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!