Week Forty-two:  Small and Simple Miracles [May 14, 2018]

Hi Everyone, 

This week was pretty good. Here are the highlights

We had an appointment fall through so we were walking, not really knowing what to do, when two people across the street asked us if we wanted to come and play soccer with them. I recognized them as people we'd seen before (their mom/aunt is an investigator), and seeing an opportunity to share the gospel we accepted their invitation. After the game we shared a message with them. One of them started to interrogate us with Bible questions and gave us a challenge to find out what one of the verses in Romans means. We took him up on that. Even though it seems like he just wants to argue, we wonder if any of the others are interested. We'll find out more as time goes on. 

We stopped by one of our potentials that we had found a week prior only to talk with her son Chase. He says he believes in a higher power, but doesn't exactly know what that higher power is. We talked with him about the Book of Mormon and he said that he would definitely read it since he wants answers. We're looking forward to seeing how that all goes. 

Things are picking up a bit with Lynn. This week when we were doing service for him he asked us a few questions about the church. We'll see if we can bring some more things up with him next week. I'll let you all know how that goes. 

Things are really going well with Judy. She really enjoys doing family history work and it's cool to see the Spirit of Elijah in her. There's a very good chance that she'll be able to go to get her temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead tomorrow! After that all we need to do is get her some names to take and arrange the trip! It been very exciting to see her progress. She keeps saying how now that she's a member she wants to be a good example to her kids. 

A nice little tender mercy happened Friday. After district meeting we had an appointment that we needed to get to. Because of time we wouldn't have time to get lunch before we needed to go. The other elders gave us a ride back to our apartment so we could grab our car and on the doorstep was a package from home and in it were some gift cards to Subway which was by our appointment! We had a good lesson with the less active/Part-Member family on the small and simple things and then were able to have lunch. It was a small little miracle, but a cool one that I'm grateful for. Thanks mom for making it possible!

We are planning on starting up a family mission plan for the members of our ward and we tested it out with some members who have told us to come by whenever. At first they couldn't think of anyone, but they then started to talk about someone who was a former investigator. Apparently they've seen him a few times and says he misses the missionaries coming by. It sounds like he's a hard one to catch, but they gave us some information that could be helpful. 

I had exchanges with Elder Cannon Saturday. We had a pretty fun time with each other. We stopped by quite a few people with not a ton of luck. We were walking a lot and we were getting pretty thirsty so we went to ask some members for water. They ended up inviting us in and talked to us for a while. We ended up hearing of someone who might be interested and I ended up giving her a blessing of comfort. It was a cool experience. 

We didn't meet with Jeff and Heidi this week. We saw Jeff leaving to run some errands on Saturday and he texted us later and said that he'd see us at church. After sacrament meeting We noticed Heidi sitting in the back and went to talk with her. Apparently they were running pretty late and Jeff didn't want to go that late, but Heidi didn't mind and came by herself! 

The best part of the week was being able to Skype home for Mother's Day. Just like the last time it was fun being able to see everyone's faces and hear from each of them. It's definitely a blessing that we have the technology available to do that!

That's my week. Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day and hope you have a great week this week! 

Until next week, 

Elder Jason Riches