to get it right!  No worries on not remembering Valentine's day; I probably wouldn't have either if I didn't have a cool bike light toy to play with and make fun pictures!  =D

Is Bro. Bingham teaching the Old Testament class outside of regular school hours or is this for his usual students as well?  I remember he used to be an institute instructor, so maybe he wants to have another class with a bit more mature student body?  =P

This past week, Elder Bishop and I had to be down in Jacksonville (again) for all day Wednesday and Thursday, so we decided to take a gamble and leave our two new missionaries alone to work here in Beaufort after a week in the field. I know Elder Cancel was pretty stressed about it, but Elder Craynor loved the challenge and overall, I think they had a good experience.

The devil has distracted Judy.....she still wants to be baptized, but a lot of things suddenly cropped up over the past two weeks that have kept her from reading, coming to church, seeing us, etc, so we'll see if she's really determined to get there or not. We have found a couple of incredible new investigators though!  One is a man named Howard. We tracted into him last Sunday, and he told us he was busy, but to come back sometime.  We didn't think much of it, but a few days later when we were in the same area, we swung by and he invited us in and started peppering us with questions. Long story short, he's known members here in Beaufort all his life, but never has known what a "mormon" is and is exceedingly curious! He even fed us dinner that night so that we wouldn't have to leave and could tell him more!  We saw him two days later and he apologized for "only" getting as far as halfway through 1 Nephi!  The Philippino/Catholic lady has been coming to church the past two weeks and really enjoys the ward so far...it helps that she's practically surrounded by members in her neighborhood too!  She has worked into the word social scheme very well, but we'll see how well the actual BofM and gospel reach her.

Aha! I nearly forgot!  I have also been assigned as the new Parris Island group leader for all of the LDS marine recruits!  Yesterday was my first Sunday out there and it was fantastic!  The recruits love church (it's the only time away from drill instructors) and we have loads of non-members that come to sacrament meeting and sunday school. One who has come two weeks in a row and started reading the Book of Mormon already says she has her answer and wants to be baptized before she graduates. It's kinda like being back in a single's ward - all the people are my age, and they are so easy to identify with and teach.  These next few months out there should be a lot of fun.

Well, I haven't had much time at all to be on Facebook this last week, so I've not yet perfected its use (especially since I didn't use it too frequently before the mission), but the idea is pretty much the same as regular missionary work:  go where the people are.  I'm expected to work with the members online to get referrals, teach their friends, spark interest in the gospel, etc.  Right now, Elder Cancel and I have found several of our current investigators and part members online and use it as just another tool to stay in daily contact with them, see how their reading has gone, what questions they've encountered, etc.  So, yeah, I keep track of lessons taught, referrals received and contacted, new online investigators....all the usual numbers that they ask us to keep track of in regular face-to-face missionary work as well. The scriptures are all online at http://scriptures.lds.org/ so often I send links to people with particular passages highlighted. There are also a bunch of videos on Mormon.org, conference talks, and other things that I can direct people to if I think it will help meet their needs and spark a desire to learn more. It is meant to always lead to contact in the real world though.

Well, my time is up.  I love you all!

Elder M.

Seattle Update

Hey Family!!!

This week has been beautiful up in Washington!!!  A total change from the other week that we had of snow.  This whole week we have had weather of high 50s or even 60s and not even rain for about a week now!  Totally wonderful weather!

Well, I have definitely never seen a turtle crossing sign, and I am not even sure if I have seen a deer crossing sign in my mission.  Being in the city, I haven't seen any deer at all my whole mission.  Although for some reason, there seem to be a lot of racoons where I live. We heard some strange sounds outside our apartment the other night and went out to check it out to find 3 racoons about 15 feet from our door. We also see a lot while driving at night.

Hahah, I don't even think I know were Pullman is, Mom.  People may think that I will know Washington after the mission, but that wont be true. I will only know about 20 or 30 miles of it.  I heard that Daniel will be up this weekend at the University of Washington to run, and that is in my mission.  I have been past that campus several times and really love it!

Speaking of missionaries that we may know, I meet an elder that was from Manti here.  It was while I was serving in Seattle.  The English missionaries lived in the same apartment complex that we did.  He was literally trained 50 feet away from where I was. For some reason, his name escapes me right now.

I have never even heard of using cement for a counter top, but if you can make it look like granite, that would be cool.  Maybe that will come in handy when you build your dream house, Mom!

McKay, way to go on training!!!  Way cool. One new companion a month has got to be crazy though. We don't even have 11 Spanish elders out in my mission that I could be companions with. I have to say that I love Puerto Rican people! Not too many in Washington, but we actually have a family that we are teaching, and the dad is from there. That would be the family that you mentioned in your letter, Mom.  They are wonderful, and we are still teaching them. They are super busy though, so we don't get many opportunities to get over to their house.  They did start to read that Book of Mormon last week though, and we are going to go by and see what their thoughts have been.

We did have a new transfer start for us as well, but nothing is going to change for me right now. I will still be serving in Renton with Elder Mitchell, which I am thankful for. We have some good things happening and a lot of potential in Renton but have to somehow tap into it better.  As I said before, I am still the youngest Spanish missionary here, but we got news that a cousin of my old companion (Elder Haro) has been assigned to serve here Spanish speaking as well and should be here in 6 weeks!   Marco (the man who is trying to quit smoking) is still on date.  He has been doing really great at not smoking, and we put him on a program that should help him.  He has not missed a single week at church since he first found it either.  Really loves the church and learning about it.

Well my time is up and I have to go.  Love you family!

Elder B. Howell

Facebook Missionary

Hello Family!

This week was perhaps the most distracted week I have ever had in missionary work.  About two weeks ago, we announced in Priesthood meeting that we would need a ride to transfers and several people said they likely could and would get back with us.  Time went by, but by early this last week, all had dropped, so we spent all day Tuesday scrambling to find a ride to transfer meeting the next day who could take all four of us, two bikes, and luggage.  We were finally able to arrange to have the ward mission leader's wife take us to Jacksonville which the mission president allowed since all four of us elders were together. So on Wednesday, we took the 3.5 hour drive to Jacksonville where we met our trainees and spent the rest of the day in training/leadership meetings before coming home just in time to sleep.

I was about to write about the rest of the week, but it essentially wound up being a lot of meetings with mission leaders, ward leaders, training conference calls, facebook conference calls, weekly planning, etc. 

You heard that right. On Friday I was one of 30 new elders assigned to be a Facebook missionary by President Barry.  I think he said he was sending you a letter just so that the family/ward at home don't think I'm being disobedient for being online.  Lol.  Anyway, it sounds like this is a test project that Salt Lake is piloting in 6-8 missions around the world and we just happen to be one of them.  There are now about 60 missionaries in my mission who are assigned to do online work each day.

My new companion is Elder Jordan Cancel from Provo, UT!  He's fresh from the MTC, but he served a 12 week mini-mission in St. George to see if he wanted to do this for 2 years, so he does have a little bit of experience behind him.  It sounds like Utah mission work is a lot different from South-Eastern mission work though.  Definitely a lot more tracting here!  =D  Oh yeah, his family is from Puerto Rico and he knows a little bit of Spanish, so this could be really handy for when we knock into latinos!

Judy is still on for baptism.  Other than that, we haven't been able to contact any of our other investigators this week, but we should have a good idea of what progress has been made by tonight's end!

I'm sorry to hear Richard died; I knew him a little bit too, but yes, I do know his grandson, Elder Chadwick a little bit.  I've never served around him, but I've seen him at meetings and such.

It's good to hear that the Howell legacy continues on with Daniel's supreme record setting running abilities!  Wahhooo!  USU will have his name on the boards for quite a while I think.  I've never even heard of making Italian tile or granite out of concrete before, but it sounds pretty cool.  Hopefully Dad will get a chance to use that soon.

Tell Corey good luck on his mission for me!  Africa, eh?  That's way neat!  Grandma says Logan hopes to be in the MTC by summer's end as well, so the family could have a whole crew of missionaries out at the same time!

Well, my email time is up and I have to go poke around on Facebook now and try to figure out this new layout and all the options they have implemented in the last year. (This FB elder thing still seems really weird, but hopefully it will turn out to be useful in teaching people here.)

I love ya'll!

Elder M. Howell

Adios to January

Family,

I am going to have to agree with you, Mom, that time seems to keep on getting faster and faster.  So did Jaclyn and Zach sell their old house or are they going to own two?  Are they still going to be living in Phoenix?  Sounds like it was a week of partying with several birthdays.  I wish I was there for it.  Last year was great when everyone was free to meet together. We will have to see if that is possible in the next couple of years. I was a bit surprised at how old the silverware that we had been using was.  I had thought it was something that you and dad had got new and not 55 years old.  I guess that was a pretty good gift.    It was cool to hear that Daniel was up here in Washington to run.  What city is WSU in?  It is crazy how many colleges are up here.  In my mission alone, there are like 15 colleges. The biggest being the University of Washington, which I have driven by several times.

This week we have had the great opportunity to start teaching several more people.  One of them has been coming to church with his friend that is in the branch for about a month now, but we just started teaching him.  First lesson was amazing! He told us how he met his friend in the branch and how he then came in contact with the church.  He had been looking for a church to attend, but everything that he finds just isn't right for him.  He had had a lot of stressful situations in his life recently, but as he has attended the church with his friend he says he has felt more peace in his life and has felt the spirit more.  When we read to him from the Bible of what the spirit could feel like, he said that he had felt them all while attending the church and getting to know the members. When we asked him if he would work towards getting baptized, he said that he was actually going to ask us if he could in the lesson.  That is a first in my mission where someone was going to ask us if they could be baptized--and that was all him just going to church and feeling the spirit more in his life, we hadn't even finished a lesson with him.  He does have a challenge to overcome with smoking, but he has a lot of strength to quit and has the support of the branch behind him.

We have been teaching a family and they came to church last week.  We were able to meet with them again this week, and every time I love it.  This is the most sincere family.  They are really searching for the truth in their lives and want to find it. They are very knowledgeable about the Bible and have attended many churches in the past looking for something that they like.  Usually, when we go over to teach we teach them, they teach us...and I love it!  We have only taught them several times, but we have bonded really well.

Mmmmm, well I was planning of writing more, but seem to be out of time.  Sorry, got to go.

Love you family! :)

Elder Ben

Completion of Epic Journey!

Hey hey!

Elder Housel and I have been powering through our last week with gusto!  That's right, our last week.  We got transfer/leadership calls and Elder Housel is being moved and I'll be staying. I'm also training a new missionary and under the new training program this means that I'll be with him for 2 whole transfers - the longest I've ever stayed with a single missionary!  Lol, my last record was 9 weeks with Elder Fuller in Ft. Caroline.  Then again, maybe something quirky will happen and I'll get him injured in the ghetto and he'll have to go home to recuperate and I'll wind up with another quicky companion....hmmmm, I hope not!  I have been cruising through them rather rapidly though - 10 companions in 10 months...  This new elder will be numero 11!

On the brighter side, Elder Housel and I finally completed our epic journey!  We biked out to Harbor Island and Hunting Island State Park, but didn't make it onto Fripp Island (the furthest out) because the entire island is a gated community.  =(  So close.  We met some....interesting people, and will probably never get out that far again, but it did make for a fun day.  The weather was just about perfect too!  Not a cloud in the sky, high of 69 degrees;  mmmmmm!   The gullah culture out there on St. Helena island is pretty wild at times. I don't think I've ever had so many odd/quirky experiences as here on the mission.  Certainly not as many awkward moments!  =D  We did meet a father and daughter, John and Bonita, who moved out in the middle of nowhere on the island to "get away from people and find God" who absolutely love us!  He was getting way excited during the discussion on the first vision and was shouting and spouting scriptures like a preacher and was practically ready to sit down and read the whole Book of Mormon over night. So much fun - I love that man! Unfortunately, his sight is a bit fuzzy and he couldn't read the regular print so we have to order a large print BofM and wait until it gets here before he can start on that.

Judy accepted a baptism date!  She believes the Book of Mormon was inspired and Joseph Smith was called of God to "set things straight," but she still has a few doubts about angels, the vanishing gold plates, etc that she wants to figure out on her own in the next week.

We also received enthusiastic permission from a recent convert to come over every evening and read the Book of Mormon with his wife and family.  His wife has been coming to church for the past 8 months, but has never made it past the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon and E. Housel and I decided that she was probably like a lot of people that exercise in groups - they just need other people participating to feel motivated.  It worked with John in Brunswick, so hopefully it will have a similar effect here.

Elder Housel and I decided this morning that Nephi was a Southern Baptist: 2 Nephi 33:6
"I glory in my Jesus!  Praise the Lord!  Hallelujah!"

Photos of the Week:  Have you ever seen a Turtle Crossing sign in your life?  Neither had I.  The mission's smallest district - all four of us live in the same apt!  Proof that we made it to Hunting Island.  An ancient church from pre-Revolutionary War times that was burned out in the 1800s.

I love ya'll muchly!

Elder M.

Turtle Crossing

The District

1740 Church

Seattle Ice Storm

January 23, 2012

Family,

Well, I'm afraid that I don't have too much to report this week.  Yes, the snow and ice really blasted Seattle pretty bad this last week. It started to snow last Monday and then continued into Tuesday.  It got bad enough that we were told that we couldn't use the mission vehicles until the snow was gone.  The nearest investigator to us is about 2 1/2 miles away (yes, we live in a white neighborhood) and others are a lot farther.  We decided that with all the snow, it would be a great time to offer service to people.  We took shovels with us and walked all day helping out members and non-members alike.  I'm not sure if shoveling people's driveways even helps up here because when there is even a quarter inch of snow everyone stays inside and all the schools close down and nobody is on the streets at all.  I had to laugh at it, and everyone was surprised to hear that school would not be canceled in Utah for the amount of snow we got here.

Tuesday night a huge ice/rain storm came and everything froze solid.  I am not even sure how to describe it because I have never seen it before.  The ice looked like that fake icing that you put on wedding cakes, Mom.  Honestly, you looked outside and might even think it wasn't real.  Needless to say, we couldn't drive on Wednesday either... and to make it worse all the power turned off Wednesday also.  So we would get our coats wet and had no way to dry them out or turn on our heater in the house.  So we were back out in the snow and cold shoveling and offering service.  Several people had us cut branches that they thought were going to break with the ice on them.  Somehow, miraculously, I managed to stay warm through all of this without having snow boots and only a light pair of gloves.

Thursday was yet another walking day... I really lost count of how many miles we walked over the 3 and a half days of no car, but it was something amazing. Great exercise for us just because we never have to do it!  Our "lessons taught" went way down, but we had some CRAZY service hours done! :)  It was warmer on Friday and we finally got permission to take the car out that afternoon.

As of today, the snow is basically gone, and we are back to normal.

Sunday was great!!!  We had 6 investigators show up to church!  That is the most that I have seen come in one week in my mission.  We had invited a family to come on Saturday, and they were able to make it the next day.  It was their first time attending, and I think that they liked it.  They were found and started to be taught about a year ago, but then kind of fell off the earth because they are so busy.  He is in the army, and his wife also works.  Elder Mitchell remembered them, and we passed by and have taught them two lessons so far.

We have had similar things as McKay.  Although we haven't had a presidential rally in Seattle, most people want to talk about Romney with us -- or at least mention it, more than they would rather talk religion.  I am sure it will continue to get worse the closer to the election we get.  Also, way cool picture McKay.  I think that symbol is now the universal symbol for baptism (at least in the church).  They taught us that in the MTC and everyone uses it out in the field.  Nice idea with the time lapse photo though!

Well got to run...

Elder B