TALL Mission Tales: The bad, the good, the really bad, and the really good

January 9, 2017

Hey Fam!

It has been a great week here in the WVM! It has also been really cold. We had a lot of really cool stuff happen this week and we also had a lot of stuff that wasn't so cool but built our character haha.

The first half of the week was just a solid few days of preaching the gospel. Nothing overly spectacular except that it was just cool to see people opening up the to Gospel of Jesus Christ and letting the atonement change their life. It was also a real struggle against the cold. Honestly idk if I have just acclimated to Washington weather, but this feels a lot colder than Utah ha.

Wednesday was a struggle. 3 Entire families we were teaching came across some unfavorable material and decided they did not want to meet anymore. To give you an idea of a lesson we had - On Monday Jenoah prayed out loud for he first time and she was like "God if you are there... actually no, I know you are there God..." and then went on to give a great prayer! Fast foreword two days and she stands up in front of us and declares that she just cannot believe in God because of "science" then proceeds to march into her room. Then her sister sat down and she was like "Ok I want to start off with 3 Questions: 1. What's the deal with blacks and he priesthood. 2. What is your view on LGBTQ+ rights. And 3. What is the big deal with polygamy." Gosh. Some days just have to be like that.

Thursday something really cool happened. During dinner all of our evening appointments cancelled. We were not sure where to go so we drove to the church and hanging out at the church was 1. A priesthood holder we needed to have sufficient numbers to give a blessing later on, and 2. Our bishop we have been trying to get in contact with forever! We found out his phone wasn't receiving our messages. We didn't figure out how to fix the problem but at least we learned he wasn't avoiding us! So anyway we left the church and just started driving down the highway. While driving we passed the hospital and got an impression that we should go in. We were like "what? We don't even know anyone in the hospital." But we just decided to walk in. Nothing happened. Walked up to the second floor. Nothing happened. Then we decided to take an elevator to the 5th floor because that's where we went last time we had to give a blessing. Nothing. But then the volunteer on the 5th floor started complimenting us on our church and how nice we looked. (She is 90 years old). So we started talking to her and learned that her daughter is actually a member and one of the biggest leaders of family history work here in the Northwest! The crazy thing is that in district meeting earlier that week we decided that we wanted to find a family history expert to come in and show us how to get Investigators excited about family history!! So cool! So we got her daughters number from her and called, and her daughter was really excited to plan a district meeting to come and teach us!

Honestly I could take up a couple of paragraphs with the miracles we have seen just in the last 2 days, but suffice it to say the Lord is blessing us abundantly, and despite the hard moments I am so dang happy!

Last thought - God is our father. As Brigham young said "If you do not believe that God is your Heavenly Father, cease to call him Father; and when you pray, pray to some other figure." I really believe that. He wants to hear your favorite jokes. He wants you to ask him for advice on dating, and most of all he wants to bless you. Talk to him and let him do it!!