Busy Week - Lots of Teaching

This week was probably one of the busiest weeks I have been a part of. We started off the week playing some good kickball, nothing too crazy. We had an all-day zone conference, which somehow I got signed up to conduct. It was amazing, as always, to hear the wise words of President Dymock. He also trained us on how Christ accomplished the Atonement by using multiple dimensions. Needless to say I was scooping my brains up off the floor after the meeting. We also had a stake coordination meeting with the stake presidency and President Dymock. On top of that, Elder Nickerson and I were asked to speak in Sacrament meeting. There was a lot to keep us busy this week!

Now for the part that I actually enjoy - we got to teach a lot of people this week. We had dinner with the Hassnawi family at a member of the Stake Presidency's house. We taught about prophets and the Bible. Things are going really well with them. They didn't get to church this week, but we are hoping for next week.

Larry B - he is the man! We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he immediately surrendered all of his alcohol, coffee, and tea. (Elder Nickerson is 21, don't worry.) So we disposed off all of it. He had his baptismal interview with a member of our mission presidency due to his questionable past and was cleared for baptism. Also another plus ...  Larry hasn't smoked anymore meth. We need to get this man the gift of the Holy Ghost stat!

The Poitra boys are still doing well. We had a member bring them to church; they slept through all of sacrament meeting but loved primary and young mens. 

Sweet story of the week: I was on exchanges with my old pal Elder MacDonald; he was a former assistant to the president and now is a district leader in our zone.  We had a goal to find 3 new investigators this week. It was Friday and we had 0. We had only one available hour in our schedule. So we prayed and prayed our guts out. We went to check up with a former investigator who we lost contact with. We caught her at the right time. She was a Jehovah's Witness for a long time. She said she really regrets raising her kids that way because they turned out weird, haha. Anyway, we taught her and she was pretty moved by the Joseph Smith story. She asked us to come back on Monday and said that she will read the Book of Mormon. We called her yesterday to confirm our appointment for tonight. As we talked, she was like, "Oh and by the way, I went to your church this morning with Sandra (one of the less-active members)."  She attended a neighboring ward on her own! I was pretty floored. Cool little miracle there. :)

We have 8 people on date for baptism and the ward is getting all excited. They also liked our Sacrament meeting talks yesterday. We got invited over for a bunch of dinners right after. It is nice to see some member excitement. The first month was rough with the members. Don't worry though, we'll get em.  

-E.Rapier

She actually seems quite interested

Elders Nickerson and Rapier with Larry

"I Ended up Smoking Meth"

What another good week from Spokane!

Elder Nickerson and I got some serious work put in. The week started with and all day leadership meeting. I know one thing, God speaks to people today. A huge standout from general conference was personal revelation. I know under each stewardship, there is revelation to be had. (I will get into stories in a minute). We received inspired training from President Dymock.

We also taught the Hassnawi family again!! They are doing so well. They came to church again on Sunday, that was interesting with all of the changes that took place. It was pretty confusing for them, but they got invited by one of our members to come over for dinner on Wednesday. They thought that priesthood keys were literal and physical, that roused quite the discussion during Elders Quorum. Especially when one of our members starting spouting some questionable doctrine about physical symbolism and the distribution of keys. 

Wednesday we taught Caren G again. We were super hopeful for her, then she got pneumonia and couldn't come to church... Bummer. But she is very humble and accepting of the teachings. She will continue to be on the radar. 

Oh boy - here is quite the story about Larry B. So he is supposed to get baptized in 3 weeks and we have been meeting with him 2 times a week and teaching him. We call him almost daily to read the Book of Mormon with him and review the lessons. He lives in probably one of the worst parts of Hilliard and does not have the best friends. He said he is a former drug addict, but he had been clean. 

Anyway, he has been coming to church and he likes it, but he is also a little (a lot) crazy. So we taught him about the word of wisdom this week. He dropped all of his habits immediately (that never happens, by the way) then we taught him about tithing, fasting, and fast offerings. Sunday he showed up with 3 bags of groceries as his fast offerings. One of them was just for him and he didn't have room in his freezer, so he wanted to stash it in the church, haha. 

So we are sitting next to each other in Sacrament meeting. Elder Nickerson is a few rows up with the Hassnawi family and their fellowshipping family. So it is me, Larry B, and this little primary girl investigator to my left. It is also fast Sunday and the testimonies being shared are super off topic, confusing, and not great. I am already stressed out because we have a bunch of investigators there and they are witnessing something between Baptist preaching and Pentecostal speaking in tongues. Also, the little girl investigator to my left is being loud and her parents aren't there, so I am having to be a 1-man entertainment system. 

Can you picture all of this? Then Larry B turns to me and says, "If I pass out, check my heart beat" and I was like, "What?" He tells me that he let this homeless friend stay at his place the night before and ... "long story short I ended up smoking meth with him."  I was like, "Dang it Larry, come on man."  Then he told me his friend had mixed some sort of arsenic or poison into the meth and that the Lord had appeared and told him he was going to die. He then starts motioning to the front of the chapel and said, "Oh, there it is... I can already feel it sparking. There is my grandma's spirit over there."  I'm thinking to myself, "Is this actually happening right now?"  Well, it did, and Larry is still alive. So that happened. I got home from church and collapsed. That was seriously the most stressful 3 hours of my week.

Here is the last experience: We called a potential investigator to set up a return appointment, not sure why but we felt like we should schedule it for Sunday at 5, even though that is usually when we take dinner. So we got there and called the guy and he had forgotten about the appointment and so we rescheduled and we were walking away, and we waved to this guy across the street. Upon realizing who it was, I was floored. It was Eric Sims who came to church and we hadn't been able to contact him for 3 weeks. We struck up a conversation and he invited us into his apartment and we got to teach him and he accepted an invitation to be baptized :)  Definitely inspiration that we were there when we were. 

I know God is real. I know his light is powerful. I thank you all for your support :) Love ya

-E.Rapier

Helping out in the community by leveling a field

First week with Elder Nickerson

Alright, well this week was nothing short of a blur. We had a great week. TONS of things happened.

First off, in the house that we live in, there is a porch that we have designated as the hangout spot. So Elder Nickerson got sick yesterday and so we fashioned together a little grill, put it in a bucket, filled it with sand, made a fire and spit roasted a ham. It was quite entertaining. I was going crazy penned up in the house. The good news is that we went on another exchange with some other Elders so that we could go to church. We had several investigators come. :)

Ok for the list of miracles --

There is a family from Iraq, they aren't Muslim, and they are so prepared. One of their best friends is a Mormon that just moved to Texas. We dropped a Book of Mormon off a few weeks ago, when we came they had read and were ready to listen. We taught about most of the restoration and we are going back over there tomorrow night!!

Also we found a sweet "brotha" named Jerome to teach. He was all over having us come and teach him, he called us "God's soldiers." What a good guy. When we invited him to be baptized at the end of the lesson, he said, "Of course I would be baptized if this is true, who wouldn't?!" (Say that with the tone of a man who ran the streets and dealt drugs for 20 years.)

On Saturday night, we had a teaching appointment with a less-active family. As we walked in, we saw that one of the daughter's friends was there. We read from the Book of Mormon with them and taught them a few commandments. At the end we invited Rose (the friend) to learn more; she was so excited that she set a return appointment and came to church the next day. Dedication.

Other than that, we had a good week with everyone else we are teaching, I feel like so much is coming out of the woodwork. I have honestly never seen so many miracles as I have in the last week and a half since Elder Nickerson and I have been companions. I am so grateful for him. (I will send pictures later.)

That is about it. Have agreat week :)

E.Rapier

New Companion - Elder Nickerson

We had another good week out here in the land of miracles!

Elder Marrott got transferred and my new companion is Elder Nickerson from Atlanta, GA. We had a good, good time this week. The miracles have been dumping out like you would not believe. We have 8 investigators at church... Oh yeah, and Daniel got baptized! It was such a special experience. It is so cool to see people take those steps in their lives. 

So on deck for this week is a lot of teaching! I am going to keep a better journal so you can get some real details!

Sorry for the lame letter. 

I witness that we have a God that lives. 

E.Rapier

What's your Favorite Inspirational Quote?

Well, this week was SO awesome. We had a lot of good stuff, but before I begin...

ATTENTION: I am not sure who actually reads this thing, but I need your help. We have a lot of struggling missionaries in our zone. Elder Herbst and I have been trying to think of creative ideas to help these individuals out. We were hoping to have each one of you send in your favorite inspirational quote or a piece of a general conference talk that has helped you and we are going to put some little things together to help encourage these missionaries. So please everyone take a second and send something inspirational and motivational to me :)   j.rapier@myldsmail

Now, for the rest of the week: 

We had a lot going on. On Tuesday I had MLC and we spent all day getting our minds blown by President Dymock. It was awesome. Afterwards, we had no choice but to blow a bunch of money at Applebee's being with some of my best pals. Anyway, my wallet was not happy and my mother won't be either as she reads this (love you mom). 

The rest of the week was spent teaching and trying to find new people. We were able to teach Daniel again. He is going to get baptized on Saturday (everyone say a quick prayer for that one) as long as he passes his baptismal interview and the ward pulls itself together and gets the baptism set up.

Other than that we were able to teach Mary and Peter from the Sudan again. They are super awesome. We brought an English teacher to try to help them start understanding more. 

We also started teaching another family named the Poitra's! They are awesome; the dad doesn't really want anything to do with the church, but he supports the kids and they are really interested. We were able to teach them about Christ's ministry and they accepted a baptismal date :) 

Other than that we had a lot of shuffling around that took place with many last minute changes to plans and what not (nothing new).

We are also supposed to get transfer calls today but president is swamped, so he is sending them out later and or tomorrow. But I know for a fact I will be staying. He told me at a stake meeting last week. Not sure about a different companion.

I love you and please send in a quote :)

LOVE 

E.Rapier 

No one knows what this is

The sweet gift of homemade bread from one of Elder Rapier's favorite families <3

Dinner with the Russians

Alright y'all! We have had another great week here, to be honest as I am sitting here I can't really remember most of what happened. Everything is getting blended together. 

To start there was (as always) a ton of drama in the zone. We had some companions really not getting along and so there were some emergency transfers; we kind of had to be their moms in making sure that everything got shuffled around. So that is always fun! We were also in a trio for a few days with Elder Simper. He is now back in his area with a new companion. That summarizes like 5 different switching of companions and the shutting down of an area. SUPER FUN.

On a good note we got to go on exchanges with the assistants to the president. They are both close friends of mine and I really enjoyed the exchange. I went into Spokane Valley into the Pines ward and we went out contacting at 3 and came inside around 8. It was so nice to be able to do that again. It feels like it has been many moons since I have been able to do that due to my current situation. So it was very nice.

In the ward things went great. We were able to teach a lot of people this week. 

Last Friday we had a little time after an appointment and so we went out knocking to try to contact some potential investigators. We knocked on this Russian guy's, George, door that we had street contacted the week before. He came outside and talked to us in the freezing cold (did I mention that it snowed a foot this week?). After a minute his wife opened the door and told us to come in, but in a form of sign language because their English is not good. We busted out Google Translate and started trying to communicate. The wife asked what we eat and then mysteriously disappeared to the kitchen and then they started Skyping their daughter. So we have a lot of noise coming from the kitchen, a Russian daughter on Skype and an old Russian man hard of hearing that has no idea how to use a phone and translate with Google. So an hour and a half later (we usually try to keep lessons to 45 minutes max) we walked out with a belly full of Russian food and still absolutely no idea on their gospel knowledge and understanding. They fed us some sort of chicken rice goulash, crusty bread, and tomatoes with cheese that they themselves made by fermenting grocery store milk... My bowels started World War 3...

On a more productive note, Daniel is doing so well! We moved his baptismal date out again to March 17.  We taught 4 people from Africa and were able to set up a bunch of appointments with new investigators. Everyone else is doing super well. We are mostly struggling to get people to church. There is a church building 5 minutes from where most people live, but our ward is assigned to a building that is a 20-minute drive... so a lot of people are just outright lazy... Oh well. Other than that, I received my first letter saying "finish strong" and I am in denial that that phrase has been uttered, I still feel like a greenie.

Anyway I love y'all and I want y'all to know that I love the Lord with everything that I am. I will send pics in a different email :)

E.Rapier :)

Elder Herbst says "Hi"

In a trio with Elder Simper

Dinner with the Russians

Do NOT know what this is...but I LOVE it!!

Congo and Sudan

My goodness, I cannot believe that it is Monday again. The weeks literally feel like days. I have emails coming in reminding me that I don't have that much time left... very saddening. Anyway - on the bright side, the work here is awesome. Within the Beacon Hill Ward is the Celestial area called Hilliard. It is nicknamed Spo-Compton if that tells you anything about it. And I LOVE it. We talk to so many druggies and sketchy people all the time. It is an absolute blast. 

This week we have been so blessed. We were able to teach 2 new families in addition to all the other people we are working with. Daniel Hazlewood is our most promising investigator, he could be getting baptized this Saturday if all goes well. He is a 9-year-old in a part member family. The mom is struggling to come to church and so it is hindering his progression. It will happen in the Lord's time. 

The new family we found are named Josh and Jessica. They are both in recovery from drugs and have been sober for more than a year. They are SO prepared. We just have to get them a drivers license. We taught them the Restoration, but this stupid big dog (Rottweiler) kept running around and I am trying to hold together because all y'all know how much I hate dogs. Anyway, we got through that, and we are teaching them again Thursday :)

We found a family from Congo, they are refugees and speak Swahili as their first language. We taught them and were able to get through most of the restoration. Then the mom (named Claire) just started spouting off questions about baptism and what we believe in and where our church is and if she can come. We told her we could probably squeeze her in the back somewhere ;)  

We also taught a family from Sudan. They don't know much English. It was a miracle because her daughter is the only one who can translate the language - and she was there! We were able to teach all about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the people of ancient America. It was so cool! 

We also taught several other people, but those were the highlights. 

Also this week - we got DUMPED ON with snow. about 6-8 inches over 2 days. Honestly, snow is such a hindrance to the work of salvation. Everyone goes inside and doesn't want to open their doors and let in the cold air. We have 2 shovels that we carry around in our car to help out wherever we can; it has led to some cool experiences. 

I feel like I just write the same stuff every week! Let me know if y'all have some specific questions about anything :) I will send pictures and videos from my phone later. Love y'all!!

-E.Rapier

P-day with the crew

Companion study and prayer in nature

Bahahahahaha!!!