September 25, 2017 - Return to Omak

This week was wild!! We had 3 exchanges this week and 2 of them were out of town. The first exchange we went on was up in Omak Tuesday night through Wednesday night, which was so cool! It was so awesome to go back to Omak and visit all of the old investigators and recent converts that I worked with up there. I went with Elder Donakey, who was trained by Elder Allsop, and Elder Allsop went with Elder Nielsen.

I got a chance to see Angel and his family again. They're

doing super well. His grandparents got in a huge car crash

This is the Law family in Omak. Neither Elder Allsop
or I got to say goodbye to them when we left Omak,
and we had dinner with them on Wednesday!
Sister Law is a wizard with the sewing machine
and she made Elder Allsop and I a few ties. 

and they kept telling us that it was a total miracle that they survived. I guess they got hit by a drunk driver and it was pretty scary. Angel is still going to church and whatnot, which is so awesome!!

Sadly, the story for Angi isn't as awesome. She's doing okay but is still slipping into old habits and isn't improving. She stopped going to church again. It's super sad to see that she's struggling. Hopefully someday she'll figure things out and take a 180 degree turn and put herself back on course. Sad as it was it was still awesome to see her again. 

Then we headed to Moses Lake! I didn't get a chance to see

​This is our district at our last district meeting.
(From left to right) Elder Oliverson, Elder Rocha,Sister Rose,Sister Banks, Me, Elder Allsop.
We used a selfie stick. It was pretty fun.

my old area but it was super fun to be there. I went with Elder Ence, who was a district who I went on exchanges with in Wenatchee, and Elder Allsop went with Elder Anderson! Who I trained. It was super good to be with Elder Anderson again. I haven't had the chance to spend a lot of time serving around him since I left Yakima to go to Wenatchee, but he just got called as a Zone Leader, so now I get to talk to him all the time.

Updates on our area. It's going well. We spent a good chunk

of our week out of town but they're still doing well. Matt and Sarah are good. Matt helped with the Sacrament on Sunday and he also helped us teach Gospel Principles and did a stellar job. He is so cool! He is super converted and absolutely loves the Gospel.

Edgar sadly dropped us. He texted us and said that his wife says that they only need one Bible and that it should be the Bible that they already have. Sounds like he missed the idea of the Book of Mormon.

It was sad that Edgar dropped us but it was made up for this

On exchanges a few weeks ago we were doing
some service at a cattle ranch or something and I
learned how to rope. I caught myself a little cow.​

Friday. So, on Friday we got back from Moses Lake in the afternoon and we had a ton of office stuff to catch up on. So, we spent most of the day doing that, but after dinner we wanted to go out and work so badly. So, we decided to knock on three doors and talk to at least one person before going back to the office and we had a pretty neat experience that really showed me that sacrifice brings blessings.

We ended up talking with this awesome girl our age named Chelann. She is super cool. She is basically a member without wanting to be a member. She has so many of the exact same beliefs as us and is honestly a stellar person. She told us she isn't ready to accept the "theology" of the church but she would love to learn more about what we believed. We went back on Sunday and she had read in the Book of Mormon and liked what she read. She told she isn't sure it's God's word yet, but she's willing to read more. Hopefully she does so. 

As we were walking back to our car after talking with Chelann that Friday night, we got the chance to speak to a less active family as they were outside working in their yard. We've been trying to get in contact with this family with little success until Friday, and then Elder Allsop was able to go visit her on Saturday with another Elder. So, our sacrificing a little time to do office work allowed us to get a lot done in just under an hour. 

Love you all!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

September 18, 2017 - Zone Conference Week

This week has been a week full of Zone Conferences.

Elder Allsop, President Lewis, Elder Miles

Tuesday through Friday we traveled all over the mission and helped President make sure that everything ran smoothly. We didn't do any training's this round of Zone Conferences, but we went to make sure everything ran smoothly. We have all sorts of stuff we have to make sure is all set up and prepared for the meetings. 

This round of Zone Conferences was full of a lot of practicing, which was really nice. We practiced how to have good focused conversations with people when we first meet them, and we also practiced teaching the Restoration in a very short and simple way. They were all very spirit filled meetings and were a lot of fun. 

Because of all of the meetings we had we didn't get a lot of

time in our own area, but I do have a few updates on some of the people we're working with. The biggest one is Matt and his wife Sarah. We had a chance to visit with them a little this week and the visit was awesome! Sarah has been less active for some time now and she hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in reactivating but she had an amazing change of heart this week. Last week I believe I mentioned that we took them to the family history center and got them both started on genealogy work. Well the spirit of Elijah is definitely real. She has grabbed hold of family history and absolutely loves it. It's also motivating her to work towards the temple now, which is a huge step for them. She's also come to church twice since we started family history and before she started Sarah would only come rarely. It's been quite the blessing for their family. Also, Matt received the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. 

Another neat experience from this week. So, on Thursday

night Elder Allsop and I were in a bit of a pickle. In the past when having a Zone Conference, the Assistants would go down the night before, but when they do that it made it really hard to get any work down in their area, so on Thursday night Elder Allsop and I were getting ready to head to Moses Lake to help set everything up for the Friday Zone Conference, but we hadn't worked much in our area. So, we decided to wait and go up to Moses Lake early Friday morning, so we could have a little time in our area. We had to wake up at 5:30. Well it was totally worth it. In about 5 minutes of knocking we ran into this guy named Edgar, who told us he didn't have much time that evening (it was pretty late), but he would love to hear our message. And last night the fruits of our sacrifice really pulled through. We had an awesome lesson on the Restoration with Edgar, probably one of the best lessons I have ever been a part of. The Spirit was super strong, he was super engaged, and we were able to teach super clearly and powerfully. 

It was such a good lesson and I am so glad we sacrificed a little bit of sleep. It was well worth it. He has a very sincere desire to know if it's true and he was really excited to read the Book of Mormon. We'll have to see what happens with him. We have another lesson scheduled for this coming weekend.
-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

September 11, 2017 - Semi Normal Week

I don't have much time to write this week. We had an hour

Meeting about cars

and a half meeting on all the cars in the mission this morning, so that chopped a good chunk of our P-Day. 

This past week has been more normal than the last but Elder Allsop and I only got to spend one day together in our area. We're companions, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it because we have to go on tons of exchanges, and this week we had 3. 

On Tuesday, we had a Super MLC, which includes all of the

Teaching at Super MLC

Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders. It was a super good meeting. President trained all of us on how we can be a better leader, and he talked a ton about the importance of Charity in leadership. He said something that Elder Allsop and I both thought was super awesome. He said "It's 20% what you say, and 80% how you say it." He was talking about when giving correction to other missionaries but I think this principle applies to all aspects of life. It's not so much about what we say or do, but rather it's more about how it's done. If it's done in the right way and with the right attitude it can be much more powerful. In the same meeting Elder Allsop and I talked with all the Zone Leaders about various things. There're pics on the mission blog. 

Then Tuesday night through Wednesday night we were on exchanges with some Zone Leaders, and I was in our area. It was wild because I had hardly done anything in our area, so I had to do a lot of winging it as far as where to go, but it worked out. Well Wednesday night we re-exchanged and then an hour later we exchanged again, so I spent all Thursday in Selah with another Zone Leader. It was super fun.

Friday Elder Allsop and I were back together but we had to

With President and Sister Lewis

still finish a lot of administrative stuff from transfers, so we spent a good chunk of our day trying to get that all taken care of. However, we did get to teach a recent convert and his wife about Family History. It was super neat and his wife loved it. His name is Matt and he has such a strong testimony. He was baptized about a month ago and he is 100% in the Gospel. It super cool to see his testimony. His wife is a tougher situation, but she seemed to love Family History, and she showed up to church!! 

Friday evening we drove to Ephrata to do some more exchanges. Ephrata is about an hour and a half north of Yakima so we missed a chunk of Friday evening, and we spent all day Saturday in Ephrata on exchanges with those Elders. 

It's been a wild week, but I've had the chance to meet some more of the people we're working with, and I am super excited for our area. We definitely are blessed by the Lord in seeing success even with all of the craziness. 

I hope I have a little better update on some people next week, but this coming week we are going to be spending Tuesday-Friday at four Zone Conferences that are all over the mission. It should be super good, but we won't get more than 3 hours in our area from today until Saturday.  

 

Love you all!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

September 4, 2017 - Transfer Week

Well this week was super different. We hardly had a chance

Keeping the departing missionaries busy

to touch our own area the entire week. Monday night we spent the evening with all of the departing missionaries. We set up some lawn games and made sure to keep them busy. Then we got to stay for a testimony meeting, which was really neat. It was really cool to see everything that those missionaries had learned on their missions. The spirit was awesome but we didn't leave the Mission Home until nearly midnight, so the next morning I was a little tired. Haha

Tuesday, we spent all day with the new missionaries that

With the new missionaries

were coming in this transfer. We got 28 new missionaries last week and we had to make sure everything was set up and prepared for their arrival. So, we did that all morning, and then went and picked them up from the airport with the Lewis's. Then we helped them with their orientation, ate lunch, and then sent them out to work in Yakima for an hour and knock some doors. That's called fearbusting. After they got back we did some training's and talked about their experiences tracting. 

Then we shipped them all up to the mission home where we had dinner, which was tri-tip steak and it was absolutely delicious. Then we had another testimony meeting with those new elders and sisters and they bore some awesome testimonies. I definitely feel like missionaries are coming into the field more and more prepared. All of the activities ended that night at 11ish, then we loaded up their bags, and around 11:30 pm we started planning which new missionary was going to be with what trainer. 

That took forever but it also was super spiritual. We left the mission home around 1:30-2 am and had it pretty well set. It was cool how as we discussed all the individual missionaries that the companionships seemed to line up nicely. 

The next day (Wednesday) was transfer day and we had to help drive the missionaries around. Elder Allsop and I had to split and drive separate cars for transfers. He drove a huge bus like thing and I got to drive our truck, which we call Tucker. 

Thursday and Friday, we did a lot of training meetings for the

new missionaries from this transfer and the new missionaries from last transfer. Thursday, we stayed in Yakima, but Friday we drove up north to meet with all the missionaries that were sent up there. 

With President Lewis at the Mexican restaurant

Those meetings were super fun. And after the meetings on Friday President and Sister Lewis took us to a really tasty Mexican restaurant and we discussed the agenda for our upcoming Mission Leadership Council. Then Saturday we spent some more time planning that meeting with President and Sister Lewis. We also on Saturday were finally able to spend a little bit of time in our area which was super nice, but I have no idea what is going on. Elder Allsop tells me we have a lot of cool people we're teaching but I haven't met any yet. Hopefully this next week I have some more info on people. 

Mexican dinner

Sunday, we had church. The ward we work with is fairly small, but it's a solid ward. I'm trying to learn all of their names quickly but it'll take a few weeks I'm sure. 

I love you all!! Sorry this wasn't a very exciting letter. If you want pictures go to the mission blog. 

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

This is the mission blog that Elder Miles mentions -

https://yakimamission.wordpress.com/

This is our little office in the mission office. It's more
of a closet, but it works perfectly for what we need. ​

Elder Miles, Elder Allsop, and President Lewis

Transfer day

In front of the transfer board

"That sword is a plastic sword we have in the back of our truck,
and whenever a new Assistant is called he is "knighted" by the leaving Assistant"