What have we to do with thee?

Man, one family really came in clutch for dinner one evening. We showed up at their beautiful home in the mountains. They said that we get to cook our own dinner, then handed us some steaks. I couldn't believe it. I'd never grilled a steak before, but it ended up being one of the most prime steaks I've ever had. That was one of the best starts to my week I have ever had! 

My wonderful companion is so sick right now. He claims he is doing great, but that man is coughing up a lung all day and night if no one else is around. His coughing actually merged into my dreams one night. Anyways, after me rebuking him along with four others, we finally convinced him to take a sick day. That was pretty cool. I did some serious listening to Hank Smith and napping and just recovering from a pretty insane workout I did the day before. He is now back to the grind after one day, coughing potentially worse than he was last week. 

We found two new Investigators this week. It was really great. I also received a new grandma. I now have five grandma's in Coeur d'Alene who have my back. We gave the new grandma a blessing. I was pretty surprised, she said that after I anointed her that she already felt almost all the way better. Then she was fully pain free when we finished the blessing. It's pretty cool to see that God trusts us to lend us His power to heal others. We've been doing a lot of that recently. 

Have you ever seen the video of Jesus healing a possessed man? It talks to him all creepily, then lunges at Jesus at then the man is healed. I had a dog that was absolutely not happy to see me. I got down and reached out my hand in an inviting manner. This son of gun wasn't having it, so he lunged at my hand which I pulled away. As soon as he came in contact with my leg, all hostility left and he happily let me pet it. That was cool, it was almost exactly like the video. I guess I've got some serious angels looking out for me because dogs don't just turn friendly milliseconds after attempted finger theft. 

I enjoyed my companion exchange this week. I was with a guy from the lovely town of St Maries, but in my own Coeur d'Alene area. He was scared at first to be my companion because he thought I was just some silent angry guy, but he essentially said that I am like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. I was thoroughly amused by his compliments. We are basically best buddies now. One of our lessons canceled on us, and we had no plans for the rest of the evening, so we rebuked laziness and got on the grind, finding our way into four different homes to teach a lesson. It was one of my favorite exchanges. 

I have access to Facebook, and I really want to make some more videos. I did one on Mother's Day, and that was neat. Now we struggle to come up with ideas. I'd really like to make a video answering gospel questions. If any of you read this, please send any gospel questions you can think of my way, and we will study up and try and answer them on Facebook. Hit me up! Anyways, it was a pretty good week and Coeur d'Alene is the promised land (in terms of missionary work, that is).

"Deep six em" ~anonymous ward member*

*translation:  The end of an old life and the start of a new life. Ye must be born again.  To baptize.


One morning, my normal bowl of cereal wasn't quite enough to cut it. I decided I might as well eat the last hot dog we had, too. Little did I know that when we'd finish pulling a guys weeds in the afternoon, he'd be grilling up hot dogs for our lunch! Two in a row boys, two in a row. I didn't have it in my mind at all that for dinner, we'd be served some grilled up hot dogs. I ate those frank's for every meal! If that wasn't enough, it's what we had had for dinner the night before. That might be why I only ate one hot dog that night.

Anyone familiar with Harry Potter 7? In that book, they all go into someone's basement or something and it's full of spiderweb or something like that. Then the lady turned into a snake I think? Anyways, we ventured to the depths of this cold dark house to restore water to her pipes. Little did we know that this is where cobwebs go when they die. I couldn't believe it, I thought I was walking through Ronald Weasely's worst nightmare. It was pretty unnerving, especially when I didn't do anything wrong but a gust of air still blew a massive web right into my face. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife. We got the water pipes working, but it was just incredible. I needed Princess Tiana from princess and the frog to sweep up all these webs. 

On one day of our never ending adventure, we were headed over to go see some 13 year old kid in an apartment on a whim. We cut across a grass ditch and before disappearing behind the sight of a building, a man yelled, "I see you two walking. Yeah, you can't hide from me!" We walked like 30 yards away to talk with some man on the other side of a chain link fence. He told us to wait right here and he'd ride his bike around the block to get to us. I hid my phone and wallet just in case. Turns out, he was with his ex-girlfriend just 15 minutes before, and she was saying that she really needed missionaries to pray for her. He gave us her number, we called her up and it was awesome. That's a classic example of being led to the right place at the right time to fulfill His work. 

People this week were pretty on top of cancelling their appointments. One guy was sitting outside his porch smoking. He said he really didn't feel good today. Four other appointments already cancelled, so we disagreed with him and sat down. We prayed, read some scriptures, and then left him. He said he actually felt a little better after we read with him. It was great to stick it to Satan. 

Our wonderful investigator, the one who was going to sell his truck and go homeless was baptized this week! It was such a neat baptism. I've never thought that someone looked different after this sacred ordinance, but he was just beaming and looked so great. Then when he was confirmed in church and received the Holy Ghost, he stood up and in an outside voice using his thick accent, he went, "wow!" Haha this man says that he has never had a spiritual experience in his life. We just ended his streak. It was such a blessing to work with such an incredible guy as him. 

That's about all that I have to share currently. There were other lessons and adventures, but they didn't make the cut today. Have a pretty nice week everyone. 

Baptism

Dr, but not for me!

Sunset

A Two For One (darn)

Hey, it's me! Me had a swell week. Here are the spicy details of me week.

So we've got that kid who I've been carefully crafting lessons around video games for. He has kind of been on date for a while, but unofficially. He can't be baptized unless he says he wants it because his dad is a bit against it. Well, we taught him a pretty sweet lesson with the help of some members and somehow got him to say that he does want to be baptized! Our bishop was so excited! I guess that bishop is one of the only people the dad is scared of, and so bishop said that if the dad still disallows it, he will go to the dad and rein fury until he allows it. I am excited for the little guy. I may have to miss it unfortunately. His date is currently June 30th so he can be baptized with his younger sister.

There is a question that as a missionary, I really don't like to hear. That question is "how are we saved?" It's pretty typical Mormon anti because we have it drilled into our heads that we are saved by grace after all we can do. We were invited to a wonderful couples home who became two great investigators this week. The wife started things off with that unoriginal question. Other people don't have the knowledge we have with salvation, so this is why they fight. I explained to her that there is no way we can be saved except through the grace of Jesus Christ. No amount of works will ever save us from our sins. She was so surprised. She had nothing to say, so we continued on to teach the plan of salvation and taught her all about heaven. Sure, we are all saved. We will all be resurrected and receive a perfect body and get to be in heaven. What part of heaven just depends on our commitment to follow Jesus Christ. She then hit us up with, "prove it with the Bible and not your book." We wreaked havoc with 1st Corinthians chapter 15 and also explained baptisms for the dead with it, too. It was pretty fun, actually. They were so blown away with our ability to answer questions no one else could that they invited us back to play "Ticket to Ride". Anyways, they are now sincere and can't wait to have us return and teach more about the gospel. 

I had corn on the cob for the second time this week. It kind of makes me bummed. I had a girlfriend back at home whose wonderful grandma I really liked made me a special corn on the cob. I regret not even giving it a try. Anyways, these days, I'm eating corn on the cob with the best of them. I had a full ear of corn. I also had something which id never touch back at home, chicken Alfredo. The mission really has changed my tolerance for food. It's pretty interesting to me how much "nasty" stuff I can now eat without a gag.

I went on exchanges this week back to the mystical land of St. Maries. I got to drive a 2017 red Tacoma all across the dank plains of northern Idaho. It was pretty fun. The people here are all professional drivers and so they get mad when you drive around bends too slowly. I went with the flow and drove at like 65 mph across the bends. My extensive Mario kart practice made me perfect for this moment. The St. Maries' apartment has a few unwelcome visitors. We actually caught one mouse while I was there. I was also visited by a spectral being while I slept. It pressed down the bed next to my foot and kinda slapped the door a little bit. I looked over at my companion who was fast asleep, shrugged my shoulders, and went back to sleep. 

In St. Maries, there is a mentally ill man who roams the streets while yelling all day every day. He has been to jail for murdering a couple people. They just didn't keep him because of his mental illness. Anyways, I've heard of him my while mission, but I finally got to meet him. He called us over and started asking about what fiction means, and then what a false prophet is. He went on to explain that there were false prophets after Jesus died. They killed Jesus, and then they killed Elvis. Then Michael Jackson is somehow a false prophet? I don't really know. Anyways, he thanked us for our time and gifted us with two brand new fishing lures. Sweet!

While we were walking, a car drove up to us and rolled down the window. "We are the breakfast ministers!" They say as they reach out to hand us two trays of food. "There's a bench over there. Go sit down and enjoy." They drove away and I never saw them again.

My mission has now been approved to use Facebook. We just didn't receive any training on what to post and stuff. I'm sure we will come up with some pretty unconventional stuff. Go ahead and send me a friend request if you'd like. I can't look at your stuff. But you're welcome to look at my proselyting efforts!

We had two kids baptized this week! It was really good and they are so happy they finally got to be baptized. Now if only their mother didn't get sick! They couldn't come get confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost yesterday! Oh well. 

Well, to the subject of the email. We've lost two of our on date investigators! (Kind of) they both moved. One is still getting baptized this Saturday, and we will get to attend. So that'll be nice. The other is close enough to us as well. Once he overcomes his word of wisdom, he will be baptized too. I'm excited. It's cool to see all these people come to Christ. I've now been a part of 5 people being baptized.

So that was the week! Finished it off with a good ole video chat to my family. It was great. I've run out of stuff to say. 

Mother's Day!

Riding Along

Howdy

I'm gonna bug him

Does this make me look cool?

A Good Week

One of our guys this week called us over to help him. He needed help loading a trailer and then hauling it off to the dump. It was fun and games until we found out he didn't have a back on the trailer to prevent things from coming out. I was in the passenger seat and had multiple people inform me that stuff was falling out the trailer. It was pretty embarrassing, especially since I couldn't do anything about it. We banished the remaining goods in the bog of eternal stench, also known as the dump, then drove back the same route. We found just two or three small pieces of wood on the road. Other people must have come and picked up more wood, because those people who were yelling at me had much vigor.

Elder Stuart is a new district leader so he needed to go get trained. I got to be in a trio with my past companion Elder Carson and one of my role models, Elder Mohler. I had so much fun going around with them. Our first lesson was just amazing. I loved it. We went into a dark room where a shirtless man was laying in bed. We asked if we could turn the lights on, but he said he'd rather we didn't. We then sat on the ground of his messy bedroom and got to work teaching about the priesthood. He was probably taking some serious notes on his phone since he was on it the whole time. We also had another appointment on the messy floor of another guys bedroom later on. It was actually a pretty good one. I'd love to have a investigator like that guy. Overall, it was great and I found myself smiling most of the day. 

I ate a new vegetable this week. I thought it tastes more like a fruit. It is the rhubarb! I don't know if you've ever had one, but they are basically going to make your face suck itself in from the amount of sour that lies in wait. You best be dipping that son of a gun in some sugar or you'll be paying the price. 

I had the chance to give one of our guys a blessing this week. It was a great opportunity and I was grateful. It makes me feel good to see the power of God manifest in me because of my faith. The blessing was just super cool, and although I hardly remember the words, I know that he kept telling me that it was exactly what he needed, and I am so smart. I kept explaining to him that it had nothing to do me me, but that didn't stop him from hugs and not drugs. Seriously, he's been sober for like a week now. 

We went on splits one day to each ward. I had the chance to teach an investigator couple and their daughter. I guess I was aware that the woman was a published author, but I didn't know that she was as famous as she is. She supposedly has millions of followers on Twitter, and she's published 14 books! Wow, she's pretty cool. She and her husband are the ones on date for the 26th. Her daughter actually became an investigator that day. Then, while I was teaching them, Elder Stuart split off and also gained a new investigator. It was pretty neat. 

I also went on exchanges on Friday. It was a bit of a drag because every appointment including dinner cancelled on us. That's why we had scalloped potatoes. I also made myself some eggs and decided I needed salt. I found black salt in the pantry? When I poured some on, legions of salt demons escaped the container and started a battle with my eggs. I stepped in before any fatalities and scooped most of it out. Those eggs were salvaged. 

The thing I thought was neat about the exchange was the next morning. The zone leader asked me where we should go out to tract. After studying the map, I chose an area. We went to it and found three new investigators in a family. It made me feel so great! I learned yesterday that they are now on date. Wow.

It was overall a really good week. The weather was great and the work was even better. Now if only it wasn't all stormy the one day we can go play... 

Cookie Monster ice cream makes everything better

At a dinner appointment

Coming back from the dump