(written 9 Oct 2017)
Hi everyone! This is, in fact, my 72nd letter home. I wanted to have a cool title, and that's all I could think of, so I went back and counted. It's actually number 72. That was probably dumb, in hindsight, but the deed is already done. Now, I will do my best to forget that number. Honestly, knowing myself, it's really easy to forget anything. I just have to try not to.
This has been a great, great, week. Our dinners were with the English-speaking Toppenish 1st Ward, and a lot of the people we ate with are a little on the older side, so it was pretty much different kinds of roasts with an inordinate amount of vegetables. Honestly, it was pretty great. You won't be hearing me complain any time soon about eating too many pork and steak roasts with mashed potatoes.
The area here is doing great! I'll share one short miracle from my letter to President Lewis:
There was this 18-year old girl, Jasmine, that Elders Rigby and Ramirez met in Granger. After teaching her a couple of times, Elder Rigby and I decided to refer her to the English-speaking Elders in Zillah. However, a few weeks later, we have a lesson here in Toppenish which falls through. We decide to knock a few doors while we're in the area, and the first door we knocked was answered by... Jasmine! Our mouths were both agape. We were shocked, confounded, and amazed. Apparently, after we referred her to the English Elders, she broke up with her boyfriend and moved to Toppenish. Not any less amazing, she moved to Toppenish... in our area. We took that as a sign we're supposed to be teaching her.
[I'm writing this so what I write next doesn't have the weird gray background that my letters to President Lewis have. I'll probably forget to erase, this, too. I might even decide not to erase it intentionally, just so you know I have to do something like this every time. I usually just type a single letter or word or something, though.]
So, it's been pretty great. We also met 3 times with Perla. She's doing great, too! No one sold her, and she even got her car back! Woohoo! She's reading and praying, and is getting really ready to be baptized. The main two hurdles she has to get around is she needs to learn about/start living the Word of Wisdom (a toughie), and she needs to get really consistent about coming to church. She didn't yesterday, because she honestly thought she wasn't supposed to go if she didn't have a nice dress. We explained that actually, she could come into the building wearing cutoffs if she really wanted. The most important thing is that she comes so she can experience all the blessings that come with that!
We also taught Noe and Norma last night, and it went great! It's been a while, but the English Elders asked us to stop by again because they've been having some spiritual experiences lately. (In some cases, not always the good kind of spiritual, if you get my drift.) We went by, and we decided to start completely fresh with them. We talked about the Restoration of the Gospel, and invited them to be baptized. They were okay with that, but Noe is still a little hesitant.
However, we did an object lesson where we had their son, Juan, jump across the room as far as he could, but with no visible goal. Then, we told him to try again and try to touch Elder Rigby (which was a LOT further than he had jumped before). We marked where he had landed the previous time. The second time, with a clear goal in mind, he jumped a lot further! He wasn't able to touch Elder Rigby, but he did a lot better with the tangible goal than simply the instruction to "do the best you can". We compared that to goal setting in general, and invited them to work towards the goal of being baptized on November 18th. They said yes! That is honestly a miracle, because they (especially Noe) have been a little hesitant about making commitments of that sort in the past.
It's been a great week/transfer, and it will be an even better one that comes!
Love you all!
Elder Ben Adams
Question from Editor Dad
you didn't say for sure whether you or Elder Rigby is affected by the transfer. I'm assuming not...
Neither of us is affected, no. Our entire district is staying intact, and even growing! We're getting 2 new Spanish sister missionaries in Sunnyside
Photos
Note: Toppenish, WA is known for its Western-themed murals.
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