August 14, 2017 - Suicide Race

This week has been a pretty awesome week! Full of a lot of

neat experiences and a lot of exciting things. 

The 4 elders at the stampede. Me,
Elder Shoemaker, Elder Nielson (my comp),
Elder Woodfield

To start off here in Omak there is a stampede that is pretty well known throughout the world (I guess). It's famous because at the end of every night, they do what they call a suicide race. Basically, they take 20ish horses and their jockeys and run them straight down a super steep hill, across a river, and into the rodeo arena. It's apparently pretty wild, and there are no rules, so there's punching and fighting the other jockeys, and no one is going to stop if you fall off your horse. I guess they have had to put some horses down because of broken legs, and a lot of people have been sent to the hospital to get some serious surgery done.

So, this week there have been so many people in our two small little towns. I've been amazed at how crowded it's been up here. I feel like the population has doubled since the stampede started. Well we asked President Lewis if we could go check it out, and he said yes!! He gave us permission to go see the rodeo and the Suicide Race. We went on Thursday evening and it was super cool. It was definitely a different experience but it was a lot of fun. I took a video of the suicide race, but it's not great quality. You may have to look one up online for a better vid.

This week we also got to teach Josh and Angel some more.

​This a pic of the suicide race hill.
Sorry you can't see it super well.

Angel is doing super well! He's progressing towards baptism really nicely and has really been changing quite a bit. This week we had to move his baptismal date back a week to the 26th of August because he's going on the high adventure this weekend with the boy scouts. It'll be super good for him. He'll get the chance to have some nice father figures in his life, and he'll get to meet a lot of the other boys. We had a chance to talk with his mom yesterday and she says that she has seen a lot of changes in him, he doesn't get angry as much, and when he does get upset he doesn't react as intensely as he used to. So, he is looking super promising for the 26th.

Josh is doing awesome! We had a church tour with him this

A huge hornets nest that was
bigger than my face.

last Wednesday, where we got to show him around the building so he could feel more comfortable. Then he came to church on Sunday! He said he liked it quite a bit and he told us he is planning on coming back. We also had an awesome lesson last night with him at the Berthelson's home, where we taught him the Restoration and committed him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. With him having more of an agnostic/atheist background we focused more on him being able to receive an answer that God exists by reading and praying, rather than knowing that the church is true. He told us last night that he's been having an inner conflict with himself with what he should follow. Should he return to his old ways? Or should he follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Pray for him to be able to choose God!

This was at the stampede. They did this wild horse
race thing. I guess none of those horses had ever been
ridden, and the had to stop them, and mount them and
ride through some barrels. One guy got stepped on
real hard and probably blew out his knee. It was gross.

Oh, Angi is doing better. She still hasn't come to church, but she's picked up praying again, and we had an awesome lesson last night with her about reading and she really committed hard to reading every day. She seemed a lot happier last night as well. Hopefully with time and patience she'll turn things around and find the path again. Keep praying for her! She needs it!
-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission