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!!