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!!!

"Dude, this is so bad, I can't fix it"

Editor's Note: 
The missionaries of the Washington Spokane Mission got smart phones in January. Elder Rapier discovered his voice-to-text capability and used it to send this week's email. He asked me to let him know if there was anything I couldn't understand. I wasn't even going to publish this because it was so bad. But, then I thought we might all enjoy a chuckle. Enjoy!

"we had a super good week this week last Monday we didn't have Pday but on Tuesday we were able to go to the temple which was super good and then after that  we came back and had a bunch of different activities that we did I went to Burlington Coat Factory in spend a bunch of money on designer things that I really wanted and so now I don't have as much money as I used to and then we went over to Matt and Rachel border to her in the stake presidency and had dinner with them and then other hurts and I the others only either went and train all of the bishops in the steak on the new technology which was super cool that's kind of intimidating because they kept asking me a bunch of questions now is all scared that I would not have the answers to those other than that we had a great week as far as teaching goes we were able to teach a lot of people we been working with a family called the Laplace and the wife is a non practicing Baptist who really struggles with the idea of the atonement but she kind of believes in Wiggins stuff now but she doesn't understand why God would send his son to be killed and and so its been cold to work with them and the Sun is awesome. Remember that were trying to baptize and he's doing really well we had zone conferences well which was all of Wednesday and so that was good and other than that we've been teaching a lot of people it's kind of sad because we haven't had a lot of time to go out and find people to teach in like tracked and street contact people which is my favorite thing to do and so I'm hoping we get to do some more of that this week but other than that the water super good and the area is awesome and we got a ton of snow like all the sudden we got like 6 feet of snow and so yeah that was good anyway so that's about it thanks mom I love you I've talked all of this into my phone so there's no punctuation or anything you'll probably have to go through and put some stuff together before make sense but anyway love you very much and that was our week thanks let me know if you have any questions bye :)"

But then there was this:
There was a ward family here who found out I was from Austin. The husband went on a business trip to Austin. The wife asked if we like barbecue sauce and they showed up on Sunday with this bottle of Rudy's BBQ sauce! So that was super awesome.

A gift from a traveling ward member <3

And this:
Louis (from Clarkston) got baptized. Like 3 days after I left... Devastating. 

Louise's baptism

First Week in Beacon Hill - New Comp, Janky House

Hey y'all, we had an awesome first week here in Beacon Hill! My new companion is Elder Marrott and he is from Highland, Utah. He has been out a couple months. He and I get along pretty well. He likes motorcycles and sports so there isn't too much I would change. 

We had a good long talk about what we expect of each other and things are looking up. 

This ward is ripe! There is so much potential here. Since we are in the ghetto of the ghetto, the people are SO humble. We have found 3 new investigators just with the open time we had last week. It was amazing. We walked into a lesson with a guy who has been investigating for 4  years, put him on date for baptism, and then he came to church. Lots of miracles. 

We live in this janky old house that costs $800 a month. It is interesting. We live with 2 other elders and it makes it hard to clean the place. Haha. 

Not much else to report on. We are looking forward to hunkering down and getting on the grind. We will have more miracles to report next week :)

-E.Rapier

New companion - Elder Marrott

Elders Rapier and Marrott are sharing an apartment with another companionship -
Elders Herbst and Autry.  Elder Herbst is the nephew of our close friends, the Waldrons;
Elders Autry and Rapier went to 1st grade together.
What are the chances?