74 - Signs of the Good Times

Sister Lewis's hair change!!!

Two weeks in one! Let's jump right into it.

From full poof, to halfway straightened, to straight, to cut, to the request of having it halfway braided by Tanya Azonto. 

She can now feel the breeze on her scalp for the first time in a long while!

While she was getting her hair done, I basically the whole time bottle feed the baby that Tanya was watching while he sat in his car seat.

 And she was watching the cutest little not-even-two-year-old girl! She loved to dance to the music on the T.V.!

Tanya was watching a lot of kids. As per usual. She hasn't been coming to church lately... I hope she gains a testimony soon and stops listening everyone else who isn't a member of the church.

And Bruce, he doesn't have a job anymore. His job pouring concrete has ended, as it's only a seasonal job, and he's right back to his unreasonable expectations of the church giving him a job. Oh no, he's not going to revert back to this without me setting him boldly straight. But he still doesn't understand, no matter how clear and bold you are. So there's that. All we can really do is pray that things will work out.

So, updates on the people that we have already been working with.

We saw Charity and Orlando last week a couple times. They are really in a position where we are relying lots on the Holy Ghost to let us know what to teach them. Every time we've brought something up about the need to stop smoking they agree that it's something they want and they talk about quitting, but it never actually happens. 

As I was thinking, I realized we hadn't talked about family in awhile, and that's something they really gravitate towards. So we read The Family Proclamation together. It was a good lesson, but something still seemed a little off with them, especially at the end, a little bit of unintentional contention between them dampened the spirit. We committed them to if they haven't already, start reading from the Book of Mormon.

We thought about the next lesson we would share. Sister Lewis came up having a lesson on the ten virgins. She even had a clay little lamp with a string wick that we could use as a visual. 

When we got to the lesson, Orlando and Charity were just coming home from spending the evening together by the Missouri river, their feet all muddy, especially Charity's and with collected driftwood in the back of their jeep. Good night of just fun we figured.

We ride up the elevator together and we start the lesson, and they expressed to us that the reason they were actually down at the river was for the intent of reading their scriptures! They wanted to made it an event, combining it with one of their favorite things - nature - so that it wouldn't feel like a chore or assignment as scripture reading often can. And Charity remembered that I loved the book of Alma, which was flattering, so she opened up to Alma and found Chapter Five, one of the greatest chapters ever, and thought it was beautiful!

She also had a profound experience. Her head was really hurting on the way down to the river. A debilitating migraine was coming on. She asked Orlando to pray over her, that she had faith that he could stop the pain. He put his hands on the sides of her head and began to pray and her pain in her head subsided. She truly had an experience of the healing power of the priesthood, we pointed out to them. (Orlando is a member and is ordained a Priest. He just hasn't been active in church in his young adult years.)

Our lesson on the ten virgins went well. There wasn't contention this time. And Sister Lewis even felt inspired to give them the lamp that she had as a reminder to continue to fill their lamps with oil. I was so touched and proud of them for making it a point the read their scriptures that as I expressed my pride in them, Charity said, "aw, you have tears in your eyes." And indeed I did.

When I hugged Charity at the end of the lesson, the tears flowed, "I'm just so proud of you!"

"Aw, you're going to make me cry!"

It was a great moment. They promised they would be at church. But. They weren't. Charity wants to progress. But Orlando... we feel he's afraid. He knows that he needs to step up to the plate and get his act together and he's just afraid to do it. That's why it's so up and down with them. One day, he'll come to his full senses and humble himself and start being fully active again.

Vaasa! Our Russian investigator. There is a member who I will call Brother Brown. The browns are the members who live in Lukenbill who had all the Africans over for dinner and are ward missionaries (Brother Brown is the assistant ward mission leader) and Brother Brown is African and Sister Brown is White, so their kids are brown! Hence the name I give them.

Anyway, Brother Brown can speak Russian! So cool! So he has been a great fellowshipper. And we finally recived the Russian Book of Mormon from the mission office, so we gave that to Vaasa and he has read the first twenty chapters! We had a lesson with Vaasa that we asked him all the baptismal questions. He was doin good, though showed a little hesitation when we explained about no tea and coffee, but when we asked the last question, 'are you ready to make the commitment to be baptized, his concerns gushed out of him, that he felt like it was all about baptism and that we have so many rules and he doesn't understand why this is the only true church. Sister Lewis opened her mouth and everything that she said was full of the Holy Ghost. It was full of comfort and love and neither of us knew how she did it, but the room was just filled with love as opposed to the concern that filled it before. Sister Lewis doesn't cry often, and she was moved to tears as we drove home. It was really something.

I haven't talked about this investigator yet, but we have worked with her before. 

I will call her Kristen, because she has a lot of crosses in her house. 

She collects them. 

She is the mother of a recent convert of a little over a year who is super active and awesome and comes out with us all the time. 

And has a guinea pig.

We just haven't really known how to help Kristen, so we've been doing service for her, cleaning her house... and playing with the cute kittens. It's been good for her.

We saw Michelle again in Grenora, and her two step sons! Love those kids. Taught them the plan of salvation and they loved it.

We went and saw Korwa, who is now back from her week and a half trip to Utah with her husband, and we hadn't had dinner yet when we saw her and neither had she, so we all cooked dinner together!

And I got pictures of all her gorgeous Cambodian pictures on the wall which I've been wanting the excuse to capture for a long time!

Speaking of meals...

I forgot to mention last week that we ate with Brother Jolly again!

Doesn't that steak and red snapper on top of dirty rice look like it belongs in a cook book?

Grizzly shaved lol so he's not as grizzlyish anymore, but that's ok. He has been helping out Elias a lot with finding a job! But Grizzly is also super paranoid about whether Elias is legal or not. So silly. And it more seems like Elias is his 'project.' But, yeah. And Grizzly's fed us a lot lately, gluten free hamburgers and pizza! But he's also gotten super defensive since we had the Law of Chasity lesson. He is justifying porn as 'self medication' because of his past. Which is not cool. And just yeah. He's justifying a lot. But now he's off in Dickinson going to trucking school. Hope he does well.

Elias has been frustrating too. Awesome, but frustrating. We couldn't get a hold of him for the longest time! And then, miracles happened and we were able to see bishop for a brief second and know what time he is free and then we finally saw Elias and he was free too and we were like, "Ok! You are having your worthiness interview for the priesthood in an hour!" And on Sunday he received the priesthood from Brother Witt! Yay! He's been awesome coming to lessons with us. But he's also been really unreasonably needy with rides and blah blah blah and that's been frustrating.

New investigator time!

We have five new investigators as of this past two weeks! Wow! That's the most we've found ever since Sister Lewis and I became companions! Heavenly Father is really blessing us. Four of them are African, Three are specifically from Liberia. 

The one who's not from Liberia I will call Zazu.

One of the Liberians is super prepared because he was going to the church and meeting with the missionaries in Australia, but didn't have the chance to get baptized before he came here, so we will surely see him baptized before we leave the mission field! He has crazy facial hair, so I will call him Jaffar. He actually lived in Phoenix, Arizona for two years before he moved here!

The other two Liberians are both named Precious and they both live on the same floor, and we met them both at the Azonto's, who also live on the same floor! 

And the other investigator is deaf! I will call her Memory, because she has distant memories of a babysitter singing her a melody about the ocean and her mom having a conversation with the neighbor outside as she cried before she went completely deaf at age 3 due to contracting meningitis. Memory is the mother of a less active who lives in Grenora, who we actually first met right before we went a few weeks ago the second time we went to Grenora. I will call this less active family the Far family. We met her briefly before our lesson with Michelle, but we had our lesson with Michelle in like, five minutes from us knocking on the door! I was so bummed, I wanted to talk with her more--she was deaf! I felt such a connection to her and was so sad she lived all the way in Grenora.

Well. Something SUPER COOL. There are two less active families who know the church is true and they both lived in Grenora so it was hard to make it to church. One family is Memory's daughter's family and the other family just moved here to Williston! I will call them the Far family and the Near family respectively. Both of the families have kids that are baptism age or almost to age eight and they both wanted to have their kids take the lessons, and the Far family is willing to drive down on the weekends to receive the lessons! And being as I know sign language, they bring Memory down too! Sister Lewis teaches the many kids while I interpret for Memory! We had our first lesson and dinner last Saturday and we are going to teach all the lessons over the span of all the Saturdays till the end of the transfer! It's an amazing experience! 

And we've talked to people in the ward, and we can have the resources available (people who know a little and have degrees in deaf communications and people who have a desire to learn from scratch) an interpreter or two trained to translate church for her for when I'm gone! Heavenly Father loves all of His children so much!

And last thing to talk about because it's all I have time for. This Sunday was AWESOME! We gave our final testimonies in sacrament meeting, seeing as for both of us it's our last fast Sunday as missionaries. Zazu also bore his testimony (first time at church)! 

And a less active family came, a family who we've taught a couple times and they've fed us once and Sister Nelson, I'll call her, would tell us outright that they had no excuse for not coming to church. We call them to repentance to no avail. They never came to church though they said all the time they would. We knew it had to be from the members that they would start coming to church again. We sent her visiting teacher on a mission. It worked.

The Nelson kids for some reason just adore us, the sisters, or well, me since I'm the only one they know. I'm excited to see two of the young boys were getting up (I think because they saw us get up partly). One of them just talked about pumpkins and how they had fun and the pumpkin patch and how he is thankful that God let him have fun. And then! Sister Nelson got up and bore her testimony, saying that it was her second time ever bearing her testimony in church and that Heavenly Father has placed all the members of the ward in her life this past week and it was an undeniable sign to her and they will make an increased effort to be much better at coming to church! YAY! It was amazing!

And when Zazu was in gospel principles sitting next to us, he made a comment, "It feels like there is a bubbling volcano inside of me. I leaned over and explained, "that burning feeling is the spirit. Hymn number two. The spirit of God like a fire is burning." "Yes. Thank you God." He was amazed at church. He has been to many churches, but never has felt the spirit like this.

As for how I am personally, I'm definitely mentally preparing to go home for better or worse. I'm trying to still stay consecrated, but I do find myself singing per say, the opening line to Lion king when I see the sun looking cool when I resisted the urge before. It's just little things like that. So I know it's not 'good' but I don't think it's bad, idk. That's where I'm at. I'm glad that we are companions for our last transfer of our missions to support each other. 

So that's all for this entry! Until next week!

73 - Busy Week, Letter to the President

Sorry. We miscalculated today and we got Sister Lewis's hair done first and now the emailing place closes in a few minutes. :( :( :( I'm super bummed. Like, really. This week was awesome. So... I don't have time to right about it. So this isn't a 'real' blog entry, it's just copy/paste of the email that I sent to president for this week:

We have four new investigators as of this week! Wow! That's the most we've found ever since Sister Lewis and I became companions! Heavenly Father is really blessing us. Three of them are African, one of them, Jaffar, is super prepared because he was going to the church and meeting with the missionaries in Liberia, but didn't have the chance to get baptized before he came here, so we will surely see him baptized before we leave the mission field! And the other investigator is deaf! She is the mother of a less active who lives in Grenora. There are two less active families who know the church is true and they both lived in Grenora so it was hard to make it to church. One of the families just moved here to Williston! And both of the families have kids that are baptism age or almost to age eight and they both wanted to have their kids take the lessons, and I know sign language, so they bring Sister Far's mom, Memory, down too, and we had our first lesson on Saturday and we are going to teach all the lessons over the span of all the Saturdays till the end of the transfer! Sister Lewis gives the lesson and I interpret--it's an amazing experience! And we've talked to people in the ward, and we can have the resources available (people who know a little and have degrees in deaf communications and people who have a desire to learn from scratch) an interpreter or two trained to translate church for her for when I'm gone! Heavenly Father loves all of His children so much!

And Elias received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday! Horray! So many great things.

Sister Lewis is doing well. She has random flashes of emotions that go through her super fast just being a little conflicted emotionally about wanting to go home verses not wanting to go home, but they don't last long at all, and she acknowledges her feelings without being immobilized by them, which is the best thing to do! Her stomach still doesn't agree with her most mornings, but she does her best and we still see miracles, because Heavenly Father doesn't require anyone to run faster than they have strength. :) She has desire to endure to the end! As do I.

72 - A Traveling Minister Drops In - Elder Renlund!

This week has been crazy with traveling! We only spent three days ONLY in Williston, though each day of the week we were in Williston for at least part of the 24 hours of that day. I think that's a record! Now to tell you about our travels.

Monday night we left for Minot to stay the night with the Minot Sisters because we were all driving to a tri-zone conference the next day. That night the northern lights were out! They were very faint against the city lights, but hey, now I can see I've seen them in person! So cool!

And it came to pass that the multitude [of missionaries] went forth, and thrust their hands into his... and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the [mission president], that should come.

--3 Nephi 11:15

Tuesday we drove to Bismarck in the morning for our zone conference with Elder Renlund, one of the presidency of the seventy. For those of you who don't know how awesome this title is, let me put it in perspective. There's the prophet, just one on the earth, Gods mouthpiece to give us direction. The prophet has twelve apostles. And just under the twelve apostles are the seventy, and being as Elder Renlund is in the presidency of the seventy, that means he's one of the three next in line to the apostles.

An honor to shake Elder Renlund's hand,
A blessing to have a personal interview with him.

We all shook his hands individually, and it is said that it was then that he decided which three missionaries he would interview personally, as is customary at these annual missionary meetings.

I say unto you, can ye look up to [a member of the seventy] at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?

--Alma 5:19

As we were dismissed for lunch from the first half of the meeting, in the blink of an eye Elder Renlund was behind us, and he handed Sister Lewis and I a sheet of paper with a few questions printed on it entitled: Missionary Bio. ...were we...?..... We were! We were being interviewed by Elder Renlund! There is a 0.01% chance that someone is interviewed by one of the presidency of the seventy in their life time! And I NEVER thought I would be that person!

I'm really glad that Sister Lewis got to be interviewed though. She needed it more than I did. It brought her so much peace. For me it was really just super cool and such an honor. And I'm really glad she went first, because when he asked her if she had any questions for him, I realized that this was my shot, and that I better think of an awesome question in order to maximize this opportunity to talk with someone so close to God face to face! (The interviews were just in the chapel, and he interviewed people sitting up in the stand, while we waited on the front seats of the chapel, so we could hear if we paid attention.)

When it was my turn to be interviewed, he made the comment: "You have a beautiful countenance." I was touched. Nothing about the interview was earth shattering. It was just simple. And then came to question that I knew he would ask.

"Are there any questions you would like to ask me?

"First off, did you serve a mission?"

"Yes."

"Ok. So, when you went home, what were some goals that helped y-"

"The temple."

"Ok, the temple, yes."

"I was a mess when I got home. I was bad. I didn't date till nine months after. And still I was bad at it. But what helped me was going to the temple. I went once a week. And working helped too. But to answer your question a little better what I think I would have done more was use the sacrament. And prepare. Start thinking about it on Saturday, and sincere prayer on Sunday morning. You're so concerned so much on Sunday at church about others, investigators, who's there. And that's great, but when that sacrament hymn starts, it's time to focus. It's about you, your time. And after that, then you can go back to worrying about others. The sacrament is weekly-- this is how Christ set it up, so we can be spiritually fed. People are focused so much on how life is unfair to them and that the world is so messed up and why doesn't God fix it. But as we come closer to the Lord, we realize that life was most unfair to Him and everything else seems to not really matter."

What a privilege it was to have this interview and this answer.

Previous/current companions who were at the trizone meeting!

Also, seeing as many of my precious companions were in attendance of this meeting, I got a picture! And something that is super cool, a year ago at this point, Sister Gray and I were companions, and in Bismarck! Crazy.

And then the drive back. Four hours back, stopping in Minot to get our sleeping stuff back from the Sister's apartment, and listening to talks that Sister Lewis has by John Bytheway all the way home. 350 miles all in one day, and I drove all of it! I was pooped!

Our next adventure, Grenora on Thursday!

We went up with our relief society president again and WOW! So much success! Before going out there we had a lesson with someone who JUST moved down to Williston who used to live in Grenora, and they are awesome! And their daughter is almost of age to be baptized and she wants us to teach her the lessons AND later, wow, they called up their friend less actives who live in Grenora still and they are going to COME DOWN to Williston when we teach this family to get in on the lessons too, since they have a kid almost baptism age too!!! WHAT!? So cool!

We also saw a brother that works all the time and we just happened to catch him and make contact. He needed to go, but we talked for five minutes, and he's super nice, so that was awesome.

And then, trying this other family, the person we were looking for wasn't there BUT her DEAF mother was! And so I got to sign to her a little! 

We didn't get to stay and teach her though because we needed to teach Michelle and her family! 

The ones that we found miraculously on our first trip up to Grenora!

We taught the restoration to them. The kids are super excited, but that's ok. Man, I love this family! They just live so far away!

And the last adventure.

On Saturday there was the women's conference and the brand new Stanley building! 

No longer a branch, it's a ward! 

Yay growth! 

It was a great meeting, and the lunch was awesome. Such a great turn out! So glad we got to carpool so we could go.

But as for things that happened in Williston. There was a super fun Labor Day breakfast that Brother Manage organized and it was a great success, and we got a few contacts!

But the most awesome and inspired thing happened BEFORE the breakfast started.

...That which thou hast prayed to me... I have heard.

--2 Kings 19:20

We were sent with Brother Manage's card to go and get tons of milk, eggs, and syrup. So here we are, 6:45 in the morning and Walmart. We are just standing in the checkout line when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and....

"Sister!"

"GOLDIN!!!"

It was Goldin! She just got a job here! And I've been praying about her every night! I've been so concerned about how she's doing, if Sylver was still being a big jerk and was praying recently to know whether we should try her again!! AND THEN SHE APPEARS!!! Good thing! Because she moved! So we got her new address, she still lives in our area, and we set up a return appointment, and YES just, YES!!! I love Goldin so so much!

And there was a child of record baptism on Saturday, and Elias, and Grizzly, and Vaasa came! So so good for Vassa, and he pointed out that it was exactly the way Christ was baptized! He is seventy years old, so he is having a hard time accepting these new names from the Book of Mormon because he's just heard of only the bible names for so long. So it's a lot of re-explaining and re-promising, but it's ok. Once it clicks for him and the spirit penetrates his heart just right, he will be unwavering.

We also found a solid potential who will be an investigator come Tuesday. We found her in the Azonto's house- Tanya was braiding her hair. She is Liberian, and we invited her to church, and we had someone pick her up, and she was late for her ride, but she came! And she told the relief society president she'd be here next week!

Oh AND Bruce passed the sacrament for the first time this week! So different seeing him in a white shirt and tie after he was in such an African outfit last week. I was so so proud of Bruce.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted 

--Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Last awesome thing.

Fallah Got Baptized in Bismarck!

This baptism happened on August 29th, just under a month ago, in Bismarck. This is John, and when I found out he got baptized I was jumping up and down and I yelled and people thought I was goin' crazy.

You see, he was a BIG name when I was serving in Bismarck. Seriously, we tried SO hard to contact this guy, but he was out of town when I got there, and then he started not answering our phone calls ever thought we tried weekly, and he was living in an apartment when someone else was living who didn't want any contact, and it was a locked building at that, making it basically impossible, but we tried all we could while I was there! And suddenly, he's baptized! What!? I guess it just wasn't quite the time! But he's baptized now! Yay!

Yay! Till next week!

Sisters Staying Together until the "End"!

P.S.  Transfer calls just happened, and we didn't get one, which means Sister Lewis and I are staying and finishing our missions at the same time here! Like Mother like daughter! Sister Easter also finished her mission at the same time as her companion. Soooo we don't know what they are going to do with the area after we leave, weather it be to bring Elders in or new sisters, or if they will close it.... but the Lord knows what he's doing! We know that the prayer of the people here in our area have a lot to do with us staying together. We love them and they love us. It will be a great last transfer. I'm dying in Williston!!!

71 - Africans Unleash Their Testimony

So much has happened! So many incredible stories to tell!

His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins, (Proverbs 5:22).

There is a couple that we have been working with, the couple that we got introduced to after a dinner appointment that one time, and I finally have nicknames for them! Officially. Charity and Orlando. They are unfortunately addicted to smoking. They are chained down by nasty habit and it's harder to break than they realize I think. We've brought up the fifteen step stop smoking program before, but Charity was very turned off. But this week Sister Lewis gave a better explanation of it and she said she would be fine with going over the steps more.

We tried to do the fifteen step presentation for them two days later, but they felt cornered because we started doing this presentation and they were just expecting to go over the steps... so we went over the steps and they have supplies and we committed them to pray about a date to start the program. Problem is, we've committed them to pray about a date before and it hasn't happened... so there's that. They have desire, it's just getting them to realize the urgency is the trick.

Yea, [I] believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto [m[e]; and also, [I] know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in [me], or in [my heart], that [I] have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually
(Mosiah 5:2).

We had a super powerful lesson with Grizzly this week. We have received permission to, if we call our mission president before hand to let him know, go out with an adult male who holds the Melchizedek priesthood! Grizzly wants to receive the Melchizedek priesthood, so what way to teach and prepare him than to have those who hold it present! So we had the person who was housing him, who is the same guy who was tickled pink to feed us steak a while back, who I will call Brother Jolly, and our assistant ward mission leader, who I will call brother brown (because his kids are all brown because he's black and his wife is white), and our Elders quorum 2nd councilor there! It was crazy to be amongst so many men!

Left to right: Sister Lewis, Steven (Grizzly), Brother and Sister Northcott (Witt), and Sister Sanderson

Journal for Grizzly

Grizzly struggles with drinking coffee, but his heart has been changed, and he received a blessing right then and there and then he gave us his really expensive coffee thermos and his $45 card for buying coffee to dispose of! Wow! And finding another place to stay for him has needed to happen this week since Brother Jolly's daughter is going to be coming to stay with him, but that has been found! Heavenly Father has just been blessing grizzly so much!

Therefore, O my son, whosoever will come may come and partake of the waters of life freely; and whosoever will not come the same is not compelled to come; but in the last day it shall be restored unto him according to his deeds, (Alma 42:27).

Bruce and Tanya Azotoh (Kossi and Valerie, I just came up with nicknames for them) have been on our minds a lot. Especially Tanya. We just have difficulty knowing how to help her. There is a language barrier and she has crazy kids and she's not been coming to church, often times because she is watching the neighbor kids, probably in part using that as an excuse to stay behind while Bruce attends church. Also, because of the baptismal record probably getting lost in the mail when they were first sent in, we made a new one and sent it in this week and when we were having them sign it we confirmed names of parents and children they had. 

Kossi in his African outfit

Well the next day they had this huge concern that their family still in Africa was very upset because of the detailed records we required and that it was suspicious and dangerous (to put it politely). And the things that Tanya was saying made it clear that she didn't have a testimony the church was true... When we said a prayer to comfort them, Bruce felt the weight lifted off his shoulders. Tanya didn't change... We have been concerned about her for awhile and just not knowing how to help her, and Bruce doesn't know how to help her either.

It was fast Sunday this week, and the best he knew how to do was walk up in his shnasy African getup of awesome and bare his testimony, and though he is hard to understand, you could understand the last part as a cry of help for his wife.

"Please, talk to my wife. She no come. Please. You women. Talk to my wife. For Jesus Christ. Amen."

He's also getting much better at closing in the name of Christ! It's so cool to see.

Elias has had kind of a rough week as well, but he's still doing awesome in the gospel. We had a great lesson on helping him understand the duties of the Aaronic Priesthood on Monday. And on Wednesday he called the executive secretary to set up a time to be interviewed by the bishop to receive the priesthood! After sacrament meeting on Sunday! But then he had a little freak out.

"Am little bit confused: to see the Bishop and later take me to the priesthood, what is it like? Please educate me now, cause I don't even know what to says. Don't get mad at me, pals. We all learn every second." 

Aw, Elias, it's ok! We went over again and role played the interview and he felt lots better. We also explained about the Azotoh's concerns. We set up between them a time for them to meet and work out each other's concerns! Because Bruce received the priesthood in May and Elias understands better the way that people view the church over in Africa.

Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even as Nephi of old, who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness.

Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you.

Yea, open your mouths and they shall be filled, saying: Repent, repent, and prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand
(D&C 33:8-10).

We decided to make the Azotoh's little things kind of like we did for Elias, but framing their pick sheet (that usually the missionaries keep) of their baptismal record, so that they would understand more what they signed. We knocked on Elias's door (they live in the same apartment complex) but there was no answer... so we just went over to the Azotoh's.

Tanya was home and she appreciated the gift. We decided to try and knock on Elias's door again. He answered this time- he was sleeping! He didn't mean too, but yes, anyway, we went back over for him to meet Tanya and wait for Bruce. Well, Bruce was taking awhile, and we were about to leave after thirty minutes of waiting, but as soon as we stood up, Bruce walked in the door!

Oh, man. It was SUPER powerful! It felt like a member present lesson of craziness with testimonies flyin' everywhere! Kossi bore solid testimony of the necessity and power of the priesthood! Boy does he have a language barrier, but boy does he have knowledge and testimony of the general priesthood! We don't think he understands the difference between the lower and higher priesthood, but he knows if you don't have it in your life, you're 'no good!' 

And Elias! He! He is a BOLD missionary! He laid the word DOWN to Tanya, beginning his words by complimenting her and her family and starting his speech with Jesus Christ and his ministry and how they rejected him and how Satan is real and how Satan even tried to made him sleep not to come here today and how it doesn't matter what your friends say about the church, that she's seen only good things from the church, and so she needs to put her thinking cap on for herself and listen only to what God tells her! I WISH I could have recorded it! So bad! But I know that Angels definitely recorded that powerful testimony in Heaven!

He's still had a hard time though. He still doesn't have a job. And that's a problem because they are cracking down on who gets to live in the apartments. Saturday he sent us a frantic text in the morning.

"And some relatives are considering to ask some family members or friends to leave their apartment with fear of increment into their rentals. In so doing, I am kindly appealing to you both to speed up asking those few sister and brothers who has promised direct or indirect in assisting me to get a job for over night to please do it now."

And we don't know what happened on Sunday... He texted us saying to not have his ride pick him up for church because he wouldn't be back to the apartment in time. It sorta works out in a way though because turns out Bishop was in Texas that Sunday. We stopped by Elias's after church, called him, even had his roommates call him, but his phone must have been dead. We got a text later that night after 10:30.

"Hey my Sisters! Actually, we could not see each others today due to some personal reasons. In fact, if I could even disappoint my own opportunities by seen the priesthood, then one could assumed that I am seriously been faced with some problems at the moment. Moreover, I will continued to all ways say that I appreciate you concerned showing me all of the times and is rewarding in Jesus name. We will talk better tomorrow and good night."

We called him later, and he's doing better than the day before. I will keep you posted on him.

And I'm out of time, so I will tell you about the rest of the week next week!