Week 22, 2-26-18 and 23, 3-5-18

3-5-18

Hi guys, 

So as you might know this has been a bit of a crazy few days on the East Coast, especially in Northern Virginia. We were hit by a strong windstorm. The winds were between 40-60 miles per hour and lasted for about 12 hours. I have seen worse windstorms in the past, but the ones I've seen came with rain and didn't last anywhere near as long.

So a lot of trees have fallen on power lines and such. Because of that a lot of people around here have been out of power for quite a few days. Luckily, we haven't been strongly negatively affected by it, other than having to reset our clocks in the morning.  Besides that, we were going to eat at a members house the other night, but because they didn't have power they took us out to eat. Unfortunately, almost everyone else is out of power too, so we had to wait at the restaurant for over an hour to get seats.

So other than that things have been going as they usually do. We try our best to help people grow their faith; some people accept it and some don't. Ya know.

Stay safe and hydrated.

From a glorified extra in the movie of your life, Eli

2-26-18

Hi guys, 

One of the people we are teaching right now is a 10-year-old boy, B–, and his sister, K–. (In the LDS faith children are baptized at the age of 8 because it is when we consider children to be accountable for their own choices.) But B–‘s family only recently started coming back to church, so he was not baptized when he was 8. B– really wants to get baptized now, and his sister will be turning 8 soon, so their parents asked if we would help them prepare for baptism. 

The other night when we were teaching B– and K– their parents were babysitting their grandkids. Let me tell you, these kids were something else. They just would not stop screaming and running around. One of them kept asking what would happen if the Holy Ghost killed you. They also kept trying to steal all our stuff, touching Elder Roper's hair and my face. It took a lot of time and patience but we got through the entire lesson. 

Storytime

J– was raised in Texas and Virginia. He always loved the outdoors, especially snakes. 

When J– was a young adult he was living in a room that he rented in a house. He lived there with many other people who were trying to save money. One of his housemates, named S–, had a phone that she bought and paid for. But the phone was in a public place, so everyone including J– used it freely without helping pay the phone bills.

J­– had finally saved enough money to get his own apartment. The day that he was moving S– got fed up with people racking up her phone bills, so she told everyone that they were no longer to use her phone. She then tore the phone out of the wall and took it into her room. As J– was leaving he saw through S– through her open door and she was counting up her here change. Immediately after seeing this, he felt remorse for not helping her with the phone bills. So John told her that he was renting a two-bedroom apartment and that he would give her the second room rent-free.

(Spoiler alert, they fell in love and got married.)

J– always had struggles in his life, one of them being smoking. One day he was out on his balcony praying to God for some kind of sign. Immediately after his prayer, he saw two Mormon missionaries. He called down to them and asked if they would like water and something to eat. They accepted. Over a long period of time the missionaries continued to meet with S– and J–. After a lot of hard work and help from the missionaries, John was able to quit smoking.

After some time S– and J– lost contact with the missionaries and the LDS church. But J– always wanted to make sure that S– had a good church to go to. S– investigated many churches. J– would often ask her which one had the best spirit, and she would always say the LDS church.

Almost 13 years after the missionaries first talked to J– he learned that he had lung cancer. When he told S– that he didn't have much more time she simply said "No you're strong. I know you'll live." 

S– remembered that she always loved to hear the missionaries pray. So she called the missionaries in the area and asked them to pray for J–. Two Elders named Nielsen and Brown met her outside her door to pray with her. 

A few days later J– got a call from the doctor. They told him that they had overlooked some things and that they had found a way to remove the cancer, they did and so J– was now cancer free. 

So S– started to talk to the missionaries again. And soon was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Soon after J– started talking to the missionaries again as well. 

On February 24^th, J– was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. 

Stay safe and don't think too hard – from two hobbits on each other's shoulders,

Eli.