69 - The Progress of the People Here

I have two weeks of stuff to tell you about since last week I just told you about Elias's baptism!

Great stuff has happened. We had a zone training meeting in Minot on Friday and we did exchanges as well right after the meeting, and we exchanged back right before the baptism, so that was kinda crazy!

Perhaps my favorite part of zone training meeting was the last training, the one that the zone leaders gave. They taught all about finding, specifically tracting, and the spirit was one of the strongest I've felt at a zone training meeting in awhile. AND THEN the closing song. Sister Clegg is so inspired for choosing it.

"Go forth with faith to tell the world

Of Jesus Christ, the Lord.

Bear witness he is God's own Son;

Proclaim his wondrous word.

Go forth with hope and courage strong

To spread the word abroad

That people of all nations

Are children of our God.

"Go forth with love to tell the world

The joy of families—

That we may be with those we love

Thru all eternity.

Go forth to serve and do your best

With no thought of reward;

Then you shall know the boundless joy

Of serving Christ, the Lord.

"Go forth with pow'r to tell the world

The gospel is restored,

That all may gain eternal life

Thru Jesus Christ, the Lord.

Go forth to preach his glorious truths

Of peace, of joy, and love,

That all who heed his holy word

May praise the Lord above."

-Hymn 263: Go Forth With Faith

This song is all about tracting! And after we had just had that training, I couldn't handle it. The waterworks started and I could only sing half the song darn it! But it's ok, the spirit is worth it. haha.

Sister Training Leader Clegg got to come to Williston with me! 

Again! 

Only this time, we were able to visit two of her favorite people during our lunch and dinner hours. 


So that was super awesome for her.

On the way to visiting one of the members though, we realized her entire street was torn up! 
What?! 
MAJOR construction. 
And it's been torn up for like, a month now. Come on construction people! 
So that was an adventure walking down that street.

Favorite moment ever though. Sister Clegg got to meet Elias before he was baptized! We had already taught him all the lessons, so we opened it up to any questions he had. It's always really funny to me that people never usually ask about doctrine when they are given the opportunity to ask any question. Instead they always ask about our missionary life! haha. So we explained the process of us getting called here and why we wanted to serve missions. lol

But then! This is the actual favorite moment. We walked out to the car and Elias showed us out like the gentleman he is. And little pre-explanation. We as missionaries, whenever we need to back up the car, need to have someone back us, to direct the traffic, even when there is absolutely no traffic or obstacles. Just one of those missionary rules. Well. Sister Clegg went to go back me and Elias told her to get in the car. And he went out into the parking lot and totally backed us!!! It made our lives!!!

Speaking of Elias, he's doing good still. Sister Lewis made him an awesome collage to give him so he can always remember his baptism!

He was so appreciative. He absolutely loved it. But he's so funny. 

He looked at the top left picture and said: "I look like a refugee boy! My hair, too long!" What?! hahaha

And I promise, he totally does smile! 

He's so serious in all his pictures.

He really liked the review lesson we did on the restoration. 

The restoration cups are such a good visual! 

I love it when people take pictures of our visuals.

Korwa holding Baby Enoch

Updates on Korwa. She's been coming to church, yay! Her husband is still out of town working. Working working, always working.

While we were on exchanges, we tried to see Korwa, because Sister Clegg brought up that it would be great to invite her to the baptism! 

SISTER CLEGG! YOU ARE A GENIUS!! 

That's exactly what she needs to help her understand what baptism really is! So we stopped by and she just was getting in the shower, so we stopped by later, no luck, and third time's a charm and she let us in, we read a scripture and told her we would get her a ride to the baptism, and it WORKED OUT AND SHE CAME!!! AAAHHHH! So awesome! And we got her a ride and she was there in church for Elias's CONFIRMATION too!!! YES! So that was super super awesome.

TXT from Korwa...missing S. Barrett

That same Sunday we learned about the Word of Wisdom in Sunday school, and she loves to follow along with whatever we are reading on her ipad. So she basically was taught the Word of Wisdom. So we went over and officially taught her the Word of Wisdom instead of our usual scripture reading, and she doesn't have a problem with it at all! Not even with tea! So awesome!

And members can be the best ever! A member who has wanted to develop a better friendship with Korwa texted us out of the blue wanting to do an FHE and invite Korwa! HOW AWESOME IS THAT! We told her about it and it wasn't for sure going to work, it depended on how fast her cousin got her home, but IT WORKED OUT!!! They picked her up, and we met there too for an awesome dinner where we has rice and alligator meat in the rice (not expecting that! It was good.) and a family night that they gave after that was very enlightening and sooooo good for Korwa. And Korwa got to hold their little baby. She is so baby hungry, but her husband is never home, so she doesn't want to have kids without him being there more regularly.

So she's doing great!

This is our Russian investigator, the one sitting, and his fellowshipper, the one standing. Vaasa and Bob, respectively. 

Bob referred us to him. It was super cool because he just called him up and he was home and we propped the door open (to obey the missionary rules) and taught him the restoration. And he really is awesome. He's a funny and very independent old man with a heavy Russian accent that refuses to speak Russian. He's set on English and always wanting to improve his English.

We had a couple really cool lessons with him. When we taught him the plan of salvation, we had a member with us and Vaasa likes to talk. 'You don't understand.' 'Believe me.' He likes to talk. But 'it is ok.' (He said those phrases a lot.) But man, he was talking about some horrible stuff that happened to his daughters and how his x wives have just used him and just super sad and he started tearing up so we started tearing up, ah! And he was then saying how he's not perfect so he deserves this misfortune! No Vaasa no! We got to testify of God's love for him and how through the atonement all that is unfair about life can be made right.

Bob is a Character!

And then, crazy lesson. We actually brought Bob with us to teach Elias, but Elias forgot about the fact that we were seeing him earlier in the day as opposed to the usual 7 or 8, so he wasn't there! But Bob said that a former investigator that we haven't taught in months because we haven't been able to track her down with all her moving etc was at his place and we were like WHAT!? We are going over there! And he totally called Vaasa up too, and we had a crazy lesson on the Book of Mormon, crazy because it was a very Russian man, and very African lady, and a very white guy all in the same room! It was super cool. We've been working with Vaasa on having him say the closing prayer at every lesson because he's very self conscious about it still and doesn't think his is a good prayer, but he is awesome, so awesome that Bob was totally crying. The spirit during that was awesome.

And then, crazy beans. There was this guy who called up randomly. He's from California, he called the bishop and he's less active so the bishop told him to call us, and he was living just in his truck, just the clothes on his back pretty much, and hadn't showered for days, but has a plan of action work wise. And the spirit didn't tell us he was a bad guy, so we referred him to the one member who is a single male who we ate that awesome steak dinner with to ask him for a shower. And as we suspected, he took him in, because he has a plan that is being executed to get his own place. Just crazy. We'll call this guy from California Grizzly, because he kinda has a grizzly bear look going on. But man, the spirit just guided this whole journey of his. He's had a rough rough life. And he's glad to be finally giving his heart to the right kind of people.

Saturday it was really stormy. Rain, wind, cold. We tried to go out and work. Didn't last long. We've actually spent a lot of time inside, Sister Lewis and I, because Sister Lewis's body has been very broken ever since she was young. She thought when she was little that it was normal for people to see the doctor every week. So we stay inside sometimes, but when we do go out, we do good awesome things. Woo!

So yeah, it's been a great two weeks! Till next Monday!

P.S. Sister Lewis and I have been nicknamed Black Hammer and White Lightning. Pretty awesome.

Interesting fish tank at one of the members.  What, BLACK Clown Fish?  Yep! And they are expensive!