Quick Thoughts

I think my mission has magnified the importance of eternal families. I like in a recent general confrence talk the speaker said, "Exaltation is a family matter." Never thought of that before. But we better all get each other to that celestial kingdom. :)

Dillon is so solid. He committed to drop cigarettes cold after we taught the word of wisdom this week. We will be baptizing him in about a month!!!!! 

The Char family is so good, and they are coming to church next week. The wife is a little slower to receiving the gospel, but the husband wants the Melchizedek priesthood. Like how does he even know what that is??? 

Everyone else is on course.

- E. Rapier

Golden Week and It's Been 1 Year!

Well, somehow I have already been a missionary for a year. I think it was a time warp, I sure hope the 2nd year doesn't go as fast as this one. So for my year mark this week I burned a shirt :) Ill include a picture below.

This was probably the best week of my mission. Before I go into the multitude of miracles, I will catch y'all up on our investigtors-

Char Fam - we finally had some contact. The wife is really hardened to the gospel, but all of the kids and the father really like it. The hard thing is... our church is supposed to unite families, not divide them, haha. So we have another lesson next week.

Dillon - we met with him again this week, and he is on date for baptism in January, he is so prepared!!

Ben - we put him on date this week too! We just need help getting his stubborn Catholic wife to let him come to our church. Butttt he is doing good. he knows the Book of Mormon is true!

Steven - Had a good lesson this week, evaluated his goal to be clean of cigarettes. He isn't progressing as fast as we'd like, but it is in the Lords time! No church this week because we had the Meridian Idaho temple dedication.

Ok ok ok, now back to miracles...we had an ABSOLUTE miracle! Even better than last week's. Elder Huff and I were were in our service clothes biking up a hill to do service for a nonmember family. It would have been really easy to bike past anyone we saw; we were running late and didn't want anyone waiting on us. We saw a woman coming out of her house to check her mail. Also let me mention that this was right at the top of the biggest hill in Clarkston. I swear it is so steep and my legs were on fire and both of us were soaking with sweat. We stopped and talked to her and the first thing she said was, "I am looking for a church." I have never heard that one before. Her name is Louise and she is this sweet older woman. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and explained the restoration and set up a teaching appointment. When we got there to teach her she told us how after we left she wet inside and just couldn't stop smiling, she said it looked like we were glowing! (We had been wearing grungy, dirty service jeans and t shirts.) She loves what she read in the Book of Mormon, and when we taught her, the spirit was so strong. We are meeting with her again this week :) I have never met someone so prepared for this gospel, I can witness that I know our Heavenly Father prepares his children. He loves and knows you :)

Among other miracles, that was the highlight. Thanks for the letters and packages for my halfway point this week, I love y'all :)

-E.Rapier

The tradition of shirt burning for being on your mission for one year.

Elders Huff and Rapier

Fasting for Missionary Work

Ok, I gotta make this quick so i can be obedient and get off this computer in time.

Our whole mission fasted for baptisms last fast Sunday, which was much needed, because we have a goal of 77 before the end of the year. At the rate we are going we are going to be 20-30 short.

We also had a complete answer to our prayers this last week after fasting for missionary work. We have a wonderful recent convert family that loves to do missionary work. Last Sunday, as we were fasting for missionary work, this family walked in with a non-member friend named Dillon. We had the chance to talk to him and sat with him in our gospel doctrine class. We had a dinner with that family the next Saturday and they invited Dillon over with us. We taught him the restoration and he had already been reading the Book of Mormon. I was dumbfounded. He again attended church yesterday and we had one of our other members invite him to dinner. In short - in one week, he has attended all 3 hours of church twice, been invited to and taught at 2 different member homes and is already reading the Book of Mormon. Wow, we are truly blessed; and I have gained a testimony of the power of faith and fasting!

Highlights: STEVEN CAME TO CHURCH. I was so happy. Even though the rest of our investigators cancelled, we had it poppin' while he was there.

SLY :)

-E.Rpaier

Staying in Clarkston

Ahhhh, back at it again with transfer calls. I will be staying in Clarkston with Elder Huff! Thank heavens because I finally feel like I actually know what is going on. The good news is that we will be getting a full time car, so there will be no more biking in the freezing rain (which we did a lot of this week). I am excited to be staying here. It is a great area and we had another good week this week. 

Investigators;

Char Fam: Still the most "golden" family on the face of the planet. They have read 14 chapters of the Book of Mormon as a family in just over a week. How's your family scripture study going? They were at church yesterday and were able to meet a lot of members of the ward. They are so amazing. During the lesson we had with them, we asked them about praying about the Book of Mormon. Their  little daughter Juliana's hand shot up in the air and she said, "I know it is true." The spirit just smacked me like a sack of bricks. I could just feel the purity of this little girl and how innocent she was. Wow, it was such a special experience.

Stephan: had a great lesson and he finally committed to come to church. He texted us Sunday morning and cancelled because some sort of explosion kept him up all night. Very interesting, North Korea might be coming after all. 

Hum Fam: finally able to meet with the husband again! Had a great lesson, but they didn't show up to church :(

Jonathan: haven't been able to contact him, ughhh :(

Other than that, we have found some new investigators. We aren't sure if they are accountable or not. An 87 year old man named Howard. He has dementia or something and has the mind of a 10 year old. Anyway he started singing us a Johnny Cash song with his wife after our lesson. It was the first time I had heard Folsom Prison Blues in a long time. With his singing voice, I don't know that I would care to hear it again anytime soon. 

Ok, well, I love y'all and I am thankful for your support! Pray for a chance to make someone smile today!

-E. Rapier

p.s. Included is your local tool pic of my companion and me :)

Elder Huff and Elder Rapier