Mr. Sun, You Babe

Was it kind of dark last week? It might've been night time, where work can't be done, since this week in comparison was daytime. This was one of my best weeks as a missionary, and it's all due to my faith in Christ that I've been working so hard on forging this week. So anyways, strap on those leather aprons, I know first hand that the sparks which spew from the forge will wreck your day. I just realized I'm wearing my shorts with multiple holes from that. Anyways. 

After flexing and just about ripping my shirt as a result of it, we slopped our way outside and hopped onto the bikes. Mini complaint: Why do bike seats have to be so uncomfortable? I know that after a little while, you get used to it, but for this week, I've got a sore rear! Mini complaint over. So anyways, we rode on down to a referral in a trailer park, and after some testifying, she agreed to meet and we were able to set a time to return. After the visit, we sat on some benches to work on filling out the info on the visit and some lady comes out all mad, "You can't be here knocking door to door. The manager knows you're here, you need to go." I wasn't pleased at all for being falsely accused, but we were able to respectfully explain what we were doing and then continued on, netting our first new of the week.

Later that day, we were out searching for people like a mile and a half from our apartment. We were led by the spirit to one lady who rejected the missionaries in December. Me and her had an instant connection and so she was much more willing to listen to the message. We actually ended up there for like 45 minutes! Number two! But that was making us pretty late. We started jogging our way the mile and a half back so we could get the car. A couple breaks took place due to Elder Muhlstein's unathletic ways. We were totally going to be late, and that was something I simply couldn't allow, so we decided to cut through a field we've short cutted through a couple times. This time, however, we came across something which simply wrecked me, and that's all there is to it. As I walked, a vicious strand of barbed wire leapt out at me and ripped into my leg, and I instantly flopped to the ground. I kinda just layed there with my legs dangling on the wire in a stupor. I didnt really have pain, just incredible surprise. I awkwardly got up and examined my favorite pair of pants, which was now bloody and ripped in three places. I was so mad. But we had a mission! So we continued on to teach a powerful lesson as my elbows were covered in dirt and my pants were ripped and had mud and blood. Anyways, our conviction helped our on date investigator choose to give up coffee. That's right, boys. In terms of the injury, we went back home and I cleaned myself up with soap and hydrogen peroxide. Now I've been band aiding and neosporing the heck out of that son of a gun, and along with the prayers I've been saying, it's been healing rapidly. No stitches needed. 

I traveled back to good ol Spokane again this week. I didnt even bring my sheath knife this time, knowing God would protect me. Not too many fat stacks of miraculous events occurred, but I did find like 37 cents! Wow! And we were able to talk to two different people outside their houses who agreed to learn more about the gospel. It was great because we were trying so hard to find someone to teach and God bestowed #3 and 4 on us in that event. Turns out that #3 has a girlfriend that the Elders were able to teach alongside him when they went for the return appointment.
One day, we were about to go out and the spirit was like, "yo, don't take the car." I was like, ok, we will just ride bikes. "Nah, man, dont take the bikes." So we just sighed and headed out the door. We then found a disabled veteran with a disobedient dog outside far from his apartment. He kept saying to the dog, "Please let me go home!" We were able to go up to him and take the dogs leash and help him get back home. Though he was not for the religion of Christ at all, he did believe in Christ, so we explained how God sent us to help him come back home. He was super grateful and called us "brothers." Nice. 

So we went out with a member who is an apartment manager one night to go find. He told us of various doors of people he thought might listen to us, then dropped us off near. Though none of them agreed, we found one guy outside of his apartment just gawking at the full moon. We talked to him a bit and he decided he wanted to learn more about the gospel. Number 5. We set a return appointment for two days later, then shimmy in for our first lesson with him. After learning about the plan of salvation, he said that the Book of Mormon must be true! So we put him on date for June 21st. Boys.

So then I had another exchange and I went with Elder Hayes, an elder I came out with. My companion neglected to plan the day in my absence, so we had nothing to do. After pondering, we chose to go to a trailer park. We made our way down and found out we were in the wrong one. I felt like we should still knock on a door. Out comes a less active member who hasn't been to church in 7 years. She was glad to see us and she committed to come back with us the next day. We then ran into new person #6, who I attempted to put on date right there. He was like, "if I didn't drink a 6 pack a night, I would. But still come back and talk about Jesus!" 

So yeah, there we go, with one of the most successful weeks of my mission. It was super warm! Miracles were left and right, including the clutch member who asked for a shopping list so she could set us up with a full fridge. My goodness that was incredible. I found like 3 dollars worth of change on the ground. Some good potential investigators were found and I even produced another Class Time with Elder Ruth, perhaps the most controversial one yet. Brad Wilcox is coming to the mission, and transfer day is this week! I'm staying with Elder Muhlestein here. We'll see how that one goes.. So peace out, my friends. 

"Can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands?" Alma 5:19

Happy St. Pat's Day!

Aftermath.  Mom will spare you close up pics of the cut.  It's nasty!

Be Not Afraid, Only Believe

Oh hello everyone who might read this, it's me! Elder Ruth. I may be 3/4's asleep while writing this, but that won't stop me from writing this spicy email. Take your tums and let's get to it.

This week, I got to go on exchanges with a Spanish missionary this week. I definitely had a great time with him, going around and trying to find people to teach. We would just tract until we found someone who knew a Spanish person, then go over to the Spanish persons house. I would just stand and try and look happy while the two people chatted it up. I prayed for the gift of tongues and actually kind of got it. I was able to understand about 80% of the stuff that was said, and after each conversation, I'd tell my companion what I understood. Not bad not bad! So anyways, I wanted to be a lot more helpful. I was told that if they had Christmas lights up still or if there was a broom on the porch, Spanish people most likely lived there. I had a blast scoping out brooms and launching us onto their porches. We finished off the night with a guy from Cuba who couldn't even be understood by the Spanish Elder. Rest in peace, us. Haha. 

The sun has just been smiling down on you and me lately, and I can't get enough of it. I feel like I'm more excited for my plant than myself. Actual quote from the week. "I can't wait for the time when it gets warm enough I can let Nemo sit outside all day". So yup, it's been in the 50's this week and it's been amazing. We definitely took the time to whip out the bikes. The ground is wet from all the snow melting, but its not icy. I had a blast bouncing around town and waving to cars and enjoying life. It was just a shame my lil mud flap moved over to the side, so I had small spots of dirty water on the back of my shirt. Oh well. It's currently spinning in the depths of the washer. Definitely worth it.

So I was doing some serious study on the topic of faith this week, and new light has been bestowed upon me regarding faith. I make "Class time with Elder Ruth" videos every now and then, so I will totally delve deeper into this topic. The big deal for me this week on faith is how we grow it and keep it. God can only do things for us if we have faith. Doubt and fear are directly opposed to faith, and so if we display these emotions, our faith diminishes. This is why Jesus said things like, "wherefore didst thou doubt?" Or "fear not man." Upon studying in Mark, a line from Christ echoed through my mind all week. "Be not afraid, only believe." And this was a turning point for me. Instantly, I upgraded my skills. Every single person I spoke to, I said this in my head before reaching. Every door I knocked on, I had the confidence that God was on my side. Ultimately, some people won't accept Christ no matter what, but with this newfound faith I've developed, the work has already flipped dramatically. We found two new people to teach this week which is very good for this particular area. We set many things up which will instantly give us even more people. We helped serve others and we did what we could do be an extension of the arm of Jesus Christ. 

With this new faith in mind, I got myself into quite the situation. When I was with Spanish Elder, he had an emergency and we had to quickly bail to a gas station bathroom. I bought a Kitkat so he could use it, and then saw people enter the gas station. I knew that God would want me to talk to them, and doing so would increase my faith. I worked up the courage and started talking to a guy about Christ. He knew who I was and so he started to try and belittle me. It was pretty neat how I was able to use a handful of scriptures to subliminally roast him. This drew the attention of two more people who joined. They began to gang up on me, so I found some common ground and started teaching about the Savior. A fourth person came in and tried to roast, so one of the woman I was teaching told him, "Hey, don't attack him, he is an angel from God." I winked at the man and then let him join in my little sermon on Jesus Christ. Everyone left satisfied as my companion finished his 10 minute bathroom break. Though none of them wanted to have us come to their home to teach, I was glad to see that I could not be confounded, just as promised in the scriptures. We then definitely used the crap out of our hand sanitizer because some of these people had leathery hands which had turned orange from smoking. 

So that's all the things I feel like sharing this week! It's going good and Elder Ruth is returning from his winter hibernation to wreak havoc in the name of the Lord. Gird up your loins, boys, we're going on an adventure.

"They shall be brought out of obscurity and out of darkness"

Pray Always!

Fake News

Hit the deck and brace yourself, except you don't really have to since you're not in danger and no where near the place where these events have taken place. You know how it is. But if you were here, oh boy. 

So anyways, this week was not bad at all. We got my 2nd and 3rd lesson in this area this week! Wow! Not that we haven't been working hard as heck, we have just been having people no show or cancel on us like there's no tomorrow. My favorite lesson was to an agnostic man and his Christian 6 year old son. It made me happy to see such a humble man who was willing to learn so he could connect better with his family. We taught him all about the Book of Mormon in particular and each shared testimony. Our member who came was also very helpful. That's what I'm talking about! Like, missionaries may be a lot more spiritually in tune and this and that and blah blah blah, but investigators listen to members a lot better than they listen to us. 

It's been getting significantly warmer than the past weeks and I am so grateful for it. My companion called the sun "stupid" for shining in his eyes in the car, so I rebuked him, telling him that you must not look down upon things which aren't perfect, because they are working on it, and some day they will be perfect. Looking down and insulting things will do nothing but halt progress. Anyways, Mr Golden Sun achieved like 45 degrees this week and I couldn't be prouder of that man. Gonna grow up to be the best ray of light you've ever seen. Like Elder Herem.

This week, something incredible was accomplished. Your boy Elder Ruth knew that it was time to end mediocrity and set a new record. I threw on some serious priesthood pump-up music and got to work, hyping myself up. I threw punches and ducked under imaginary weapons as apostles shouted words of extreme wisdom upon me through the melodies of epic orchestrations. Once I was ready, I hit that floor and pushed the world down with 80 consecutive push-ups, shattering my old record. I kinda chuckled to myself as I flopped on my back and just laid there for the next 5 minutes. 

Since I'm the district leader, I've been tasked with exchanging with every Elder in the district. This week, I got to go with one of my favorites into one of my least favorites, the city of Spokane. We didn't just go to Spokane, we went to the ghetto, known by the residents there as "felony flats". I definitely felt anxious as I stepped out of the car onto the icy pavement. After a few steps, I realized that it wasn't so bad and I perked up a bit more. However, no more than 20 steps from that sexy white Rav4 we drove, was a prescription bottle on the ground. Allow me to describe. This orange bottle appeared to be coated in red liquid, which I'm sure was blood. Not only was this son of a gun coated in AIDS, but it had a hole in it. In fact, it had two holes in it in a straight line. My imagination says that there was a drug deal that went wrong, so the customer pulled out a gun and shot the dealer in the hand, where the bullet flew all the way through and then burst through the prescription bottle and then probably hit a puppy. I couldn't believe it. 

We paced past the ghetto place and marched onward, sharing the good word of God. I helped them get one new investigator and some good potentials, so that was nice. However, at the end of the night, we were at the church for a coordination meeting when I heard some firecrackers go off. I asked if it was a holiday today, and the adult leaders said, "Elder, those were gunshots." 5 bullets were fired in a matter of a few seconds, and I couldn't believe we were just sitting around, acting like there wasn't a dying man in the streets somewhere. "Don't worry, it happens all the time here." One of them says. If anyone questions my fear of Spokane, I rest my case. 

The zone leaders have been looking at the history of my area, and for the last entire year, it's just been a suffering area. I have faith I can help flip it around, but I graciously accepted their offer to have all the missionaries of the zone come and work here for a couple hours. We were tasked with finding some places for them to go work in, and so we took the matter to the bishop. He asked us to pray for streets and he would pray too, and then we would meet up in a week. We met yesterday and discussed what happened. I was so surprised and grateful when I revealed the name of my four streets. Bishop had 3, and without any prior coordination, he chose 3 of my 4. We then looked at the map and saw that number 4 for me was a small break off of one of the streets which only has 6 houses. If you don't believe in revelation, explain this? Because there are probably over a thousand streets in this ward and we beat all odds and came up with the same ones. That was a testimony builder for me!

One last testimony builder I had was at my district council. I have to pray to seek revelation on who will share, and what they will share. I had revelation that someone should share, but God told me that he would know what he needed to do. I called him up and sheepishly explained the situation. He agreed to it and was kinda stuck all week. When I was with him on Thursday morning, I was doing my personal study while he was on the other side of the room and he just goes, "aha! This is it!" He was so excited but he didn't want to tell me what he was talking about. We then met the next day and he proudly presented his stuff, testifying that as soon as he came across the topic, the spirit smacked him saying "this is it!"

So yeah, that was one of my longer emails. I think I'll leave it right--wait! I just remembered something I forgot to put last week! So, we were at the air force base and they had a bunch of tea which had expired. I found out it was the kind we need, and so I asked if we could have them. I explained, "so if you take this kind of tea bag, cut it in half, and then light it on fire, it'll fly away just before the fire touches the bottom. We like to put them on our hands and light them off when we teach kids about faith, saying that if I have faith, the fire won't hurt me." So that was that. The next week, the manager confronts us, saying, "I dont know if it was you two, but I got a complaint that two teenagers were here last week, and they said that they wanted to take some tea bags so that they could light them on fire and smoke them." Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the first times I have ever experienced our presidents bane, "fake news". I was just so surprised and blown away by what she said. She believed our side of the story once we explained that the eavesdropper blew the story out of proportion. Anyways, look out. Fake news is out there. So yeah! That's the week! This one will be even sweller.

Some art work I've been working on

I made a crock pot dinner!

Me and my companion

Do It, You Won't -- The Spirit

Someone's grandma somewhere in Utah is nonstop praying to God, asking for Him to bless us with "moisture". If you're the grandma who is responsible for this snow, stop. Washington just had the most snowfall in February since the 1800's, and that's just wrong.

So anyways, we went out slopping along the powder covered streets of Airway Heights in search for anyone to listen to us. The people here are definitely more hard-hearted than those in Deer Park and Coeur d' Alene. I suppose they are almost equal to Spokane. Despite the odds, we are having more success than I did in my young age there. In order for someone to count as an investigator, they need to be taught a principle, left a commitment and have a return appointment scheduled. We found three new people this week to teach, along with some others with serious potential. Unfortunately, two of them no showed us! So they lost their investigator status and we now just have one new person. Oh well! We're still working hard and trying to make a difference. The ward is starting to trust us more, too. It was pretty fun just dishing out assignments for auxiliary members to achieve. It's not every day I can tell full blown adults what I need them to do! 

So anyways, it is just bitter freezing cold. It's usually around 20 degrees or so in the day. However, the winds have been super active lately, just wrecking havoc on me and Elder Muhlstein. You know the saying, "If you're cold, they're cold too! Let them in and warm them up."? The non members don't believe in that. Anyways, we had a lunch appointment that was about three miles away. We decided that we would walk all the way there and street contact and tract while we are at it. About two miles in, our lunch appointment actually found us in their car and pulled over. "Sorry Elders, we have to cancel on you." Then they drove away. Cancelling on us has been extremely popular lately.. bleh!! So Elder Muhlstein asked if we should just keep going anyways or if we should turn around, get the car and do something else. The spirit got in my grill and said, "you might as well keep going." I grumbled and we proceeded. After about 10 steps, I found a semi sweet pocket knife on the ground. Instant blessings! Haha. Well, we continued and knocked a few doors just tried to do what seemed like what we needed to. We found no apparent success. When we were walking back, I was exceptionally hungry since I hadn't really been eating lately. A member stops us right next to McDonald's and hands us a fresh Andrew Jackson, telling us to go get some lunch. It certainly wasn't an easy morning, but it was nice to see blessings like these two after we tried to follow the spirit. 

Speaking of following the spirit, we were told to go to a house by some member, so we shimmied on down at like 8:20. It looked like all of the lights were off. I've never wanted to knock or tract at night time unless I knew for sure they were awake. Again, my companion asked if we should still go. (He kinda just does whatever I do.) I stared at the house and the spirit goes, "just do it. Nothing bad will happen." So I sighed and we got out and knocked. Ol Grandma Jenkins opens up and was very happy to see us. We got invited right in and spent the next little while, listening to the story of her family and this and that and all manner of random stuff. Though she was a member, she didn't know where the church was because she was visiting. I didn't quite understand why we needed to go at first, but then I remembered that some people just need to know that someone cares about them. I love seeing those I care about notice me, so it must've been a good thing for her. I guess that my reading of the New Testament rings true, where it says God knows every bird that lands on the ground, yet we are more important to Him than the birds. He sent us on over to minister to one of his precious daughters by just spending time with her. Alright, I'll take it. 

I went on exchanges to the land I despise more than all. Downtown Spokane, the pit of despair. A large part of it is seriously named by all of the people around here "felony flats". I was extremely nervous to be back, but things ended up alright. I got to teach three lessons, which was awesome since I've only taught one real lesson in my area. I got to give granola bars to homeless people, see a huge wagon other missionaries all have pictures with, and kind of just experience Spokane in a different light. It was just so cold, all of the crazies were inside. Well, most of em. One guy informed me he cured his AIDS by smoking weed... The usually crowded city was empty, and it was so good to be in it by ourselves. We were even able to pick up a new investigator in their ward there. Sweet! Then at the end of the night, I weirded out the other elders by cooking up one of my personal favorites, cinnamon chicken. Don't bash it till you try it.

So things are going kind of alright. They are progressively getting better. I wanted to reward myself for some serious work, so I whipped out an expensive filet mignon that I got and cooked up some serious rice. When I was just about to throw that steak on, some members called us over to have dinner with them! What luck! (And unluck. But mostly luck.) To make it better, they lived on the air force base and so I got to go over again. I've got such a fascination with it because of the people inside I want to teach. I've been trying to come up with legal ideas to spread the gospel within. If anyone has any ideas, let me know! 

Anyways, this week had a lot of things in it that you could call "bad." But God is mindful of every people, and that means He was mindful of me, too. The good outweighed the bad, and it was great. I'm not having an easy time here, but I do know I've got some serious ministering Angel's in the form of wonderful people here. 

I finally got new shoelaces because these guys just couldn't hold on any longer