Monday, December 19, 2011

First week in Spokane Washington

11/14/11
Well thats not nice, my P-days are still monday it was just a weird week last week, so I'll expect nice long letters next week.
Still dont have an adress for you i do know that i will still be in the Spokane area in a ward called Beakon Hill, if you can find that, but it is so amazing up here, there is less difference between here and peru than you might think, sure the problems people face are a lot different and the culture is way different but the message is the same and the teaching is the same and the way it affects peoples lives is the same. i think the main difference is that here everyone is using a private car and arent forced to talk with anyone which makes it a lot harder to contact people as you walk down the street. dont get me wrong we had a ton of people tell us they are nto interested in peru but it was the fact that we could cast a lot wider of a net in a lot shorter of a time that i think is the real reason that peru or any south american country has more "success" but i love it here i was in the 2nd ward here with the zone leaders for the last week and until tomarrow, when i will get my companion Elder Rollins, dont know anything about him or the area, only that it was the highest baptizing area about 2 years ago. But I am really loving WA we have a lot of good investigators here and i have met a lot of good people.

somthing new here in spokane that didnt exist in peru is a church tour or teaching chapels whichever you want to call it, but it is somthing so amazing and a huge tool that we can use to bring in the spirit and help people learn about what we are all about. it is somthing that i am just learning about and the effectiveness is huge and it is somthing that i wish that we had known about in peru because we would have been baptizing by the thousands :) but you start in the foyer and look at the diferent pieces of art on the wall and explain about how we are a christ centered church and how we are meeting together to remember and learn of him and try and do better, we learn of his gospel, and then we invited them to pay attention to the spirit as they walk through the church with us. then we take them into the chapel and explain what our meetings are likem and how it it a lay ministry, or that the bishop and other leaders do not get paid. and then we walk them up to the sacrament table and explain the sacrament and what it means, and what it does and bear testimony, then we take them to the relief society room, or wherever there is a font or a picture of baptism in the church, and teach about baptism and what it means and the restauration of authority and then invite them to learn more and from what we have seen only like 1 in fifty will say no thankyou, which is huge when you think about it and it only takes like 15-20 min which is great and it is a great thing to teach and to resolve a lot of first impression doubts that people have, to invite the spirit and bring people closer to christ.

i know that god lives and loves me, that i am one of his sons, i know that jesus christ is my savior and he died so that i could repent and live again, i know that jospeh smith is the profet of the restauration of the gospel of jesus christ, and that this is god's chruch. i love you guys so very much, i hope you guys write me soon and i would like to know what is going on down in warm mesa, we had snow fall here this week and that was a shocking change from a peru spring/summer and well i was super cold, but dad you were right this has got some of the prettiest scenerey in the whole world and a lot of cool old buildings. this mornign we went and played frisbee golf and had a blast out in the forest doing that, i think i picked up a new hobby. but this week has been good, havent suffered too much because of the colsd because we are not on bikes as zone leaders but ive heard that this next area will be a bike mission. heres a tip though they can forward packages to me from teh mission home if it is priority mail, im guessing thats the normal usps in the white box, but nothing else ups nada, so if you want to send me somthing that is still the safest address.

so im at a loss of what to say now......i didnt have any questions....... soooo........ wbs love!