My Side Quest: How Many Sneezes Can One Man Perform

On one of the days this week, we were having no success and were walking back to our apartment empty handed. I decided that we should stop at one more place before we return. It was an apartment where I was fully aware that the person had stared at us through the peep hole and then walked away, several times. This time, however, he opened up and gladly let us in. He said that he was very sorry, but he was doing it to see if we truly cared about him. He is a really wonderful man from Ghana, and he is very sincere. We addressed plenty of concerns and taught him about the Plan of Salvation. He broke my heart by asking one question in particular. He said, "Elders. I don't know if God wants me back. I think I chose to follow Satan in the pre-earth life, and because of it, I was cursed and born black." I couldn't believe my ears. I was so grateful that he said that because we were able to set him straight, and he was absolutely relieved. My only regret is, we realized that we can't teach him. He is considered a young single adult, and so we have to give him away to other missionaries. Story of my entire life.

On this same night, we made our way over and managed to have a second unplanned lesson with a guy who has a teaching record which puts all others to shame. Anyone who I've ever shown it to has dropped their jaw in disbelief. All you need to know is, there are two extra pages to describe all the teaching visits he has had since 2014. He is going to come to church for the first time this week. I later learned he is what is referred to as an "eternagator." As in, he will be investigating for eternity.

One day, while searching for the elect VERY FEW in the wonderful streets of Spokane, we came across a basin which had filled up with water and then froze over. We dropped a rock and it broke the edge, revealing an odd phenomenon. There were about three inches of solid ice, and then like a foot of empty space underneath the ice. We cautiously made our way onto it and saw it was solid. We then took a short break, running around the ice and sliding. It was actually a ton of fun, and I was glad that we could play around for a little bit. We then returned to being authorized representatives of Jesus Christ, sharing with people about how his church is back on the earth today.

While we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, just like the pioneer children, I found a penny under a thick sheet of ice. I was so concerned, because it looked so cold underneath all of that ice, so I smote the barrier until I freed that poor penny. I carried it in my warm pocket all the way home and put it in a bag with many of it's friends. There's a message in there somewhere. I'll leave it to you.This email has that subject line because I inhaled some pepper and have been sneezing ever since.

This week was actually a bit of a good one. We normally have the majority of our people flake out on us, but this week, most of our appointments made it, and so we taught much more. It felt nice to be working with so many people as opposed to walking around the streets and having doors closed on us. I was so grateful that we had so much success.

Last thing. I was not planning on sharing my testimony yesterday, but one girl went up and talked about a scripture in Ether which talks about how faith is belief in things which are not seen which are true. I felt inspired to go up and share a little bit with the congregation as well. I talked about how Nephi was always setting the example for his older brothers because he hearkened unto his father. He was willing to put forward the faith and ask God sincerely if these things were true. Because of it, he received a witness and an unshakable testimony. His brothers never did this, and so they were unable to believe such miraculous events.

This brings me to my point. Faith is not seeing. These brothers saw an angel and they still rebelled. You could see an angel, and if you didn't have a testimony beforehand, and weren't working on it afterwords, you could still easily fall away. I am grateful that when I was 14, I didn't receive some sign to prove to me that these things were true. If my entire testimony were built on seeing some pebble on the ground move, I could easily be swayed later in life. I received a witness of the truth only after I worked for it, growing my faith and proving that I truly wanted to know for myself. If you don't have that testimony, try your best to obtain it, because it will change the way you see everything. So there's my week.