Inspired Selfies

Greetings one, greetings all!

This was yet another week full of contacting referrals (it seems like

as soon as we get the number below 20, we get four or five more

referrals all at once. As I've said before, it's a pretty good problem

to have) and I actually have some cool stories from it too!

First off, to explain the title of my email. So on Tuesday, Elder

Talbot and I were contacting referrals and we drove to the home of a

man named Yussif. As soon as we got there, both of us suddenly just

felt super unmotivated and ended up sitting in the car for a few

minutes trying to muster the strength to continue on. Eventually, I

came up with a brilliant plan: "Okay, let's take some selfies to

practice our smolder, then we will go contact this referral!" Several

legit selfies later (included in the email), we, now feeling much more

energized, set out to contact Yussif! So we knocked on the door

once... nothing. We knock again... nothing. We knock a third time for

Salvation and... NOTHING! Feeling once again disheartened, we began

the walk back to our car, when suddenly, a man pulls up, parks, gets

out of his car, and starts walking towards us (or his door, as the

case may be) and we discovered that our mystery gentleman was, in

fact, Yussif just getting home and was excited to see us and let us in

immediately to teach him about the Restoration! This means that had

Talbot and I not taken those selfies, we probably would have missed

him by a few minutes! Hence the term, "Inspired Selfies". I have a

firm testimony that Heavenly Father knows all too well how

stupid/silly Elders can be and thus causes people's schedules to pan

out in a way that will allow those moments of silliness to move his

work foreword!

On Wednesday, we went on exchange with our district leader. Elder

Talbot went down to Elder Hirzel in the Carrollton Ward and I received

Elder Hirzel's companion... Elder Williams! And thus, the dynamic duo

of Williams and Williams was formed (which surprisingly, didn't get as

confusing as we figured that it would, which in itself was a

miracle!)! While on this exchange, we contacted yet more referrals,

one of whom's name is Joseph. He is also super cool and was very happy

to see us and learn more about our church as he had friends back in

Africa who were members of the church and he saw how much that had

blessed their lives and wanted to experience that for himself and his

family (which is, funny enough, the same story as what happened to

Yussif). So we were able to teach him the Restoration and he loved it

and set up a time with us to come back this upcoming week to share

more with him! I know that the Lord truly is hastening his work hear

and I feel very honored to be a witness to it!

So do y'all remember all of the car problems I had while I was in

White Plains a few months back? Well as it turns out, my streak of bad

car luck continues as on Friday, we received a call from the mission

vehicle coordinator informing us that the last time that we had filled

up our tank with gas, someone had placed a skimmer in the card slot

and cloned our gas card. As a result, we have been unable to fill up

our gas tank since. There is apparently a new card coming in the mail

pretty soonish, but it has been "interesting" (to say the least)

budgeting our gas in the meantime... Hopefully that problem will be

resolved before too long though!

That's about all from me this week! General Conference is this

upcoming weekend, which is super exciting! You should all watch it

because I know it will be amazing (and besides, we get to hear a

modern-day prophet speak to us, what more could you want)! Plus, it's

my last General Conference as a missionary, which is really cool but

REALLY weird at the same time... I love you all! Have a fantastic

week!

Sincerely,

Elder Sam Williams

8301 Ashford Blvd #606

Laurel, MD, 20707

Elder Talbot's B-day was a few weeks ago and his parents sent a bunch of stuff for us to put up and take pictures of and we just barely got around to it.  As you can tell,we party hard!

I'm a banana!  (Inside joke in our companionship)

Now Elder Talbot is a banana!

Inspired selfie part one

Part two! (This face is how we get our investigators to let us in)

That moment when you realize you can't drive, but look fly as all get out.