Happy BOXING Day

Well y'all, it's Boxing day in Canada, please make sure to pay your respects. 

It was also Christmas this week. We had a great week in Moscow. It was a lot more productive than we anticipated. More than half of our ward is out of town. 

We have 2 new investigators. Sherry is this sweet older lady who is a Quaker. (I thought they only made oatmeal.) Apparently they also worship. It was interesting to see some of her views and how they do things. The lesson we had was great. She happily accepted the reading of the Book of Mormon and praying about it. Her biggest problem right now is - she just views Christ as another prophet. 

In other news, I slipped fell and got a sweet bruise on my elbow. I have the art of the ungraceful fall down. Too bad it isn't one of the Christlike attributes we study. Anyway, the people here don't use salt, like, it is illegal to put salt on the road or something which is just stupid. There is ice everywhere because of this. 

Four Elders in a closet

Christmas was great though. We met as a district and all opened presents on Christmas morning. After that we went to church, then we made cookies, took them out to our investigators, ding dong ditched them, and ran away. The only logic flaw that existed was that we were running away fast and we were on snow and ice trying to hurry back to the car. I fell 4 times. After that we all went to an apartment with all the elders. We ended up having a Febreze battle and the room still stinks today. At one point we all tried to fit in the closet (I don't know why). So we kept ourselves plenty busy. 

With the new year coming I would challenge y'all to set a spiritually increasing goal that works for you. Whether it be spending time in the scriptures, paying more attention in church, or praying more often, do something to increase your personal conversion EVERYDAY. 

Love, Elder J Steele Rapier :)

Also, pictured below is our car in a very stuck position. My companion thought that the DO NOT ENTER sign on the side of the road was more of a polite suggestion than a real rule and decided to plow on in our mighty Corolla. We got SUPER stuck and as I was pushing us out I slipped and got covered in feces of some kind. Texas drivers...

Super stuck in the mighty Corolla

Nasty!

CANNED PEAS!

Good morning Vietnam!! (Even though it's half past noon up here in Idaho. Anyway, I digress.) 

This week was relatively uneventful (I just spent five minutes trying to figure out how to spell relatively). 

We had a couple good lessons. We taught Angelique. I do not remember if I mentioned her last week, and, frankly, I am too lazy to go look, so I'll just pretend that I haven't. Angelique was a former investigator that we contacted and started teaching. She has a strong faith in Jesus but she doesn't feel that she really needs to commit to one single religion. She struggles with health problems, her weight being the biggest. She has had something like 6 strokes, 4 drug overdoses, and a lot of surgery. To be honest, the second you walk in her apartment it's no wonder. You need a gas mask to breathe. She has like 6 incense things burning, plus she, like, hotboxes her apartment with cigarette smoke so its like a fumigation chamber in there. All my clothes need to be burned when we leave. My scriptures now smell like that so I have a pleasant reminder :) 

Ray and Josefina are both doing good as well. WE CAN'T GET RAY TO CHURCH. We literally have done everything short of going in there and dressing him and then dragging him to church. So that's annoying. 

On other fronts, I am doing well. Still pushing our crappy little car out of the snow 3 times a day. I have started to receive some Christmas packages, so that is exciting. This week I have had the urge to go skiing. I just really want to go skiing. Anyway. 

I bought this cereal on accident last P-Day and I think it is my mom's worst nightmare. Also I totally bought it on accident. So it's like fruity pebbles, which I was just trying to buy the bulk version of, but here's the kicker - it has the Lucky Charms marshmallows in there too. Literally straight sugar. Zero nutritional value. I'M DIGGIN' IT!

More spiritually. I would like you to all read JOHN 16:33. This scripture brings me immense comfort. It is applicable far beyond Christmas. I have such a deep love for my Lord and Savior. He has blessed me more than I would have ever thought possible. Strengthen your relationship with him and he will provide you comfort and help when you feel like no one else is there. Be safe this Christmas, I love all of y'all. 

-Elder J Steele Rapier

p.s. I just remembered I titled the email "Canned Peas," there is a reason for this. We had a white Elephant for our zone activities and among other things I got a can of peas from 2013. :) Delicious.

In the Field!

Hey y'all, its my first P-Day out here in the field. 

Arriving at the Spokane Airport with a new batch of missionaries

My family always teased me about getting my mission call to Idaho. When I opened my call and saw Spokane Washington the first 5 words out of my mouth were "At least it's not Idaho." To my dismay, I found out my mission covered a ton of Idaho. So sure enough I am coming to you live from MOSCOW, IDAHO. It is pronounced Moscoe, if you say Moscow like Russia's Moscow, the people around here will start throwing crap at you. It is essentially the buttcrack of the country. And I couldn't be more glad to be here.

It is snowy as all get out around here. We have this crappy little 2 wheel drive Corolla. I have to push us everywhere that we go because we get stuck so much.

The work here is good. My first companion is Elder Lewis from Houston, Texas. He has been out 23 months and is referred to commonly as "The Patriarch". He is super awesome. I've learned a ton from him in just the one week. We have around 10 investigators, which is awesome because when we moved into the area there were a big fat zero.

Meeting trainer - Elder Lewis from Houston

We have 2 progressing very well. Josefina is awesome. She has been on and off with the missionaries for a couple years but we finally got her and her whole family to come to church and we are teaching her again next week. We also have Ray who is on date to be baptized. He is from California. When he was younger, he got into it with gangs and what not and suffered a lot of head trauma. He has a ton of trouble remembering things, especially when we are supposed to meet with him, lol. Bless his heart. He loves Jesus Christ.

I have lived off of straight cereal for the past week. So that has been awesome. It is depressing around here. It gets dark at like 4:30. No bueno. I'm still always tired at all times. 

Hope y'all are all following the #LightTheWorld initiative, it's awesome.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what else to write. Love y'all. I'll try to take more pictures this week :)

-Elder J Steele Rapier

P.S. For those of you wanting to send me stuff (please do), ask my mom for my address :)

New apartment

Comfy new bed!

P-Day #2

Hey friends and family! Well its my last P-Day here at the Provo Utah MTC. Time flies. When I first got in here the zone leader at the time told me that "The days will feel like weeks, but the weeks will feel like days" I looked right at him and told him that was the dumbest thing I had ever heard (it had been a long day) but turns out he was right. 

This week we spent a long amount of time looking for Narnia holes. For those not familiar with the term, Elders will hide boxes and stuff up in the air vents for future elders. So we looked for that for a while. And we are going to make ours today for future Elders. 

Being a Zone Leader is awesome. You get to know a lot of people and help out. I spoke in front of the whole MTC on Thursday for the Thanksgiving Devotional. It was whack! I was so scared, but I thought it went ok. The spirit is so powerful in helping you overcome adversity. 

We are teaching TRC's and committed 2 of the 3 of them to baptism! It is awesome. I love helping people find their own testimonies. I cant wait to get out there into the field. 

There isnt a whole lot that went on this week. One really funny story. An Elder named Elder Davies is super quiet; he is really introverted. We all like to mess with him, like trying to give him hugs and just make him feel awkward. Nothing mean, he doesn't mind it. He actually ends up laughing more than all of us. So last night he went to brush his teeth and we were all in there and someone said, 'Lets prank Elder Davies" and were all like, "Ok." So we have basically giant lockers that we keep all of our stuff in, and their located across from our beds. So Elder Timmerman, climbed into Davies bed and hid under his covers all the way up against the wall. Elder Duckworth hid in Elder Davies locker. The lights were off because it was past curfew. Elder Davies came in and couldn't see anything. He went to find the alarm clock in his locker and ended up feeling up; Elder Duckworths legs. We all lost it. Later he climbed in bed, got all under his covers, and Elder Timmerman (who was still in his bed) tried to give him a hug. Needless to say I literally laughed for like 20 minutes. We must've woken the entire building up. I was fading so hard. It was awesome. 

I am trying to do better at writing emails and writing in my journal, as well as taking pictures. 

Go read ROMANS Chapter 8 

-Much love, Elder J Steele Rapier

P.S. I forgot my camera cord in my room and I'm too lazy to walk over and come back, plus I'm over email time. So pictures next week I promise. Ill be in Washington early Monday morning. Love you all so much.

P-Day #1

Hey everybody! Coming to you live from the MTC on my fist preparation day! In short, it rocks here! The food is questionable at best but other than that it's great! The days are a lot longer than i'm used to. I am literally tired all the time. The work of god is hastening.

My first companion is Elder Timmerman, he rocks. He is going to play football at SUU when he gets back, and is from Arizona. That being said its still hard to be with someone 24/7 so its going to be hard when I get a companion that I dont like. The second day we were here we must've been doing something right because we were called to be Zone Leaders, so that's been awesome to get to know some more Elders and Sisters and have a chance to further serve our Heavenly Father.

Elders Timmerman and Rapier

Leaf throwing

The first night we were here we got "hazed" which wasn't hazing at all, they just squirted the drinking fountain in our mouths while we lay on the ground and counted how many seconds we could do it for. It was still fun. 

Also, we have 6 elders staying in our room and it is a love/hate relationship. You get to know all of them super quick, but it also smells rank in there. One of the elders has an alarm clock that measures humidity. At one point it was so bad - the humidity was above 80%. We proceeded to steal a fan from our classroom and walk all the way across the MTC campus with it! One of the biggest things I've learned is that elders are still just regular dudes that like to have fun. Some like to have just a little too much fun but that's a whole other story.

The contraband

Also last night the Zone leaders that were in charge when I got here left, and that was a bummer. On the other hand the way we showed them off was awesome. We have accumulated a stash of about 30 nerf guns in a massive box. We spent and hour last night having a floor wide nerf battle. My companion was in sliders and smashed his toe into a wall so bad it was bleeding. There is also this frog that was ceremonially passed down from the zone leaders that left to us. It has been passed down from districts sine 2008!! It's this gross webkins looking thing that I didn't want to be anywhere near! 

Now to more spiritual things, my testimony has grown immensely from being here. You spend so much time in study that it really makes you ponder your relationship with Christ. I almost can't wait to get out into the field. The biggest thing I have learned, and that I want to share with you, is that you must act. As I prepared to serve a mission I always thought that a soon as I actually got my mission call I would become this super spiritual guy who was converted unto Christ through some sort of magic or something. When that didn't happen, I figured it would be when I went through the temple, and when it didn't happen then I figured it surely had to happen when I was set apart - wrong strike three. 

Since coming to the MTC I've learned you must actively seek out God and his teachings. The work you put in will be reciprocated in the level of spirituality that you feel. Right now the main thing I am working on is teaching our investigators by the spirit and humbling myself enough to listen for the promptings! 

Love you all! Write me back so I have something to read in a week, lol. 

Much love,

Elder J Steele Rapier

I'm Alive!

Well, the MTC is actually super fun. I thought it would be super scary but it isn't. 

They want me to email you about a site called dearelder.com so you can use that and send me a letter that will be delivered immediately to me in the MTC. So please do that lots. Also send snacks, lol. 

Um, I love it here. Time passes so slowly but it is so much fun. Tell Ammon to value his sleep because I nodded off this morning in a class. Whoops.  Honestly the MTC is NOTHING like I thought it would be. I've seen a couple kids from high school here as well, so that's awesome. Can't think of anything else. Cant wait to go to work. 

The spirit is so strong here and there is a great love among the elders. Also, I cant get over being called Elder, it just doesn't sound right. 

Anyway keep on keepin' on. Sure love ya! :) 

Elder Rapier