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

'The Quest' in FL

Hi Mom,

If you see Jillann Mackey again, tell her I say hello.  Fun Fact: she served in an area in Sweden where Christian Schanner lives as a member of the bishopric. He is one of the missionaries up at USU that assisted in baptizing me back in '09.  Maybe it's only being involved with the mormon community that makes it seem like a small world....  =P

Send pictures of Gabe's chipmunk cheeks if you have any.  Bahahaha!  Hey, Joe, if you want a job you can get into computer programming.  There are always little online jobs where you can write a snippet of code for someone and get paid for it.  I contemplated that a few times.

As for myself....the opposition continues.  Elder Grant says he has never encountered anything like this throughout his mission and we've both been through most of the zones.  There seems to be a spirit of animosity against us that I have never seen anywhere else.  Haha!  Perhaps the "old south" is returning when they would tar and feather elders and run them out of town.  JK.  No worries; it's probably just the hot weather that has gotten people's blood boiling. We are pressing forward knowing that miracles come after the trial of faith and are expecting a large harvest of souls in the near future.

The youth in the stake just returned from "The Quest".  Since they don't have Trek here, for youth conference the stake decided to bring everyone together and re-enact scenes from the Book of Mormon for  several days. As they relayed to us, it was a powerful experience to re enact scenes like Christ coming to America, the people of Ammon kneeling down and being slaughtered by their enemies, the 2000 stripling warriors, etc. After the re-enactments they would "liken the scriptures" to themselves and see what they could learn from these experiences. They went all out with foam swords, cardboard shields, and making tunics for everyone. The kids had a blast and came back with a lot of enthusiasm for the Book of Mormon.

Anyway, I'm excited for August when the students will be returning to UF and the local community college.  We seem to have greater success with the people our own age.

With love,

Elder M.

New Contacts in WA

Today is transfer day. I will still be staying in Renton with Elder Henderson. Not really a big surprise because I just got here 6 weeks ago.  We were under the impression that there was going to be a new Spanish elder coming in, but I guess that was just a myth.  We had one Spanish elder come in last transfer.  He was called to Brazil but has had trouble getting a visa. He served in another stateside mission before coming here. Not sure if he will stay here or eventually go to Brazil, but I am not the youngest Spanish missionary anymore. Hahah...15 months later.

This week Elder Henderson and I continued our tracting and finding.  We went to an area that I am pretty sure Spanish elders haven't been to for a very long time.  It is on the far reaches of our zone and not known for being too 'Spanishy.'   We decided there had to be Spanish people there, even if they were far and few in between and that it would be worth it to find them rather then just stay in our usual Spanishy areas that have been visited by missionaries a bunch of times. Sure enough when we got there we started talking to a bunch of Asian and African people.  If I knew some sort of Asian language, I am sure we could have had 30 new people to teach.  Most of them spoke little English but were able to say that they were Buddist.  We continued on though and were able to find 5 Spanish families!  We didn't teach all of them right then.  They were busy and had never talked to missionaries before, but they all seemed interested and invited us to come back. One lady actually asked us to come back in one hour.  We went back and had a great lesson.  She hasn't gone to church since she was 15 and now wants to start developing that relationship with God.  We continue to work with a rather large list of potentials that we have found and referrals from other missionaries.  Our problem is not finding the Spanish people, it is finding a time that they will be in the house to teach them.  More often then not while tracting we find a bunch of housewives and have to teach a doorstep lesson. Then we have to find a time when their husbands will be home or pass them off to the Hermanas to teach.
 

It was a pretty good week of finding though. I, like McKay, don't remember all of the details in a week of missionary work, but I can say it was an alright week.

Love ya all,

Elder B.

 

Zone Conference in FL

So, I think my early alzheimers is kicking in....I'm staring at the computer screen trying to remember what I did last week and am drawing a huge blank.  Lol.  Maybe this means I should actually write in my journal so that there is some evidence that I actually did things out here in Florida.

We had transfers. I'm staying in Gainesville 2nd ward. My new companion is Elder Parker Grant from Highland, UT.  He went to Lone Peak High and graduated in '09, so perhaps the Knudsen clan knows him.  I actually served around him last June and July in Brunswick, GA - he was my district leader and we lived in the same apartment there, so we're going to have a blast being companions. Three of the four district leaders in our zone also were transferred/released, so we are going to be pretty busy training the new district leaders in the upcoming weeks.

Yesterday we wrapped up a 7 month mission project centered on the Doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, endure to the end). In January, we had a zone conference entirely dedicated to our purpose "to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end" (Preach My Gospel, pg 1). Starting that same month, the whole mission was doing the "doctrine of Christ project" of reading through the whole Book of Mormon applying different highlights everything that had to do with those principles. Then, yesterday, we had a final zone conference again dedicated to those principles and the Atonement. The Spirit was very strong and I feel like my understanding and recognition of the Atonement have grown considerably.

I still can't remember anything that happened between transfers and zone conference, so I guess I'll end here.  It sounds like Gabe will be taking it easy with yogurt and ice cream for the next few days.  My wisdom teeth surgery was interesting.  Pain meds didn't work at all, but I didn't swell and could still chew, so I was eating pizza the same night I had all four taken out.  Lol.  Good luck, brother!  Congrats to Garrett on the engagement. Shoot a photo my way if you get your hands on any.

Jake and Daniel, whitewater rafting sounds like a blast; that's one adventure I haven't had yet. I'm glad to hear that Alecia found a job, even if she is lacking all the hours she wants right now.

2 Nephi 2:5-9 "How great the importance to make these things known!"

I love you all,

The skinny brother; the nerd; the goof; the far-away child.

(AKA  Elder M)

Up and Down in WA

Hey family....

It sounds like most of the family was busy camping, visiting with family, or on vacation. Good to hear that everyone had a good week.

Honestly, I will say straight up this week that I really don't have too much exciting to write.  This week was a pretty rough one.  As Spanish missionaries we receive about a billion referrals every week from English missionaries from all over the zone and we have to do a lot of following up with them.  Usually, though since the English elders can't talk to them, we don't have anything else besides an address, which is really hard to get ahold of a Spanish person when you have no idea his work schedule.  Since we can't be in all the areas every day though, it is important that we get referrals.  We do a lot of follow up work as Spanish missionaries.  We also have done a lot of tracting.  Not the most effective thing, but I have come to enjoy it.  It is really bazaar because by looking at the number of names of potentials and referrals that we have, we should be swamped with work.  That is unfortunately not the case.  We actually got a call from our district leader wondering if everything was all right and why we hadn't been having the success that we saw at the first of the transfer.  I honestly have been thinking the same thing and didn't know what to tell him.  Elder Henderson and I have done a lot to sacrifice so that we will have more time to be out in the day finding/ contacting potentials, switching up and improving how we contact people, our teaching skills and everything.  Of course, we are not perfect by any means, but I think we have seen improvement in these areas.  We will just have to continue to endure to eventually see the blessings. Either that or we have yet to find out the perfect way to contact these people and get them progressing.

The young couple that we have been working has almost dropped off the deep end. They were golden when we first found them, but then we haven't have a lesson since. They have either canceled or just not been home for our lessons. We even went by 3 hours before a lesson to make sure they would be home that evening, and they said they would, but when we showed up later they were gone.

The young man from Nevada that we found works from early morning to late at night and we have yet to contact him again.

On the up swing, we did have an awesome zone conference this past week. Training was on revelation and planning effectively.  It was a very good zone conference and I learned a lot.

Also we had a non-active member who we have been working with since last time I have here in Renton show up to church this past Sunday!!!  It has been a very long time since he has been to church.  It was good to see him come and a lot of the members were surprised that he came as well.  We went by his house on Saturday, and he said he was definitely coming to church.  We have heard this multiple times from him with no success.  We told him we were going to come by his house before church.  We showed up to his house Sunday morning, and he said he couldn't talk because he was getting in the shower to come to church!  At the start of church he wasn't there, and we were thinking he had just blown us off again. Then about 15 minutes late, he showed up!!! Que milagro!!!  What a miracle!!!  He came to all 3 hours and loved it.  He said now he wants to come every week.  After many visits, it was good to see him take a step of action.

Till next week,

Elder B

 

Spanish Success in FL

This week was occupied with some administrative stuff that seemed to sap a lot of time.  We had two more sets of trade offs to complete with the assistants and with a set of elders in our zone and were actually able to see some good things happen on both of those exchanges. I was with one of the Spanish elders in the zone for about 8 hours and we found 5 new spanish families!!! Elder Jones said he had never seen that happen in one day! Hahaha, I knew I was supposed to be a spanish elder!

This weekend was also a mixed bag of success and disappointment. On Thursday we dropped by to see an investigator family that hadn't come to church or returned our calls. They let us in and were still very friendly, but we soon found out the reason - they had received some very "anti" materials and had taken offense and are no longer willing to consider our message of the Book of Mormon.  Mostly due to random statements made by past church leaders about restrictions of the priesthood based on race. Which, of course, no longer even apply, but even  the fact that those restrictions were once in place was enough for this family to let go of the things they had learned and felt from our visits. Sad because this is the first time in 20+ years that the husband has ever even considered the idea that there is a God and we had just been starting to make some headway with him.

Last night we stopped by to see the lady I wrote about last week whose husband had been murdered. She sent her mom to the door with the Book of Mormon and the message that she didn't want to study with us anymore.  Heart breaking.  Satan is so good at what he does. Her elder mother (who had been super excited when her daughter accepted the baptismal invite last week) told us that she would "talk with her about it," so hopefully there is still some chance of salvaging that desire for a closer relationship with God.

Ok, enough with the downside - I saved the best for last!  Last night, the rain was coming down in torrential style, so we abandoned our designs of tracting in a certain neighborhood and decided to go see a referral.  As we were driving to the new area, we passed a certain home on a street that we had already knocked before and Elder Mecham said, "we need to stop and see that house again."  So we jumped out into the rain and ran up onto the porch and prepared to meet the same people again.  Surprise!  A new family had just moved in from Arizona and the husband has an incredible thirst for peace in his life.  We shared some verses from the scriptures with him and he was practically sharing testimony of the Book of Mormon at the end that this is something he feels he needs in his life!  Wow!  The wife had been hiding from us in another room during this whole discussion, but as we ended with a prayer she came out to pray with us and also felt the spirit very strong.   Wahoo!  There ARE prepared people out there!  Sometimes you just have to wade through the heartache and drudgery to find them.

Photos of the week: Elder Vader (aka me) caught on candid camera at the home of the Castillo family of the Spanish branch. We visited the University of Florida campus last P-day and toured the football stadium.  Saw a huge moth (probably 6 inch wingspan) on the sidewalk by our apartment.  It was neat because it had "eyes" on it's wings to fool birds or other things that would want to eat it.  Oh yeah, and i have no idea if banana spiders are dangerous or not.  I watched it devour several bugs that it was fed, but have no idea if it would bite me...

Here concludes this chapter of the Saga of Elder Howell. To be continued...

 

Sun in Seattle!

Hola mi familia favorita!!!!

La samana pasada fue un poco mejor. Encontramos algunos potentiales que tienen interest en el evangelio. No hemos a tenido la oportunidad a ensenar una segunda leccion pero vamos a hacerlo muy pronto. Tengo animo que la obra va a hacer algo bueno en el futoro.

Yep, yep, yep that's right.  We did  a lot of tracting this past week.  Some even 6 hour days tracting, but in the end it payed off  and we were able to find several people that seem genuinely interested in the gospel.  At the first of my mission, I really wasn't a big fan of tracting, but now my whole thoughts about it have changed.  I actually really enjoy it now.  We get to meet all sorts of people and personalities, and it always puts a smile on my face.  It is great to see what people's views are.  Everyday we have some kind of funny experience while tracting.  We also have a lot of people that get mad at us for even knocking on their doors, but I have learned to brush off the bad and just continue.

While I was on exchanges with another Spanish elder in my area, we tracted into a man who has just recently moved from Nevada. Turns out that he had neighbors/friends in Nevada that were members and he already had a Book of Mormon!  Legit!  That has only happened one other time in my mission. This guy was still a little confused on what the Book of Mormon was exactly, but we were able to clear that up a little and now he is more interested in reading it.

We tracted into another lady that used to live in California and also has friends that are members and had even been taught my the missionaries in California!!! Unfortunately for us she was just visiting her friend here in Renton and actually lives in Auburn so the Spanish missionaries down there will start to teach her!

We had a young couple on date for baptism, but they fell off this Sunday because they couldn't make it to church. They both work on Sundays and so haven't been able to come in the past but have both requested from their bosses to have Sundays off so they can go to church!  Right now they are waiting for a reply so we will see what happens. They are interested in learning (this is the young man that I wrote about last week that was reading the BOM) but just have way busy schedules.

We are now in the summer weather of Seattle. The rain all of a sudden stopped the first of this last week and it was all sunny and in the high 70's.  I even got a sunburn!  It lasted all week up until today and now it is cloudy again.

 

Gracias por todo. les amo. Que tengan un buen dia!

Elder Ben