Monday, November 23, 2015

November 23, 2015

Hello Mom!

This week;
Rainstorms, name games, sloooow days, dang good diet crashing, getting the joint offer, inspired tracting again, and SNOOOOWWWWWW!

I'm not going to lie, the whole gift rotation kind of confuses me as to whom gives to whom, but I think it's a great idea! Just remind me every holiday season who I'm giving too! In terms of Christmas packages, is it possible that you can send me the two extremes of sustenance? i.e. homemade bread and MRE's? During the moment where sis. Lewis sent you that picture we were talking about my past life and I told her about your amazing baking skills. I just thought she would enjoy a loaf if you could send it. As for my inquiry regarding MRE's, don't worry, I am well enough off when it comes to eating. In fact I've developed some pretty good cooking techniques. I just thought it would be a fun idea/tradition to maybe carry a few around with me for the duration of my mission and then down it all at the end. And....also....to, you know, look cool in front of my companions. 

But in terms of Yakima, this last week we had some crazy storms blow through. On Tuesday of last week we had companion exchanges with the district leaders, and I was pleased to be in the company of a certain Elder Peterson. We got along great! Turns out he had the sames likes as me down to YouTube channels! But I always had a hard time with identifying him as a Peterson. His companion, Elder Brinkerhoff is a little more classier and simply looks like a Peterson. And vice versa, Elder Peterson carries the perfect persona to identify as a Brinkerhoff. It's just one of those funny moments.

We had some really slow days this last week though. I think it was Wednesday everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, fell through. The primary plans fell through, the back-up plans fell through, and heck, even tracting the dang street proved not only ineffective but close to pointless. And to top it all off, contacting people on the less active list led us to moved-out addresses and please-stop-trying-to-contact-me-but-here-take-some-fresh-peanut-butter-cookies-with-you people. I love Yakimans!

But we also had some good days too! The less-actives we were able to contact were warm and welcoming. Some have a sincere desire to come back to church but have hectic work schedules that don't allow them too. Others simply just need to feel the spirit rekindled in their lives, and we are there to help guide them! After all, the spirit is what makes people feel happy. We had such a day this past week, and we were able to teach an awesome lesson to a certain Sis. Cardenas. Her story is incredible, and she has been inactive for almost 40 years! But now she is so determined to come back to church, and she has shown us that she is ready to have the spirit come back to her life tenfold! 

Later on, the ward mission leader took us out to Miner's, the local dang good burger joint in Yakima (ask Grandma Swapp if she knows the place!), where we completely wrecked out diets. If you ever get the chance to visit Yakima, you gotta try Miner's. It's that good!

The day afterward we were back on the Less Active list, and we ran into another moved-out address. No one was home, but the owner and his buddies pulled up as we were walking away. One of his pals identified us as missionaries, and we got talking to the guy who lived there (who was respectful but showed no interest), and whaddya know, said roommate asks us if we want to smoke some weed. I quickly and slightly gruffly told him "nah!" And turned him down again when he said that it was "in our mission." No idea what he was getting at there. But Beatty and I thought it hilarious afterward how non-chalantley the guy asked us. I remember Hill doing the same to mess with Mckay and I in Staff, but never has someone just asked me to smoke as if they were asking if I wanted a glass of water or something.

Good times!

Still, come Sunday we were able to get Jose and the children we taught last week to church! And teach them later on too! I know that the Lord provides means whereby his children can learn of the truth, and it's an honor and a privilege to be out doing His work in the field. I am also grateful that Elder Beatty can get through to people a lot better than I can. Jose had some concerns regarding the reverance of worship, but Beatty was able to answer him in a way that spoke to his spirit, so hopefully we can teach him more! I also forgot to mention that last week we felt slightly prompted to tract a certain street we had travelled on before. We decided to go door-to-door, and we knocked on this one door that was on a side road. The lady who answered told us that she had just learned about a tragedy in her family. Beatty quickly got around to letting her know that we were here to help her out, and she agreed to let us come back to teach her about life after death. God is good.

And....we still don't really know what goes down Thanksgiving. I'll let you know what happens!

As always, thank you so much for your email! I love you all and hope the best. I'm thankful for all of you guys!

Love,
Michael

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