Another Good Week in Moses Lake 7/30/2012

Hi Everyone,     

We had another good week here in Moses Lake.   The temperatures have been fairly mild last week, with one exception of one day in the high 90's.  But I guess I shouldn't complain about that because I hear that Utah and other various places are getting scorched.  The big news for this week is that we had 6 investigators come to church last week.  This is a big deal because we have struggled getting investigators to commit to coming to church, and then following through with their commitment.  Amy and her kids came to church again, which was good.  She has been making a lot of good progress in the last week.  We can tell that she has been more optimistic and happy.  The bad news about that, however, is that her boyfriend came back and wants to get back together with her.  He is not really nice to that family at all, so I really hope it doesn't turn out, and you can keep them in your prayers So we are really hoping that she will not take him back.  

Our golden first contact, Bruce, didn't turn out.  He had to cancel our appointment last week because he was going to Idaho.  I would not be surprised if he had some anti preached to him during that trip.  He said he was interested in researching the Book of Mormon, but didn't want to come to church and he doesn't want us coming over right now.  Maybe some good will come of that in the future.  

Forest came to church again and he is so close to baptism.  He read the whole first book of Nephi in a day, and was talking about principles that he learned from it during Sunday school.  The other people who came to church was a family we began teaching last week.  Hernan and Amada are the parents names and they have two children.  They are from the Dominican Republic  They are friends of some members of the ward and came to our wards Pioneer Day celebration.  We took them on a church tour and they really enjoyed it, as well as church.  They were pretty adamant about not joining any church, but we will continue to teach them because they have a lot of questions about the church.  

We also have had more service opportunities this last week, which was good for us.  We did some weeding for a family we street contacted and they were very grateful, and hopefully we will be able to take them on a church tour.  That's about it for me this week.  Have a great week everyone.  Love you all.

Elder Stacey

Great Things 7/23/2012

     This last week was a much better week than the week before was.  First of all, I did get that package of cookies last week and they are quite good.  Thanks mom.  But we had some great things happen last week.  When I first came here, we were teaching an 8 year old girl whos parents are divorced.  The dad is a less than stellar example of a member of the church apparently, and she lives with her nonmember mom and her boyfriend.  Like I said, we were teaching the girl to begin with, and she wants to be baptized, but we started shifting focus over to the mom (Amy) the last couple of weeks.  Because of her upbringing, and her relationships, she is without self confidence or self-worth, which is really sad.  Some great things happened last week in that her boyfriend is now out of the picture, and she is in a real humble spot in her life.  We had a lesson last week in which we focused on the fact that she is a child of god and that she has eternal potential and worth.  It went positively because she wanted to go to church, which she did yesterday.  Her member fellowshipper/friend was talking to her at the end of church and told her that if she was happy the way things were going right now in her life, that she can continue the way she is.  But if she wasn't happy, then to seriously consider baptism for herself.  After that was said she started tearing up and she said she was not happy right now.  She is in a real teachable spot right now in her life and I hope we can continue to help her.  We are having another lesson with her tonight in which we are going to watch, "You Matter To Him" by President Uchtdorf, which I would recommend everybody to read.  We also picked up a new investigator last week.  his name is Bruce and he was the most golden first contact I have ever had in my life.  He was a referral from a member of the ward and she had just met him outside his house while she was on her way to visit a friend.  She started talking to him and found out his wife passed away 6 months earlier.  He mentioned how he was sad that he would never see her again, to which she responded, well maybe you will.  That had sparked some interest in him and he was interested in meeting us.  When we met with him, he started talking about how he doesn't smoke or drink, and he gave up coffee and all these other things and how he is serious about getting into the church.  He asked us if it was okay to have a Book of Mormon and study it for himself.  He also told us that he was planning on coming to church whether or not we had met with him this week.  We have really high hopes for him.  It has been nice to be able to start building up a teaching pool again.  Things are starting to pick up for us, which is good.  Hope everybody has a great week and a good pioneer day.  Love you all.

Moses Lake is Hot 7/16/2012

     Well there has not been a whole lot of new things to come up this week.  It's been kind of a frustrating week actually for us.  First of all, we had a really hot and humid week, one day in particular when we were riding our bikes and after about 10 min of riding, we were drenched in sweat.  Whats really frustrating though is that we have found SOOO many people who have great potential it seems like, and after we meet with them once, they disappear from Moses Lake forever.  

    We had a really busy week, but hardly any lessons with our investigators.  So as far as anything new happening, we didn't really have a lot.  Right now our closest investigator working towards baptism is Forest.  He did not come to church yesterday because he had run out of a medication that he needed.  That was a bummer, but he will most likely be there next week.  We have been teaching him a lot about the spirit world and how he will be able to see his wife again.  I really believe he wants to be baptized, we just need to help him overcome his fears of the unknown, and to put his trust in the Lord.  

    Our only other real investigators right now are the Shirks.  The Shirk family, (the family whose daughter went to girls camp, and we then took the family on a church tour) is now on vacation for 4 more weeks, so we won't be able to see them for quite some time either, but we hope they're doing well.  Despite the slowness of last week, we are determined to work hard and find those who are ready and willing to listen to our message.  

    I'm glad to hear people are doing good.  That was really sad to hear about Buddy, although I guess not completely unexpected, I was kind of bracing myself for it for the last few months.  I'm also baffled that Jenn will be home this time next week.  I guess thats about it for me this week.  Love you all.

Elder Stacey

Busy With the Work July 9, 2012

Hello Everyone,

Well, I'm really short on time today, so I will just talk about a couple of things that happened this week.  First I met with President and Sister Mullen, and I already love them so much.  They are wonderful people who have great testimonies, and they are going to do great things for this mission.  Secondly, we had an investigator come to his first sacrament meeting with his grandson.  It has been such a challenge to get him to come to church in the past, not because he didn't want to, but because something always seemed to come up.  So this week it worked out perfectly.  His name is Forest and he was actually a referral from the sister missionaries in our district.  He has told us numerous times that he knows the church is true and he knows he needs to be baptized, but he just needs to find a way to make it work with a promise he made to his wife before she passed away.  (a long story involving a promise to always watch over his grandsons.)  This was a big step for him to be able to come to church though.  He definitely felt the spirit there and said he had a good experience.  He got a little emotional about his wife at the end of sacrament meeting so he went home after that.  

Also last week while we were on exchanges with our zone leaders,  we got into the topic of what dads calling was.  As it turns out, this missionary was in your district dad.  His name is Elder Jergensen and he would have been in your district in September of 2010.  He actually remembers you and mom pretty well and said that you had helped him out a lot while he was in the MTC.  I also found out that one of our AP's was in your district at the same time as well, Elder Manuirirangi(spelling is most likely wrong).  Anyway it was really cool to hear other missionaries experiences with you in your calling, and I thought you might like to know that.  This week is looking to be quite a busy week with meetings, and hopefully some church tours that look promising.  Sorry for the shortish email, but I hope you all have a great week.  

Elder Stacey

Teaching July 2, 2012

 There have been a few highlights from this last week.  First and foremost, the news about Matt and Felicia is way exciting.  I really am so happy to hear about that.  Something really exciting that I found out last week was that I received a text from the missionaries in Libby informing me that Linda has been cleared for baptism and her scheduled date is July 15th.  


Also this last week we found a family of five that we have begun teaching.  Or, rather, a member family invited them and we started teaching them.  This family (the Shirks) is an awesome family.  They do not have a whole lot of recent experience with religion, so we started talking about Christ with them.  Later in the week we gave them a church tour and it went really well.  The father especially was so interested in the message of the Restoration.  The thought that we had a living prophet on the earth today and the priesthood authority restored seemed to have a tremendous impact on him especially.  The only problem now with that family, is that they are going down to California for six weeks to visit some relatives.  The father will be staying for three weeks here by himself and we hope to be able to teach him a little while he's still here.  


We also met with a man who was a referral from our zone leaders.  We didn't have any investigators come to church on Sunday for the second week in a row, so this week we are focusing quite a bit on helping our investigators see the importance of church.  We had been teaching a less active a couple of times who has been in and out of prison for most of his life.  When we met him he was telling us how he was trying to fix his life and get his life in order because he wasn't making any progress the direction he was going(I guess it can sometimes take people 6 prison trips longer than others to figure that out).  Anyway he told us he was going to be at church last week, and called us the Saturday before letting us know that his friends invited him to a Nickelback concert in Spokane  (well, he said it was to go sightseeing, but we are pretty sure he went to the Nickelback concert) so he was going to do that instead.  We have not seen or heard from him since and we are afraid that he probably got mixed up with something he shouldn't have in Spokane and might now be back in jail.  We really hope thats not the case however.  But it did cause me to think back on stake conference my first week here, when one of the general authorities asked us "Why?"  "Why teach your family about Christ raise them in the gospel?"  Well, thats why. 


 I've realized that the happiest people in the world are the ones that understand gospel principles and live them.  Living these principles prevents a multitude of things that will eventually cause people a lot of grief and sorrow. So why raise your children in the gospel?  Because it is the only thing that will bring true and lasting happiness.  That has been something running throught my mind pretty much since I have arrived in the mission and seen the drastic, black and white difference the gospel makes in a personal, and family setting.  We are going to have a really busy week again this week.  We are still trying to contact many referrals that we've been given, so more on those next week if anything pans out.  Hope you all have a great week.  Love you all.