Even Better!

What a sweet week just jam packed full of the good stuff. I guess that it can sometimes sound like I'm messing around. Well, I promise that I've been serious in my last few emails, things are incredible right now, and I just had an even better week. That's enough time wasting, let's get down to business... to defeat the huns...

So since I'm the district leader, I've got some power to do sweet stuff, like hold exchanges. Before we got all exchanges up, my man Elder Stewart was getting feisty in the kitchen, so I hurled him a can of corned beef. He got to work, cracking eggs in the pan and being a legend. He threw in 18 eggs (I think) and was getting ready to call it quits. I knew we needed an inflection point to become better, so I suggested more eggs. After the typical "what do you mean?!" Response from him, he submitted and we cracked more. That skillet just loaded with corned beef now had 24 eggs in it! Boyz! We feasted like kings after claiming the spoils of war. 

So there was I, and my man Elder Kriter, just skipping through the streets when a lady getting out of the car calls us over, asking us if we wanted to see something. I was a bit cautious, but we approached and she showed us a canvas drawing of a lion wearing a crown. It was super good! I complimented her and heard her story of how God directed her to paint it. She then learned of my desire I've had for a couple weeks to paint on canvas, so she gave me an old set of paint and a big canvas! I couldn't believe it. She asked me to paint a picture as inspired by the scriptures. Well, it's taken some pondering, but I've got a picture coming! The draft is complete on a paper, so it should be great.

On this exchange, we were also able to revive two former investigators and put a third one on date! Exchanges certainly do bring miracles. Lots of good stuff happened left and write, and like Mormon, I say that not a hundreth part can be recorded. 

We were at our wonderful newest recent converts house the other night. She has become rather excited to do some family history. We've been getting ready and will be going with her to learn more on Tuesday. During the visit, she said something weird, so I replied, "You're a crazy old lady. But, you're a good crazy old lady." She laughed and really just let us know how much she appreciated us. It was very sweet.

So, now it's time to share something I wouldn't normally share. That being said, yes mom, there are just a few things you don't know about my mission. But, I keep these things secret because we as missionaries do not seek for your praise, though it is nice. We spent four hours helping a family with moving, and they were very appreciative. I won't go too much into detail on that. But when we were in an elevator, some other people came in and said "wow, you've got an army of missionaries helping you! We should do that! But after you share a message with us, then we will share a message with you." And then they walked off. My introverted nature kept me silent, but I was truly bothered. And so, the reason I tell you this! We do service every week. When we do service, that is all it is. We are going about, doing good, in place of Christ. We turn down the money which is offered and most of the rest of the stuff, besides an occasional meal. We don't serve just to get people to listen to us. We serve because we are authorized representatives of Jesus Christ and we've been sent to our area to do as he did and would do if he were here right now. 

The very last thing for email. After some serious study and pondering, I came to a conclusion I needed to be better. I'm human and I make mistakes. After a mistake, I still found that I had all the help I needed to organize something. I asked God in a prayer why He helped me. I was just overcome with an intense feeling of love. I'm really starting to understand His love for us. He doesn't condone us to do silly things, but He will love us and help us every step of the way back. And so I share my testimony with you today, that Jesus Christ does live, and He loves you so much. He suffered everything for you and me. He will look after us, and when we turn to Him and keep Him in our hearts, we will be guided in all things what we should do. I seal my words in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Upon the rock of Life

Yikes!

Things Keep Looking Up

Another sweet week just slipped right through my fingertips. It doesn't feel like it was very long since last P day. Yet, here am I, ready to rumble and stuff.

So we've got a guy we've been working with for a while. He is pretty close to baptism. However, we weren't fully sure if he was accountable enough to do so. We summoned the Mission President over to meet him, and it has been determined that he can be baptized! Whoot. That'll probably be next Saturday. If we can just get him to recognize the word tithing, then recognize a picture of Joseph Smith and briefly talk about him, he will be fully ready. I'm pretty excited. I figure he is the reason I'm still in Coeur d'Alene. I've done a lot of stuff with special needs people in the past, so it must've been preparing me for this time. Well, I'm ready, so let's do this, boyz.

We went to dinner with one of my favorite member families this week. They are the ones who gave me the rungu and and spear from Kenya. Well, halfway through dinner, one of the boys whispers in his mother's ear and then slides away upstairs. Then he comes down with a rungu and what looks like a flute made of ebony. He hands the rungu to Elder Stepan who was understandably excited, and I get the flute. I curiously turned it around in my hands. This wasn't a flute, but it was cool, and there was what looked like a crack in the wood. It was no crack. I pulled it apart, and concealed in the wood is sweet authentic shank from Kenya. My words were, "Oh? What is--no way!" Ha, I sure was excited. I obtained a new weapon without even trying. 

We finally got to do my silly sleep study nonsense. I had a sensor on my finger and chest and then two lil pipes barely poking into my nose. I was told that if the first night the things don't stay on, tape them on the second night. Sure enough, when I woke up at 1 am, all but the chest sensor had escaped. I wasn't clowning around, so the second night, I strapped everything with duct tape. It hurt the next morning to peel it off my face, and I had marks from it for a couple hours, but the deed has been done! Now we just wait 5-10 business days from Wednesday and we will have... results... But some day eventually something will actually be done about this madness. Thank goodness, because it's getting bad.

We were asked to go visit a member who recently moved into a house with like 3 other people. (Fourplex?) Everything was fun and games until I realized where we were. We were walking into the home of the flakiest former investigator of all time! Well. We still taught the lesson to the member, and he was present for it and we accidentally repicked up this flaky son of a gun. It'll be good though. Perhaps this member living here will now make a difference. Anyways, we set a return appointment and he wasn't there. I'm not all that surprised. 

My favorite service opportunity so far surfaced this week. We were called along with the other elders of the area to go help at a furniture store which will be opening soon. We've ripped apart legions of boxes and I've coated in Styrofoam. We've also been able to put together hoards of furniture. Things are a little more difficult without using power tools, as displayed by my blistered fingers, but we've done a lot. I had great fun hanging out with good ol Elder Stewart and putting stuff together. Some of it required some fancy techniques but we were able to figure out all of the madness. The cool part is, the owners had been praying for some help and then they ran into Elder Stewart who offered it and then invited all of us over. We spent 8 hours total on multiple days doing stuff, and they are now going to be perfectly ready for their grand opening this week.

Things are just going really swell and I think I've been happier this week than I have been in a long time. One evening, I read a card from an old friend and it bummed me out pretty hard, but the next morning, I was back to my cheerful self. Things are going awesome left and right. Despite the insanity that happens often, things are just really good. We haven't had our car most of the week, so we rode bikes around 60 miles. It's the best. I love it. Being in leadership is really good, and things are just swell. That's enough happy weird stuff from Elder Ruth for one week. Just keep those loins girted.

Attack of the white stuff

Putting together furniture

'Nuff said

Sleep Study

Hostage to a Golf Course

Another great week went by with some serious sweet stuff. Probably the second greatest accomplishment of the week happened last week and I neglected to share the good news. That six pound bag of oatmeal I bought a while ago has finally been depleted! 

So anyways, there we were, just gliding across town on our bikes when a wrong turn has been made. I don't fully understand quite how it happened, but we ended up on a golf course and we had no clue how to escape. White balls of death were searing through the air, bringing with them the cry of imminent death. Luckily for us, we weren't wearing our thinking caps. For instead, we wielded our semi trusty bicycle helmets. A paved path twisted and turned throughout the depths of the course, allowing us to frantically peddle our way along, searching for an escape like a mouse trapped in a cage with a snake. Every time we thought we had found the way out, a new obstacle blocked our path. All we wanted was to be liberated, despite the kind manners shown to us by the golfers who launched white pieces of death into the skies with metal rods. After 10 minutes of panicked biking and numerous complaints from our Chevrolegs, we found an edge of the golf course where we were able to breach and taste the sweet air of the streets. What was even better was it was a mere two streets away from the home which we had worked so hard to find. We then got rejected by the home, but, you know. 

So I've got with me a companion who is being trained. I like him to go out and be as productive as possible. Another companionship in my district had someone needing to go to Spokane and they don't have a car. I gladly took the chance to conduct an exchange where my trainee Elder Stepan would have the chance to go out and tract for a while. Meanwhile, I'd be sitting through a doctor visit. We made our way down to Spokane for a visit which lasted five minutes and then cruised our way back up. It wasn't much later when the missions medical people started attacking, informing me to slop my way down to my doctor in Post Falls and sign some papers so my mother could speak with them. We made our way back down and finally got to set an appointment to end the terror that is my sleep madness. Today at 6, I can finally go in and get the sleep study stuff. Thank goodness because I slept like two sacks of trash last night!

Back in light of exchanges, one of my zone leaders was down for the count. They still had appointments to go to, so I offered up my son to go with my dad to appointments while I drove the sick guy to the doctors. After what felt like an entire hour of sitting around while learning about barracudas, he got in and out. We then got the marvelous chance to visit Costco. Those legal drug dealers informed us they'd need some time to formulate the goods. We took the time to raid the free samples and then sat on a leather couch for a short while. It was awesome! Once the drug lords handed over the goods, I explained how to use them before they did. They were surprised at my vigor, and even more surprised that I was exactly right. Dr Ruth, boys. Hire me. 

We were able to have another one of my grandma's baptized this week. (That's what I call the older women who love me oh so much). We waited around for 30 minutes for her friend to show up and then we got into it. She had chosen me to baptize her. I was smart about it this time and brought a change of underclothes. Next time I will be even smarter and bring a towel! It was really good and she was pretty happy to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. She and my other grandma have definitely shattered my old belief from the terror days of Spokane, which is that older people will never listen. She's such a great person. She even set us up with 46 packs of chicken flavored top ramen. That's how you know when it's real. 

So that's a portion of the week. Things are going great and the work is really picking up. I have a companion who is really great to be around, a district of awesome people and my zone leaders are the best. I hit my year mark and things are going so good. Plus, pumpkin flavored things have started appearing on the shelves. There's only a couple things that could make it better, but those things can wait until after I get home ;) 

Gird up those loins, boys. 

Baptism!

Mom is so funny

A picture from my Facebook story: Mosiah 13:5
The Spirit of the Lord was upon him; and his face shone with exceeding luster

Not my turn to be sick!

Elder Ruth's Year of Madness

What a week for you and me, but in this email, I won't be talking about your week, because, you know. 

So anyways, I have a new companion and I am really enjoying it. His name is Elder Stepan, pronounced like "I'm steppin up to the madness that is Elder Ruth." He is from Sandy Utah... But he isn't serving here! This man is headed for Madagascar! What the heck? He's waiting for his visa, and while he waits, I've been trusted with the sacred duty to train him. He's already pretty trained, I think, but we are still running through things and boosting his confidence on the streets and doing roleplays and all that awkward stuff. 

There was a day where a guy wanted us to visit him and share with him some scriptures in the bible. We were just too busy that day. We rode our bikes all over the place. On our way back, some members from Seattle pulled over and handed us a fresh Andrew Jackson! They asked us to go get some good dinner. We thanked them and slopped our way straight to the food trucks a little while away, which offered the food of legends. In the parking lot, we stumbled upon the guy we were supposed to be sharing scriptures with! Wow! We shared them real good, then patrolled the trucks, searchin for the dominant food. A cheerful girl greeted us from one of the trucks. We smiled and waved and continued on, because missionaries in public are kind of like celebrities when members see us in public. We were reccomended to go to a bbq truck by someone else. We order the food and the guy goes, "wait, are you the two I met last night?" Because other missionaries tracted into them. I got to share a brief spiritual thought and we were on our way when we decided to go talk to the girl from before. This girl is a member who has been inactive for 9 months. We both bore some pretty fat testimonies to her and got some of her info. She's YSA, so some other missionaries are about to go reactivate a pretty sweet person. I was so surprised at so many things which occurred just because we rode our bikes instead of drove.

I'm afraid it is time for me to now speak about my powerful trainee. On the first morning I had him, I had to send him to some other elders to babysit while I attended a training class for new district leaders. I learned a lot and had a good time and now feel sufficiently prepared to magnify my calling much more than the elders of my past. Well, I group back up with Elder Stepan who tells me that he had just tracted for six hours and loved it. Great Scott!! That's a serious long time to be tracting! Anyways, though he wasn't directly involved, he was present in finding a rad old lady who invited them right in. They then laid down some serious doctrine and set a return appointment. Thus, he helped them get a New investigator on his first day! Sheesh! 

This Saturday, we have the opportunity to have one of our investigators baptized! It's the crazy old lady who argued with me about circumcision. As crazy as she is, I've grown to really like her, she is a whole lot of fun. She has such a sweet spirit and she loves the gospel. It has been a pleasure working with her and I am proud of her.

Me and my boy Elder Stepan decided it was about time we visited a member who lives in an old people home. We asked our ward mission leader to come too. We show up and find her, and she is overjoyed to have us. We had some great conversation and arranged for her to have more people visit. We were about to leave feeling really good about ourselves when another old gentleman slides right into our DM's. He is a high priest and has had some serious sad things happening lately and he had really been hoping to have some visitors. He was ecstatic to hear about our holding of the Melchizedek priesthood. We slithered right into his room and talked for a while, having been his first visitors all month. We then got to give him a blessing. It was great and I am glad we were in the right place in the right time. Miracles are seriously happening left and right. If that wasn't good enough, we then went to an appointment and were gifted with some serious fried chicken! It was difficult to ride our bikes holding the goods at 8 pm, but we sure made it work!

So there's just a portion of the good stuff this week. It's been awesome and I love it. Man. Haha I am so opposite from how I was in December and January. I've come a long way in positivity haven't I? Well, I suppose that's what happens when you do something like hit your year mark. Mine is in three days. I never would've thought I'd go this far when I started. Keep on swimming. And gird up your loins! 

With my new companion

I post a "story" on Facebook a few times a week.  Are you able to view them?