Biking In The Rain 10/29/2012

Hi Family,

We had a great week here in Moses Lake.  It has been really rainy and cold and apparently, in parts of the mission, even snowing a few inches.  It has just been raining here and we have been doing a ton of biking in the rain.  Interestingly enough, I would rather be biking in the rain and get wet than bike in the heat and have 100 bugs stuck on your suit coat every time you stop, which has recently been the alternative.  

We have been pretty steady these last couple weeks of picking up new investigators, but we have had somewhat of an issue of retaining them as investigators.  We have these really great and spiritual lessons with them and set up a time to come back and teach them again, and then the appointment falls through and it's difficult to meet up with them.  We were able to finally meet with one such family this week, which was great.  Their names are Janette and Jose, and we were fearing that they were just avoiding us, but we stopped by last week and had a lesson with them and they are still really interested, but super busy right now so it has just been a hit and miss with them.  It was a blessing that we went over there when we did however because when we went there, they weren't home.  Janettes mother was outside waiting for them to get home so we started talking to her.  

She lives in Soap Lake and a couple years ago had been taught by sister missionaries.  When they got transferred, the new ones didn't keep in contact with her so she fell off the radar.  Her family has been going through some difficult times right now and we were able to testify of the gospel and its ability to strengthen families.  It was so awesome and she told us that she wanted to have missionaries come by and teach her.  I really hope things go well with her.  

Another instance of this trend is a lady named Patricia.  She is renting from a member and has asked questions about the church, and the member invited her on a church tour, so we took her on one.  It was a great church tour and she loved it, and we set up a return appointment for last week, but she ended up canceling on us as well.  She told us she really liked what we taught and wants to keep learning, but now is not a great time for her.  

We don't really know what to do to help Hernan and Amada progress right now.  They have had some problems keeping the commitment of going to church and reading the scriptures, and we have had numerous lessons with them about those very things.  They keep promising us that they are going to come to church and read, but something always inevitably seems to come up and they decide not to go.  We did have a lesson with them last week regarding baptism and the Holy Ghost, talking about the two parts;  Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  We then talked about how we take the sacrament to renew those promises and that is why we go to church.  I think that lesson hit her hard because after that she asked "so what does that mean for someone in my situation who hasn't been baptized."  We explained to her that that is the reason why we are baptized and why we are here.  To teach her and invite her so she can have those blessings.  She really felt the spirit that lesson, but still didn't show up for church, so we are running out of ideas for them.  

Other than that we had a great week of walking and finding people.  There is a lot of work to be done and the members have started giving us more referrals and people to see, which has been a blessing to us.  Love you all and hope you have an awesome week.

Elder Stacey