Moses Lake

Hello everybody!

Hope you have all had a great week and have stayed warm! Its getting cold here in Washington as it gets dark at 4:00 pm and is just getting darker each day.

So this week was pretty good since we had the Branch Thanksgiving dinner. There were a ton of people there from active members to less actives to investigators to other people that members brought. There were some pretty funny games that they put on during the dinner that made everyone laugh.

So this week was also pretty good for teaching people as we had some pretty interesting experiences. This week as we were trying to visit some investigators. We knocked on this apartment to talk to an investigator and no one answers but their neighbor comes out to smoke and starts talking about the Holy Spirit or something along those lines and then he calls to us and wanted to talk with us. We talked outside with him for about an hour about a wide range of things and then set up another time to come back for the next day. We were a little hesitant to go back because he had talked so much and we were only able to say a few words in that whole hour but we went to the follow up visit anyway. He told us how he had been arguing with his wife and then said that the holy spirit would do something and then walked out of his house and then saw us standing next door. As we talked and listened to him, we found out that he is a member and has had a really rough life. I know the gospel will bless his life as he returns to church and lives the covenants that he has made. Something interesting that happened during that visit was that his daughter was sitting on his lap for about half of the visit and ended up falling asleep. Just before we left he told us that she has a hard time sleeping but we were leaving she was out. I know that was because the spirit was able to relax her and she was able to rest. The spirit works in interesting ways in all of our lives.

I hope you all have a very happy thanksgiving and eat lots of turkey and stuffing!

Elder Young

Elder Kent Richards

Hello everybody!

Hope you all had a great week!

Sorry about not emailing yesterday, our p-day got switched to today because we were visited by Elder Richards from the 70. It was an awesome time to be able to talk with him and get some training about what we need to do better as missionaries. He talked a lot about having true faith and that means that we act on that faith. He also taught us a lot about teaching truth simply instead of using analogies to teach a  principle. That hit all of us pretty hard because we all do it and we don't realize that it distracts them instead of helping them.

So last night when we got back into moses lake, we decided to put it to the test. We visited a couple of less actives and instead of just asking how their reading went, we listened and taught simply and they understood a lot better and also opened up to us as well. I know that instruction from Elder Richards was exactly what I needed to become a more effective missionary.

The work is going well here in the Moses Lake 9th branch. There are a few people ondate in our district which is awesome because we set a goal of 10 baptisms as a Zone for December. We have been working a lot with the less actives in the Branch to help them get reactivated again. We have been finding a couple of new investigators each week which also helps keep us busy. Hopefully as we apply the principles that we learned from Elder Richards that they will progress towards baptism.

I just want to say again that I know the church is true. Miracles happen everyday and thats because this is the Lords work and he is directing. It is just our decision to work with his will or against. I can testify that if we seek his will and ask his help to know what to do, he will guide us where we need to go, and what we need to say. I know the Book of Mormon is true and because its true we have a prophet on the Earth and he leads and guides us today. If we do the things that he asks of us then we won't go wrong

Have another great one everyone!

Elder Young

Moses Lake

Hey everybody

This week was pretty good. It took a long time to get from hermiston to moses lake on transfer day. We left at 12 and then had a meeting in kennewick for an hour and then went to yakima for about an hour and then quince and then to mose lake and each time we had to move our bags from trailer to trailer. It was pretty fun getting to know more missionaries. So on the way from quince to moses lake our zone leaders got a phone call from the assistants telling them who the new district leaders were and I got chosen. Our district is our companionship and 2 sets of sister missionaries. I'm a sistrict leader or relief society president, however you want to call it. We all attend the same branch as well.

Church was really interesting. It was about half english and half spanish which was really weird but it was nice not having to translate. The branch president is really excited about the work and is really supportive of the members doing member missionary work. It will be really awesome to be able to work with them some more.

Today was the first day that we have really seen any sun since I got here and we have spent most of the time inside. We went to a gymnastics gym and played around there for a couple of hours which was really fun but now I'm really sore and will be even more tomorrow. We live in an apartment with another set of Elders so we have to do our laundry at a laundromat which just brings back memories of living in Lawrence in the tiny apartments.

I like my area so far. I'm still unsure of which way is north so that makes it hard for me to know where anything is. There is a lot of work to do here, we just need to find it. We have a few investigators and hopefully we will be able to find more and the ward will find some as well. I'm sure I will have more to say as we go through this week.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Young

Transfer calls and miracles

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have had a great week and have seen many miracles.

This week we got transfer calls. I'm going to moses lake 9th spanish and my companion will be Elder Smith. I don't know a whole lot about the area but I'm excited. Elder Doman will be training a new missionary too which is pretty cool. He will do a good job, he's just a little nervous but that's understandable.

This week was really good we taught a bunch of lessons and found a couple of new investigators. We knocked on a door this week and we ended up having about an hour lesson on the doorstep with a couple of guys that don't really go to any church but still have a really good knowledge of the bible. Hopefully we can help them truly accept the gospel in their lives so they can feel the blessings of it. Also someone that we are teaching that we had a really good lesson with last night is named Lupe. We taught her the restoration and watch the video as well. When we introduced the Book of Mormon to her, she asked if we had a copy for her and when we said that it was her's, she got all excited. She also told us about when she first came to America, she had a teacher that is from the Church that really helped to learn english. The power of someone's example is amazing and should never be underestimated. It's amazing to see the Lord preparing people to receive the gospel and to be a part of it.

Something on a less spiritual note. We have had a little mouse running around our house for the last couple of weeks so last monday we set up a trap to get rid of it. We filled up a bucket of water and made a ramp and a shakey bridge as the trigger. When we got back from playing basketball on p-day,  we had a drowned mouse in the bucket. We were super surprised that it worked and we haven't had a problem since.

Hope you have a great week again and go out and look for opportunities to share the gospel.

Elder Young