A Mighty Miracle

More on the Wine Lady Saga! We had a few plans to go to member's homes to teach people, and she was invited without us knowing. (Rest in Peace, our plans to teach the lesson we prepared.) It is becoming a bit difficult to teach because she finds it very difficult to hear that her prior baptism is not valid to become a member of our church. At our dinner on Saturday, the members just started answering all of her questions, and she struggled understanding answers that she received. Things went on in this manner and she left early because she didn't understand. We assumed that we were taking her off date for baptism because of it. 

She then magically showed up again at Bishop's house for dinner the next day. We took the mission president's advice and called them on Friday to ask if they would invite someone, and also what lesson we could teach that would benefit them the most. We had a lesson planned, but were unable to teach it. The wine lady started asking many many questions, and Bishop handled them like a champion. I was very grateful for him. He was teaching with incredible skill. She loves to interrupt, and he found a way to get her to stop talking in a very respectful manner and fully answer her questions. Because of him, she is back on date!
What a miracle. 

Bishop lives in the country, and he has a big patch of ground with 10,000 yards of dirt which was on an ex-hill. It is now flat until the edge, where there is a dangerous steep drop off. When we were driving home, we were on a road that is 55 mph, and bishop looked far up the hill and saw her car lights driving the wrong way and into that patch. He started driving in reverse very quickly and flipped us around, and then we charged up the hill to her rescue. Just before the edge which would prove certain doom, the thick mud gripped her tires and wouldn't let her move. We drove into the dangerous thick mud and strapped chains to the cars. It seemed like we were stuck for a moment, and then the car was able to move, and we towed her to safety. I am glad she had the chance to be saved by the one who oversees the entire ward. I was very grateful that we were able to have this miracle with her.

I really really like Christmas with all of its decorations and happy people. Because of it, I bought Christmas lights and strung them around my apartment, and it makes me really happy.

When we talk on the phone, if it is with another missionary of the same gender, we say, "bye, Love you." One morning I was talking to the sisters and then hung up. Elder Stewart was in the bathroom, and he thought I said that to the sisters, and he was so surprised that he cut his lip while shaving. We later confronted the sisters and they confirmed that I did not say, "Love you".

We leveled up by taking on a crazy intense quest. It was to carry 600 eggs and 20 bags of lettuce across a building and store them in a fridge without dropping any. The first time we took on the quest, we failed because some lettuce fell off the the cart, but we were given a new chance. We went back, loaded the cart to the max, and made it all the way. Once we closed that fridge, XP Flowed (video game speak)  everywhere and we leveled up! It felt real good.

If you know anything about me, you'd know that I am a bit of a picky eater. I am pleased to announce that for the first time, I have been eating salads and vegetables and beans like no ones business.  I even had tofu and mushrooms for the first time, and it wasn't miserable. 

There's my week. I hope you guys have a fantastic week, too.

I don't know what this is.  Should I be suspicious?

Let the Christmas season begin!

Love the RAV4!

Semi Normal Week

I am aware that most missionaries have withdrawal issues when they come out. I just didn't expect my withdrawal to be music. I am really struggling, not being able to play on my violin or piano. When I do get to play piano, I can't play the music that I want to because it is not a church song. I'll be alright with church music for now, I suppose. I even played the piano for the primary in sacrament meeting today. They sang I Know My Heavenly Father Loves Me.

We brought the Wine lady to a members home to have family home evening on Monday. She actually loved it and wants to come back to it every week. Speaking of Wine Lady, we had an appointment with her on Friday. She no showed us. She is an EMT, and we found out that she was in the passenger seat of an AMR vehicle, and it tipped on a turn. She is a bit bruised, but shes ok. She is still doing alright, and loves having us over. She came over one night and gave us some hot chocolate.

We got three new investigators this week! One of them is this fantastic African guy. He is so much fun to be around, and his laugh is contagious. We were going to teach him yesterday, but he wasn't even in Washington.. That was odd.

We found many people throughout the week who would love to learn more. Unfortunately for us, the majority of them happen to live in other areas. We handed plenty of people over. 

At the end of one of the nights, I was feeling a bit grumpy. The sister missionaries are in a four person apartment across the way, and two of them came to our door at like 9, particularly scared. They said that someone was in their apartment because they were being stalked the other day. Elder Stewart grabbed a banana to rumble, and I just brought my fists, because I knew that my grumpiness granted me extra strength to throw down. We entered the sisters apartment while they waited outside. I started opening closets and stuff, and then I heard girls screaming. Elder Stewart found two other sisters hiding in a closet and immediately threw the banana at them. We then hurried out of the apartment because of missionary rules. 

That's enough excitement for one week. Or not really. See ya guys!

Rock a bye baby

Got music?

Why don't you have cash on you, Elder? The truth is priceless!

Elder Stewart and Elder Ruth at the bike shop

Call The Cops

Our investigator, the wine lady is doing great! She kinda disappeared for a while and no one had any contact with her. She was just taking a spiritual break in order to ponder and see if this is what she really needs to do. She decided that it is, and she is moving onward! We are probably going to bump up her baptism date. 

We went to teach her the Word of Wisdom this week. After a really great lesson, she informed us that she found out about the Word of Wisdom, and then proceeded to drop all issues related to it. She had been entirely clean for five days before we even had the lesson! That's pretty odd, but hey! She's doing great!

I have a golf ball that I am very fond of. We call it the Tightelist. We make stories about how it is some grand thing that can be used to summon people. One day, I put it in my glove, and was curious if I could use it like that. I went to the closest door and knocked away. A 60 year old man who served a full mission answered the door. He was so happy to see us! He hasn't been to church in 30 years because his wife isn't religious. He talked to her and she told him to come, and so he came to church and sat with us. He took the sacrament for the first time in 30 years. Miracles, eh

We volunteered at a library one time, and the library hosted a dinner to thank all of the volunteers at St Mary's Catholic School. The mission office missionaries really wanted us to come, and so we did. At the dinner, there was a large raffle, and me and my companion both won something! He won a gift card to a restaurant that is out of our area. He gave it to the guy who drove us all the way over. I won a large basket, full of tons and tons of tea. I really wanted to take it to a pond and pour some in, just like the founding fathers, but another man really wanted the tea for his daughter, so I allowed him to take it. What a night.

I am pretty amused by the fact that the prize I really won was a basket full of lotion and other random things, but when they saw that it was a guy who won, they switched it for tea.

And now, time for the cops! So, we were walking around a shady neighborhood, minding our own business when we saw some 17 year old guy from Russia hanging out in his shorts and a tank top. Its way too cold for that! We went to talk to him, and he was really enjoying our conversation. He stayed on his side of the chain link fence as we talked. Suddenly, he started shaking and got really weird, then fell onto the fence and continued shaking. My companion was very concerned that the man had just become possessed by an evil spirit. I was like, "Well.. thats unfortunate.. But don't worry, he's fine. It's just a seizure. Go ahead and call the ambulance over." I then squatted down and made sure that he was still breathing and stuff. He never lost a pulse or choked, so we just waited until help came. The guy's neighbor has security cameras which caught the situation, and he didn't know what happened, and so he called the cops on us, thinking we killed his neighbor or something. But things cleared up very quickly when the video was shown, and so we were allowed to leave.

So that's just a few of the crazy things that occurred this week. You guys all have a fantastic week. Remember all of your wonderful blessings, because they are greater than you think. 

Check out that balance

Is this an awesome bike or what?

Birdie on my shoulder 

Poptart in a pan.  Betcha you never thought of this.

Transfer Week

It's transfer week! You know what that means! I will be staying in my same place, and I get to stay with my same companion. I am glad to stay because of some people in particular, and I am ecstatic that I get to stay with Elder Stewart and continue driving him insane with my antics.

Do you remember the lady who was drunk and then she started taking lessons and came to church with us? On the spookiest night of the year, we had a lesson with her at another member's home. It went really well, and in the end, I invited her to be baptized. She excitedly accepted, saying that she would've been baptized yesterday if possible. My luck has changed! She has been baptized before in another religion, and in my experience, the people who have been baptized in the past are adamant about not getting baptized a second time. She is one of the reasons I am glad to stay here. I will get to see it through to the end.

We have been doing service at a bike shop every week. If any stranger goes to the shop and does 20 hours of service, they will earn a bike. There is five of us who do it, and we do it for two hours a week, and so we've earned like three bikes. Because of us, any missionary who comes out and doesn't have a bike can come in and take one for free! It's exciting for us, because we have turned the bike shop around. We painted nearly the entire thing, cleaned things up, organized, and made it a friendlier place. The owner loves us and is very grateful for our help. He fixes missionary bikes for free when they help him. Thank goodness, because mine has been giving me trouble with the chain. Like once every other week, the chain falls off and I have to stop and fix it, and my companion doesn't notice until he's ridden four streets away.

One night, we were riding our bikes up some crazy intense hill in the rain. It was coming down so hard that I was having trouble seeing. We were on our way to a media referral, meaning that someone went onto LDS.org or something and requested to meet with missionaries. We had to travel through a gate which was open, and then continued up a miserable hill. When we got to the home, we found out that it was just a member who went to a temple open house and filled out a comment card, saying she loved it. 

"That was alright, I suppose." I sighed as we got back onto our bikes. The hill we had just traversed was extensively long, and the cold rain made it worse. "Well, lets just try and find someone." We began our ride through the cold rain again. In a moment, we were traveling at high speeds through the stormy night. We flicked on the flashlights on the bikes to increase visibility. The rain started to fall quicker. I was temporarily blinded from being struck in the eyeball with a drop of liquid terror.

A bad feeling crept into my heart. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but the feeling got even worse. I squinted through the air, searching for any sign of disturbance. A glint of light reflected off of a gate which wasn't there before.

"Elder!" I cried. We grabbed our brakes as tight as our freezing fingers could allow. My brakes stopped me near immediately, but Elder Stewart skidded for at least 30 yards. He came to a complete stop less than a foot away from the gate. I caught my breath and dismounted the bike. "Good grief, Elder, you almost ended your entire career." I wiped water from my forehead and slapped his back.

"I know! That was scary."

"Who do they think they are, not allowing representatives of Christ to leave this neighborhood?" I angrily spoke while grabbing the bars of the gates. There was no emergency escape switch, and the space beneath the gate wouldn't allow our bikes to fit through.

"Imbeciles." He spat while shaking his head. I sighed and stared up the hill. There were no houses until fairly high up, and our legs were already nearly dead.

"I will not allow this." I turned back towards the gate and gripped it.

"Elder Ruth."

"Unacceptable." I pushed on the gate. It failed to budge. I pushed a little harder. No budging was to be had. "I will liberate us." I pressed my feet into the ground and pushed as hard as I could. The gate moved a fraction of an inch. "I can do this." I whispered to myself. I pushed even harder, and a crack of freedom showed itself. 

"Elder Ruth!"

"No!" I cried through the dark rain. "I can do this!" I pushed as hard as I could and made a space wide enough for him and his bike. "Quickly! I can't hold open the rift forever!" My strength was rapidly leaving me. Elder Stewart quickly shuffled through with his bike. "It's too late for me, just get out of here!"

"Not without you! He yelled back. We locked eyes in determination. He ran back into captivity and grabbed my bike. He was once again on the other side of my bike. 

"Remember me!!" My arms shook, nearly depleted of enerygy.

"Come on, you can do this!"

"THERE'S ONLE ROOM FOR ONE--oh yeah..." I slipped through the gate and allowed it to slam shut. I fell to the ground and breathed a sigh of relief.

Anyways, the church is true. Seriously. It can be hard sometimes, most of the time, or all the time, but Jesus suffered for everything that you suffered for so that He would know how to comfort you. I must go, I am out of time.

Leaves in Spokane.  Can you spy the parking lot?

At the car wash

It's mighty cold here

Busy baking with my jammies and man apron!

Ta-da!

Meet Nemo our plant

HEY!  The white stuff has arrived