Yeah, But I Don't Fear Man

This was an even better week than usual. We've had lots of opportunities for service and teaching and all kinds of wonderful things.

On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to ride our bikes! I love riding bikes. I don't get to very often. We rode over to a guys house and dug him up a good flower bed. We also went with him to the dump, got yelled at by some workers (and it wasn't our fault) and trimmed up a tree real good. I was pulling on a rope to keep the tree from landing on the fence. It worked! It landed on my head instead. I was scared for a short while, but there wasn't any blood. I also used my lifeguard training to do some tests. I never got a head ache, I never went numb, and my pupils dilated like they should when introduced to light, so I was fine. Thanks, legions of guardian angels.

We helped two different families move this week. One of them had a sword that I got to play with for a moment. The other one wasn't ready at all, and it was a whole lot of waiting. However, she really grateful that we could help because we were all she had. So that was good.

We were called to hospital twice to go give a blessing. On our way out from one of them, we ran into a guy who asked with us to come with him to help give his dad a blessing. We weren't able to get near his room for about 20 minutes because someone else was dying. When we finally got near, a nurse yelled at us to stop because she recently got punched pretty hard by him. The guy was going crazy and it took 12 men to hold him down. She refused to let us go in there to give a blessing. Oh well. 

We have a great investigator who is 14. I like going over to see him, especially since he knows parkour. His mom is a less active member who wants to return. When we visited, his grandma was there who used to be a member. She is now heavily against the church and searched up all the anti material that she could. She yelled at us for like 30 minutes and wouldn't let us utter more than two words. It was quite the experience and I was shaking. A member came with us who also had no luck saying anything to her. It was a miserable experience and I didn't want to go see her ever again. The grandma was yelling at us saying that she didn't believe we had to go and said we were just scared because she proved us wrong. We just took the mom and went outside, bore testimony of the truth of the church, then set up an appointment for tomorrow. When we drove past, grandma was outside, seemingly waiting for us. We drove past and then around the block, wanting to go home. Neither of us wanted to speak with her again. It was then when I decided we needed to pray. After a prayer, I told my companion that "I may be nervous to see her again, Yeah, but I don't fear man, I fear God." And we put on our big boy pants and marched straight over. We parked that car, knocked on that door, and out leaves grandma. We were able to teach an incredible lesson and gave him a soft baptismal invite. We were blessed after the trial of our faith, and it felt good to know we have God and His angels on our side.

My favorite investigator has some really big memory problems, but we have promised him that if he reads from the Book of Mormon, his memory will start to return. I promise each and every one of you, the power of the book is real, for this man is legitimate recovering his memory. It's slow but sure. He amazes me every day. In one of our lessons, we had the privilege to extend him the baptismal date of August 25th. He may not remember super well, but the next day when we saw him, he told us just how excited he was for that day. 

That's about all of the crazy stuff that happened to us this week. It was a great one, and I am so glad that the temperature is now averaging around 80 degrees. 

Let's keep it up, Mr Sun! 

I love riding my bike!

Have you seen my videos I've posted on Facebook?

Helping in the yard

The Meat Mountain

I don't know what Idaho thinks it's doing right now, but it's returning back to winter and I'm not pleased. I saw this man the other day doing a pretty fancy dance. He must've placed a curse on Coeur d'Alene.

We were out doing service for a part member family one day. It's a lot of fun. They neglected raking in the fall and there's just a ton of stuff in the backyard, so whenever I lift something up, I discover new specimens. I've found a lot of crazy huge slugs never before seen by man. New spiders are being visited by death administered by me. Crazy moths are welcomed by Mr. Sun and no man knoweth what half of these bugs even are. The man of this family loves fishing, and he usually brings home plenty for the family. What they don't eat is put in a vacuum bag and frozen. The woman decided that some fish would be perfect to put in the garden. I watched in curiosity as she cracked some eggs and poured them in the ground. Then she pulled out a large bag of fish. That's when things got intense.

"Valerie, no!!" The man cried. His mustache flopped back into place and his thick eyebrows lifted, revealing his terrified face."

"Gil, these fish have been in the freezer since 2013! You won't miss them!" She rebuked while pulling a pair of scissors from her pocket. The thin blades gripped the bag and began to tear it apart.

"Stop, don't do it!" He desperately called while shuffling over to her. But it was too late. A fish had fallen into the hole with a fatal thud. A second fish fell into the next hole. Each one which departed from the bag dropped his moral until he was a broken man. The woman pushed some dirt over the fish, barely leaving any of its cold scales in sight.

The man was now fallen to the ground. I put an arm on his shoulder. "Yeah. I don't like shake and bake that much, either."

So anyways, the week was pretty swell, despite needing to bust out the thermals twice. We found a new investigator and have two more people ready to meet with us who seem very solid. There was one lesson we were teaching that a lady was just blown away by. She told me that after I testified, I started to glow and kept glowing. After a few more minutes, my companion glowed with me. That was pretty neat.

One of my best friends back at home introduced me into a legendary sandwich called the meat mountain. One day, we were too hungry to eat mortal food, so we pulled up to the drive through of Arbys. She asked what she could get for me.

"Yes, I'd like the meat mountain."

"...what?"

"Mmmmhmmm, the meat mountain."

"One second... ok, my manager just told me what that is. I don't think you want that."

"I'd like the meat mountain, please."

"Okkkkk, but I warned you."

Anyways, that meat mountain didn't stand a chance against me. It wasn't a difficult challenge at all. 

I've decided I have a new favorite investigator. He had a stroke and some other problems so he has some serious memory issues. I was a special needs youth counselor back at home, and so this is perfect! It wasn't easy at first, but we've been working hard as we can to help him. We got him a notebook and we help him take notes to help him remember. He was even given a blessing which promised him the gradual return of his memory and I've seen it manifest in him. He can't normally remember what he had for breakfast, but he was able to tell us about his entire day! It is so wonderful to see him every time, and he's made it to church three weeks in a row now. I'm glad to have the chance to work with him. 

Winco is a store I wasn't familiar with back at home. You can buy food in bulk and get it rather cheaply. I was told oatmeal is good for you. I guess I got a little carried away because I own 6 pounds of oatmeal now. Whups. 

So that's just about it for this week! The church is true and Jesus loves you ;)

A young man joined us on a visit

The Meat Mountain

Thanks Mom for new socks!

The City Is Ours!

Good gravy, this week has been a killer. First of all, I had to say goodbye to Elder Stuart. I'm getting better at not crying at the loss of a companion. I only shed tears of manliness once this time around. I've got a new companion, Elder Glidewell, who has been out for like 16 months. Next, it decided to be really cold and eventually snowed! What's going on, Idaho?? Our area book deleted a whole bunch of upcoming visits, and that was a nightmare. I got so stressed out from it that all emotions died and I had to sit down in an euphoria for like an hour. But enough about my problems, let's get to the good stuff. 

So, there is a rule in my mission which drives me to the brink of insanity, which is we can't have couches in our apartment. We just have super uncomfortable chairs. We were doing service at a donation center when I found one beautiful couch for 5 dollars. It was cheap because they had many couches and this one wasn't leather or anything. I knew I had to buy it. I got up to the register to find out that it was a half off sale! No way, boys, I just bought a couch for $2.65!! I could hardly contain my excitement. We called upon the ward mission leader to show up with his car, only to find out that it just barely didn't fit. I was devastated, but I knew that there was a way. We found out the the feet could be unscrewed and we slid that bad boy right into the DM's of the heaven sent Pathfinder. We then drove it all the way to our apartment, and past our apartment *sobs* and over to a member who's been asking around for a couch. It was hard to give my beautiful couch away, but he was so grateful, and I knew it'd be taken care of. It was just nice knowing that for the first time in my life, I was the proud owner of a beautiful couch.

We have one investigator who is super flaky. He likes to tell us that he was about to take a nap or some excuse like that, so when I showed up with Glidewell yesterday, as soon as he opened the door, I said, "Hey, we've got a new guy so I guess you better let us in." And he was like, "yeah, ok." That was hilarious and awesome. We got to teach a pretty swell lesson because of it. 

I am so sore right now. Elder Stuart told me that if you drink a protein thing after working out, you get more muscles than you normally would have. I decided to do some serious working out. I pushed myself more than usual, pounded 30 grams of protein, and am still paying the price 4 days later. 

Missionary work is pretty odd to me. Some days are so incredibly hard. After a particularly awful night of sleep and lots of stress from losing important information, I felt like I could barely do anything. This is a somewhat common experience which I've had a couple times a month each month. Every single time I put on my big boy pants and work anyways, great things happen. This is the case again. It was such a difficult morning but the day yielded great results. One of my favorite parts of it was the ability to go to the hospital and give a man on his death bed a blessing. It was a really spiritual experience, and it is really special to me, so I won't go into detail on it, but I was glad God loved us enough to trust us to help one of His sons. 

We were also able to visit many people and help in lots of good work. To my complete surprise and devastation, I lost two of my friends to transfers. One was supposed to stay, but left last minute. Now, not only are me and Glidewell the only missionaries in the entire city of Coeur d'Alene, but we are also assigned all three wards. We literally can go anywhere in the city with a population of over 45,000 people, and we also inherited some more investigators from my friends ward they were working in. It reminds me of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, where we learn that Harry is now an overworked man in the Ministry of Magic. Not sure completely why, I'm just in a Potter mood. I can honestly say most days, "mischief managed."

There's not much else to report on for this week. It was ultimately a good week, and though I'll miss my friend Elder Stuart, I know I'll still see him around. I'm in Idaho still. Never thought I'd be going to Idaho on my mission, but here am I. I hit my 9 month mark here, and now I've been in this place for half of my mission so far. Anyways, if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

We love bowling on P-day

Check out these clouds

Awesome Couch

Elder Ruth and Elder Glidewell

Farewell Elder Stuart!

Goodbye, Elder Stuart!

We got transfer calls. I get to stay here for a fourth transfer and Elder Stuart is headed to Canada. What a swell week. We have been just full of appointments the entire transfer and so we have been not able to drive the car super far. We had a lot of miles left over at the end of the month, so we decided to go where no missionary from this area had ever gone before. It was a boon adventure! It was a lot of fun. We drove like an hour and a half away down to the furthest reaches of the lake to try and find people to teach. One person was a potential investigator who is a snowbird, so they weren't home. While I had Elder Stuart write a note for them, I learned that I am strong enough to lift a Corolla off of its wheels. Boys. 

We also found a pretty neat potential investigator on the search of a member who moved a while ago. He has a dog that attacks rocks? He threw some rocks for us to see. That son of a gun leaps through the air and catches them in his teeth and chases when you throw them. We traveled around the boons and explored three times this week.

Two of our on date investigators dropped us this week. They explained that they couldn't believe in a God who would tell them that they can't drink beer. They also lied about the content of a video we showed them, which shows how God's commandments are given out of love and keep us safe. Maybe they'll come around eventually, but for now, rest in peace. I was incredibly amused because later that day, we got two new investigators who are actually pretty solid. Nice!

One of our new investigators is so funny, I love this man. He's got some shaggy hair and a beard, so you can't really see his mouth. But whenever you say something he agrees with, his eyes beam and he gives you a double thumbs up. We brought him to church yesterday and he had a good time. Elder Stuart was on the stand getting ready to speak and the investigator had to bail for an emergency bathroom break, so I shot Elder Stuart a peace sign and bailed. He ran off the stand because he didn't think it was in line with the rules for me to be away. We're not really sure? 

Man, two of our investigators are neighbors. One is a girl, so we teach her on her porch. We were just minding our own business with her when her neighbor staggers over, drunker than ever. He didn't even recognize us! But he kept inviting her to the bar, and we were like, "go home! You're drunk!" We eventually told him we'd be over at his place in 5 minutes. He staggered away and forgot about us, so we returned to our lesson. 

We got to go to the Temple this week. I normally end up in the back, so by the time I get into the celestial room, everyone else has been there for a while and wants to go. I made sure I was in the second row. Yes! It was a really spiritual experience for me and I learned some way sweet stuff. It's always a good time when we get to go to the Temple. Afterwords we went to Costa Vida, where missionaries get 60% off food. I was so excited that I got two enchiladas and a tres leches. So good! 

Bowling on P-Day

Good Stuff

Spokane Temple

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?