Snow and rugby jersey - Dec. 26, 2017

That time I loved my mission!!

Alright so the title is a lie because I love my mission pretty much always! But this past little while I have been feeling the love grow so I wanted to share with you all! Basically just know that a mission is awesome and one of the best thing ever! Whenever we go tracting or street contacting, or meet weird homeless people or whatever the heck Seattle tries to throw at us, I just feel an overwhelming sense of love for the people I meet, Christ is for real everybody, He loves us and He can help us love others, isn't that really what Christmas is about? I think yeah, I'll share an example, I was on exchanges with Elder Bird and we were in downtown Everett on Christmas Eve and we see this homeless person way down the street and #talktoeveryone so as we are heading over we see this car just screech to a stop down the street from this guy and a lady runs out, hands him a giant box of chocolate says a few words and then runs back in her car. We gave her a thumbs up as she drove past, then this guy pulls over next to the homeless man, says a few words and then pulls away, we finally arrive at this homeless guy with a giant box of chocolate just chowing down and we start talking with him, and hes just nuts but hey thats ok, so we're talking with him and he is just so thrilled he got this chocolate, hes kept saying "Hey, I'm doing pretty good", then the car that pulled over comes back and throws out some Mcdonalds for this guy and he gets even more happy, it was so awesome! If it wasn't Christmas I doubt that would have happened, but thats the power of CHRIST!!!

His amazing love for us all can be felt by everyone! Love you all! Have a good week!

That time we missed our boat

Really this week there wasn't a ton except for more MIRACLES!!!

But before I tell you about how I love my mission I'll do a quick PSA, never ever ever EVER miss your ferry, it throws off your whole day.

Back to the amazingness that is WSM, Washington Seattle Mission, this week the miracles spread abroad into our zone as our zone went from a total of 5 people on date for baptism last week Monday to a total of 14 and counting today!

That is just crazy! Especially here in this mission, which is a little famous for being super tough to find teach and baptize in, thats out of this world! So we are super pumped for this next transfer! Especially since most of us are staying where we are!!

Umm btw, I'm staying ASL North with Elder Camillo Gois, so Transfer 3 here we go!! 

Specific things that happened this week I'm honestly not sure...we found some more deaf people and set some more appointments, and something kind of frustrating is that people will just say I'm busy come back next week and then when we go back they say the same thing, but SOMETIMES we set real appointments which is sweet! Every day this week we have appointments set! We have actually had to tell some people that we can only meet next week which is awesome!!! not because we have to wait but because we have a ton of appointments!

Anywho, Jesus is the Christ, and we celebrate His birth on Monday, and that's pretty stinking important I think, so everyone make sure to honor Him by serving someone else! Thats the best thing to do!

Love ya! Have a great week and a Merry Christmas!

Oh and this week I didn't take any pictures or videos, Sorry mom! You'll see me next week!

Exchange and Temple - Dec. 12, 2017

That time MIRACLES rained down in Seattle...but it didnt actually rain...

Alrighty everyone, this week was absolutely stellar! We had so many miracles I can only go over a few!

It all started Wednesday:

I went on exchanges with the zone leaders (now I'm not a district leader but I went because I asked President if I could go street contact in an English area and it worked out that I went with the zone leaders) I was with Elder Zumwalt, who is a beast, we street contacted all day, and actually found a lady who knew 3 deaf people in a tent city, and a guy who knew about some opportunities for us to find deaf people. Then Friday we went street contacting on Capitol Hill, which was just crazy, we were there for a few hours, right as we were about to leave we decide to talk to this one black dude just blasting music in the middle of this park, so I walk up and I start speaking with him, then say I'm going to translate for my companion, and he goes, "Hey, you know sign language? I'm hard of hearing", What??????? So bam MIRACLE, referred him to ASL South. He also told us about a deaf center we can go to BAM mIRaCLe!!! We went and got some solid service opportunites! We then went to Tent City 3, yes Seattle has many many tent cities, its pretty cool, anyway, 3 deaf people there and 2 of them said that we can come back! (We will work on the 3rd). Then again Saturday we have a deaf blind member who brought a deaf blind friend and introduced us, and BAM another one, she said we can go visit her and she was super impressed that we were on missions. Then again Sunday we get this text from a random number saying that hes a member from the Dominican Republic and he had a deaf blind brother who wants to learn and maybe be baptized, we had a lesson and BAM!!! ANOTHER ONE!!! MIRACLES are out there Brothers and Sisters! We invited him to be baptized and he said yes!!! So pumped, by the way that whole lesson Elder Camillo Gois was tactile signing with the deaf blind guy, and I was voice interpreting for the brother so it was a crazy amount of work but oh so worth it! The Spirit was soooo strong!

Also sorry this is so long but come on! Thats sweet! Miracles are out there!

Also, today I went to the temple, and that was amazing! We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father, just look around at all that He created for you! Thats all the proof we need! The temple is an amazing place! Make that your goal!

I know that the Lord guides this work and He loves all of us no matter what mistakes we've made!

He loves you and so do I!

Have a great week!

Scenery - 12/4/17

That time we had zone conference with Elder Kopischke

This week was great! Especially Zone Conference with Elder Kopischke of the Seventy.

This week we tried contacting a lot of investigators who dropped off the face of the earth and we had pretty decent success. So good news!!

Back to Zone Conference

Wow, it started with opening remarks from Sister Schofield, straight into a training about trying to find and get to spiritual light from President Schofield, then Elder Kopischke came up and just trained us about everything that Pres and Sister Schofield talked about and more, it was crazy awesome, I can't even explain how he moved from point to point but it was amazing. Some things he taught us were

1. To use the Book of Mormon effectively, Showing scriptures and using the introduction and title page to touch their hearts to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and then testify.

2. To go on a journey WITH the investigators, don't just point them where they are supposed to go, go with them! Always honor their agency, give them a choice, there are three ways we can help people come unto Christ, with a challenge, with an invitation, or with an experiment. Which one honors their agency the most? An Experiment, tell them the blessings and the things they will receive from doing righteous actions and then let them try and see for themself. Alma 32:27-28. But it is important to go with them to find spiritual light and joy.

3. Faith is a cycle, this is also from Alma 32:27-28, also from the Brother of Jared's experience, in order to see blessings for our faith it requires work! because faith without works is dead! When we have a desire, we give place for the action, and we don't cast out the idea then the Lord will cause it to swell and enlarge within us until it becomes delicious to us and results in an increase of faith. In other words, its not enough to say you've got faith, faith requires action, Elder Holland said, and I know I'm butchering this but oh well, "True conversion and faithfulness in the church, full activity in the church and that is not supposed to be easy, its supposed to require something of our soul." But at a certain point it does become easy because of the faith which you have built, when you see the blessings that the Lord has given you because of the faith you have shown Him it is easy to make the right decisions. 

So be faithful! Be hard workers! Don't give up when something becomes hard! That something everyone needs to work on! Myself especially! But I know that as we try to use our faith we will see miracles!

Love you all!