March 4, 2014

We had an awesome Saturday this week!

In the morning we attended a baptism and took two of our investigators to see it. They both had a good experience and I did to. I will say that the singing wasn't too great and the talks were odd, but I could definitely feel the spirit. The lady that got baptized bore her testimony afterwards and that was awesome! After the baptism we went to the temple visitor center with Zohra. A member couple took us to lunch in DC then we drove up. The sisters at the temple taught Zohra about the temple and we watched a video about families being together forever. She really enjoyed it and said she hopes she can go in someday! She asked if her and her mom could be put on the prayer roll, so the member family did that while we looked around.

We took some pictures with Zohra in front of the temple, but I don't have my camera with me right now. I will send those pictures tomorrow. I will also send the pictures from our trip to Mount Vernon (George Washington's house) from last Monday. There is a little Mormon.org station at the visitor’s center and when we passed it I saw a familiar face. A guy in our ward was on one of the pictures. He has muscular dystrophy and is in a wheel chair. His name is Vance Taylor and there is a video about him on the website you should go watch.

Last week we received a referral from Mormon.org for a lady that we had tracted into a few weeks before. The first time we talked to her she didn't seem very interested, but said we could come back. We tried back a few more times and she was a lot more friendly and nice, but we could never seem to get an appointment or a lesson with her. We didn't stop by for a couple weeks and then she referred herself online. That was pretty surprising to us. When we went by her house she was really excited to talk to us! She had referred herself because she thought she had lost the Book of Mormon we gave her and wanted another one. Turns out she has been reading it! She started talking about how she works on Capitol Hill and knows some of the Mormon Senators. Then it looked like her eyes were tearing up a bit as she told us that all the Mormons she knows seem to "glow". She said "I don't know what it is, but you all have this glow about you!" She loves how Mormons are so nice and happy. We got an appointment for later this week. Then she invited us to come to the capitol building next Monday and she is going to give us a VIP tour! It is going to be awesome! It was a great experience and I hope that we can have a great lesson with her this week.

Rose is doing good. Her dad just passed away so we just met with her for the first time in a couple of weeks. She is also leaving to Ghana for a month so it will be awhile until she can get baptized.  

The food supply is okay, but definitely could be better. We had 6 people feed us this last week! That was a miracle! That’s more than the rest of the time I’ve been in this ward (haha).

We are getting our iphones and ipads on Thursday! It’s going to be a big day! We have a four hour meeting on Thursday morning and they are going to give us all the info we need to know! It’s pretty funny how I wasn't allowed to have an iphone before my mission, but now I get one while I am a missionary (haha). It snowed a bunch yesterday, which is why I am writing this email today. The libraries and schools out here close down anytime there is any snow. For our preparation day we stayed inside and relaxed. Elder Van Dyke and Elder Tang (the other Elders in the ward) came to our apartment and we played some games. It was nice to have a day to relax because usually preparation days aren't really that relaxing because we are either playing basketball or walking around some historical site. I also started reading "Jesus the Christ" and so far I really like it. It is about 800 pages, which is more than I probably read while in high school (haha).

I am really enjoying my mission and I love to see the change that the gospel can bring into people’s lives!

Love you!

Elder Miles