Talofa! (Hello in either Samoan or Tongan, I can't remember which...)
Interviews with President Cooke were on Tuesday. During the interview,
he indirectly told me that he plans on keeping me on bike for a while
(Though his words were something along the lines of, "The longer you
stay on bike, you'll keep getting slimmer and slimmer and end up very
handsome... Not that you aren't handsome already..." (Good save)). He
also told Thorpe that he'll finish his mission in Kensington, so if I
stay here, I'll more than likely end up "killing" Thorpe (mission term
for being someone's last companion before they go home) which I'm okay
with, because Thorpe and I get along SUPER well!
(Note that this and other emails while I'm here might skip around a
lot because most of our time is spent trying to find people to teach,
which doesn't exactly provide for many highlights...)
Tuesday night, we were trying to contact a referral who lived in an
apartment complex, but didn't give us an apartment number so we
decided to just tract the whole complex and hope for the best. The bad
news is that we didn't find the referral. The good news is that the
last door we knocked on, these two boys answered the door and seemed
fairly interested in hearing our message, so we made a mental note to
try and stop by when their parents were home. But before we left, they
stopped us and said, "we aren't supposed to open the door to
strangers, and we normally wouldn't, but we saw "Jesus" on your name
tags and knew that you couldn't be bad!" Moments like that remind me
of the greatness/responsibility of my calling, to make sure that I am
living my life worthy of the name of Christ engraved on my name tag!
Thursday, we got to help the Zone Leaders do some service for Elder
Schrorer, the mission vehicle coordinator. He had a ton of office
desks and cabinets and other related items that an office complex was
donating to us and he needed help carrying them out and loading them
up to take to the mission office, it was pretty fun!
Friday, we went on a last minute exchange with the Traveling Trainers
(a companionship that basically spends their days going on exchange
with other missionaries). I went with Elder Herring and we spent the
whole time tracting and talking (he's from Arizona as well and we
became friends super quickly when I got out here).
Saturday, the whole mission got to help out with the DC Cherry Blossom
Festival Parade! Unfortunately, because Spring came early this year,
the cherry blossoms had pretty much come and gone by this point. It
was still a ton of fun though! I got to help hold one of the giant
balloons in the parade (we carried the Strawberry Shortcake balloon,
aka the manliest balloon in the whole parade!) which was fun! The only
bad part was that the sun was radiating down upon us and those people
like me who can be described as "white and exceedingly fair" are now
"red and exceedingly burnt"...
Yesterday was Why I Believe. The most notable thing about that evening
was that while we were there, we ran into Elder Sorensen, who informed
us that during general conference, they went to the Chamberlain's to
watch it with them and they actually convinced Bryan to watch the
Priesthood session with them and afterwards, he opened up to them and
admitted that he felt the Spirit and since then, they've been teaching
him the missionary discussion and him and his family have come to
church every week since then! They were even at Why I Believe (though
I unfortunately missed them because I didn't know they were there)!
He's still resisting baptism until he gets a definite answer that the
church is true, but this is definitely a step in the right direction
for him and his family and I am SUPER happy for them!
I love this work, it is truly amazing to see the ways that the Gospel
blesses and changes people's lives! I am excited to be able to
continue laboring here! I love you all and hope you have an amazing
week!
Sincerely,
Elder Sam Williams
Washington DC North Mission
11700 Falls Road
Potomac, MD, 20854
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