Sunday, December 17, 2017

Week 81: In which we have exchanges, eat chocolate, and do not have snow

Another Week Passes...

written 11 Dec 2017

Hello, everyone!
This has been a fantastic, wonderful, week! This past Friday and Saturday, we had exchanges with Elders Buchanan and Reusch. I went with Elder Buchanan to his area. We had a good evening on Friday (we exchanged at 6 pm on Friday and 4:30 on Saturday, after and before our dinners together). We tracted some, tried by some people, and went to a Book of Mormon Class. The highlight, though, was when we visited a family of members with whom they have been working. We followed up on #LIGHTtheWORLD, shared the "Faith" video from the Prince of Peace, and asked for referrals. We asked for referrals a couple of times, actually, and were able to get one for our own area!

Receiving that referral was a blessing we desperately needed. We contacted the referral last night, but he was drunk. Apparently, he began drinking after meeting with the missionaries, and told us that after trying to change his life around, he had been heavily attacked by the adversary. We will be returning later this week to talk with him again. We feel now may be a good time to try again. He has some doubts, and told us he was looking to join a "Christian" (probably evangelical) church rather than ours, but is open to listening again. We pray his heart will be softened when we return.

Jessica, by far our most promising investigator, asked us for a break from meeting. However, a miracle happened! We went by to talk with her. Her husband is not interested in God at all, and while he's a good man, doesn't always see eye-to-eye with her. Religion is just the tip of the iceberg. She has also been overwhelmed lately. However, we talked with her, and she was very glad to see us! She is fine with us coming by, but she wants a break from longer teaching visits. For now, we will focus on follow-up visits to chip away at her doubts and concerns.
Not much else happened the rest of the week. We tried to visit Luis, but his family was having some sort of argument and didn't open the door. He also wasn't there at the time. Oh well.
We have some great plans for this upcoming week, though! We're going to really focus on finding people and visiting/working with less-active members of the church to help their friends come to the Gospel. We've made a huge list of people to go by, and we're excited to see how it turns out!
Love you all!
Elder Adams

Questions from Editor Mom

Hello my Beloved Son! - Hello my Beloved Mother!

How was St. Nicholas Day!? - Fantastic, as always! I've definitely eaten too much chocolate, though.

Do you have your mini tree up and decorated? - We have it up, but no ornaments, sadly. I'm honestly not sure where they went. I had them in a small, and some of the people in our apartment have an unfortunate habit of throwing away anything that they don't recognize :-D I hope they weren't thrown out, but at the very least, someone moved them and I have no idea where they went. :- (

Have you found any new people to talk to? - We've found some people to talk to, yes! There aren't a lot of people who we're actively working with, though. We've lost a lot of people in recent weeks, and are down to about 2-3 people. Some of them don't really want us to come by for actual teaching visits, though. However, we have some exciting new plans and some great new prospects this upcoming week, so stay tuned for some amazing miracles! This last week was largely spent laying a groundwork for the upcoming week.

How much snow do you have? - We have no snow at all. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. It's kind of sad, but it's okay! It will come! We should just buy some heavy-duty snow shovels to show our faith, right?

What have you learned about your companion? - He's very smart. He likes sports (a lot), strategy games, and video games (also a lot). He likes studying the Gospel a lot, and while he is happy on his mission, he doesn't really feel like he's very good at talking to people. He tends to approach things from a very intellectual, non-emotional, sort of way. He's almost like Spock that way. He is passionate about being very large and muscular. He is a bit like I might imagine Porter Rockwell to be, minus being a mountain man. He is also very concerned with having thicker hair. He's a beast at sports, and very good at all of them. He's large, strong, and can be intimidating if he wants to be. He loves Reese's. People we talk to who are very social (especially if they are drunk) think he's distant and doesn't have a sense of humor. That's not true at all, though. He is one of the funniest people ever, his sense of humor is just extremely dry. He's also very, very, quiet. He approaches things from an extremely intellectual level with everyone. He's absolutely fantastic!

Have you found things to laugh about with your companion and your district? - There's not a lot of laughing out-loud, honestly, but there are plenty of very funny things. I can't remember anything specific, though, sorry.

Tell us about your district meetings--what spiritual thoughts have you shared? - We talked about how to use #LIGHTtheWORLD and serve those around us as Christ would serve. We've only had the one district meeting, but it seemed to go rather well! I'll be sure to keep you very updated.

What do you like best about Moses Lake? - Moses Lake has great missionaries here, some fantastic local members, and the people tend to be more humble. At least, that's the way it is in our area.

Ich liebe dich--looking forward to Skyping soon!!!! Do you know when and where you'll be able to Skype? - I don't know yet, no, but we will be finding out soon-ish. I'll make sure to keep you updated, and we'll still get a 5 minute call on Christmas Eve to coordinate the finer details.

Pictures


 This is a boring picture of the entrance to where our apartment is:
 

 This is Elder Shoemaker entering our apartment. The stairway is the same as found in the above picture:

Honestly, I don't have any more pictures for you this week. However, you will find some very good moments captured in the voice recordings I have begun making in earnest.

Members sent us the following sequence of recordings of Ben singing: 







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