Week 6 [September 4, 2017]

Burgers Again!?!?

This week was pretty slow but it had some good moments. On Tuesday I got to have interviews with President Nakken. We had interviews at our apartment so we were cleaning a lot on Monday. I'm really glad that I have a cool mission president and mission mom. One of my concerns about a mission was that I would have a super strict mission president like my mom had, so I'm glad to see that that's not the case. 

The really cool stuff has been with our new investigator Amar. I don't think I've mentioned him before so I'll give some background. Amar and his brother Besin are referrals that we got from the Hermanas in our district. We met with Besin first and told us that we could usually find Amar in the park. We tried that but with a million people in the park and not knowing what he looked like we decided it wouldn't work. The next day we were walking around and we Offered a picture of Jesus Christ to him and he started talking with a Syrian accent. My companion asked if his name was Amar which startled him at first but we explained that his brother told us about him. We talked and he said he would be interested in coming to church and that week he came! (At this point he wasn't even and investigator). This week we had our first lesson with him and he says that he wants to get baptized when he knows more and he's wants to live the word of wisdom!!! The only challenge is the language barrier. He wanted to know how long before Joseph Smith the Book of Mormon takes place and I told him several years. Apparently that was bad wording because he now thinks that it takes place seven years before. But he like the church and how friendly everyone is (he came again this week! ), and he really admires Joseph Smith! I can't wait to see how he progresses.

I thought in coming on a mission that I would eat healthier, but a lot of people down hear like to get fast food so it feels like I have burgers like every other day! I hope I don't end up getting sick of them by the end of the transfer. 

That's pretty much it for this week. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

Elder Jason Riches