¡Hola Fonzfam!
What happened to January?! It's already February and our transfer is going to end next week right before Valentine's Day! We somehow survived the darkest part of the year and the weather was actually very mild, which is appreciated. In some parts of our zone, it was snowing last night and it should again today, but not up here in Gresham. We're still pretty close to Portland and so the temperature won't drop enough. Although as soon as it starts to stick then President would call us and tell us that we would have us park our cars and walk everywhere we need to go. Hopefully, it doesn't get to that point even if I love snow that much.
Earlier in the week, we went on exchanges with the Assistants. Elder Anderson went to downtown Portland for his first time and had a blast talking to all of the crazy people. Elder Boychuk came here for a crazy time in the Hood. He's from Canada and loves to express it to others. His family sends him tons of Canadian gear so he can share it with other missionaries. Anyways, we had a couple pretty solid lessons fall through with Eddie and this other guy named Jacob, but we made up for it with the extra finding time. Again we were very prayerful on where we should go once we were in an area. Time and time again we were placed in the perfect spot to talk to somebody about the gospel. Unfortunately, we didn't get anything super solid from it but a couple phone numbers and some leveled up people.
Going into Wednesday was a pretty open day. There wasn't anything already set up, and so we went into it ready for the challenge of at least 8 hours of finding. Right off the bat, we found an Egyptian professional soccer player named Khaled. We previously prayed for where to go and we really felt prompted to his building and even his door as it was the first one we knocked. He has a good mix of Islamic and Christian beliefs and graciously accepted a copy of the BoM to read and study before our next visit. Regardless of the beliefs, he's wanting to come closer to God and he feels that this is a new opportunity to learn something more about Him. And boy is he in for a treat! Without us even asking he asked if it would be ok to bring his good friend who lives within our area boundaries to the appointment!
This week we had many different lessons with some of the people we're teaching. We finished teaching the plan of salvation to Eddie who really liked it. He's having a hard time praying though because it's something he hasn't done in years. We also had a bomb lesson with Leyva who definitely felt the Spirit when we shared the message of the Restoration with him. For whatever reason, his eyes were different after that lesson and we have yet to hear back from him what he thinks of the BoM. Because of the Super Bowl though, most of the people who committed to come to church weren't able to make it. That was a bummer, but Carlos still came after we had tried passing him off to the Vancouver YSA Elders. He has some good friends in our YSA branch that he feels more comfortable with I guess. If he wants to be apart of our branch then by all means haha.
As a zone we came together Saturday night via video chat and began a zone fast with prayer. In our zone chat everyone posted names of those who they wanted to specifically fast for and we even fasted for extra miracles. For us, one of these miracles came right after we broke our fast. We hit up this one duplex in Sandy River, and at the first door we felt inspired to knock, this guy named Robert said they were playing board games as part of their "anti-Super Bowl party" and invited us in. We talked with the 6 people there for a little while about the game, and then Robert said, "Alright, you got 2 minutes to convert me!" He was mostly joking, but we didn't waste any time. We bore testimony of the truth of the Restoration and taught all 6 of them about how the BoM testifies of Jesus Christ. Robert said that he received a copy of the BoM as a white elephant gift this year, so he decided to start reading it, and he has a lot of questions! We set a time to come teach him and his wife and pass them off to the Sandy River Sisters! It was such a direct miracle because those Sisters have been struggling to find people to teach recently and they were estatic when we called them to tell them to good news.
More and more frequent has God's hand been involved in the work we're doing out here in Oregon, at least what I'm able to recognize. I've been praying for increased ability to recognize the Spirit in my day to day life, even hour to hour. God's will isn't always the most clear to us all of the time. Sometimes He wants us to use our agency to make some decisions in life, but if we really need, He will guide us through His Spirit. I'm so grateful for this tender mercy because without it I wouldn't be able to be a very effective missionary. It's a team effort between the Lord and His Spirit and my companion and I. It's going to be a great month and I pray that you will feel the love I have for all of you guys! Have an amazing week!
Love,
Elder Fonnesbeck
What happened to January?! It's already February and our transfer is going to end next week right before Valentine's Day! We somehow survived the darkest part of the year and the weather was actually very mild, which is appreciated. In some parts of our zone, it was snowing last night and it should again today, but not up here in Gresham. We're still pretty close to Portland and so the temperature won't drop enough. Although as soon as it starts to stick then President would call us and tell us that we would have us park our cars and walk everywhere we need to go. Hopefully, it doesn't get to that point even if I love snow that much.
Earlier in the week, we went on exchanges with the Assistants. Elder Anderson went to downtown Portland for his first time and had a blast talking to all of the crazy people. Elder Boychuk came here for a crazy time in the Hood. He's from Canada and loves to express it to others. His family sends him tons of Canadian gear so he can share it with other missionaries. Anyways, we had a couple pretty solid lessons fall through with Eddie and this other guy named Jacob, but we made up for it with the extra finding time. Again we were very prayerful on where we should go once we were in an area. Time and time again we were placed in the perfect spot to talk to somebody about the gospel. Unfortunately, we didn't get anything super solid from it but a couple phone numbers and some leveled up people.
Going into Wednesday was a pretty open day. There wasn't anything already set up, and so we went into it ready for the challenge of at least 8 hours of finding. Right off the bat, we found an Egyptian professional soccer player named Khaled. We previously prayed for where to go and we really felt prompted to his building and even his door as it was the first one we knocked. He has a good mix of Islamic and Christian beliefs and graciously accepted a copy of the BoM to read and study before our next visit. Regardless of the beliefs, he's wanting to come closer to God and he feels that this is a new opportunity to learn something more about Him. And boy is he in for a treat! Without us even asking he asked if it would be ok to bring his good friend who lives within our area boundaries to the appointment!
This week we had many different lessons with some of the people we're teaching. We finished teaching the plan of salvation to Eddie who really liked it. He's having a hard time praying though because it's something he hasn't done in years. We also had a bomb lesson with Leyva who definitely felt the Spirit when we shared the message of the Restoration with him. For whatever reason, his eyes were different after that lesson and we have yet to hear back from him what he thinks of the BoM. Because of the Super Bowl though, most of the people who committed to come to church weren't able to make it. That was a bummer, but Carlos still came after we had tried passing him off to the Vancouver YSA Elders. He has some good friends in our YSA branch that he feels more comfortable with I guess. If he wants to be apart of our branch then by all means haha.
As a zone we came together Saturday night via video chat and began a zone fast with prayer. In our zone chat everyone posted names of those who they wanted to specifically fast for and we even fasted for extra miracles. For us, one of these miracles came right after we broke our fast. We hit up this one duplex in Sandy River, and at the first door we felt inspired to knock, this guy named Robert said they were playing board games as part of their "anti-Super Bowl party" and invited us in. We talked with the 6 people there for a little while about the game, and then Robert said, "Alright, you got 2 minutes to convert me!" He was mostly joking, but we didn't waste any time. We bore testimony of the truth of the Restoration and taught all 6 of them about how the BoM testifies of Jesus Christ. Robert said that he received a copy of the BoM as a white elephant gift this year, so he decided to start reading it, and he has a lot of questions! We set a time to come teach him and his wife and pass them off to the Sandy River Sisters! It was such a direct miracle because those Sisters have been struggling to find people to teach recently and they were estatic when we called them to tell them to good news.
More and more frequent has God's hand been involved in the work we're doing out here in Oregon, at least what I'm able to recognize. I've been praying for increased ability to recognize the Spirit in my day to day life, even hour to hour. God's will isn't always the most clear to us all of the time. Sometimes He wants us to use our agency to make some decisions in life, but if we really need, He will guide us through His Spirit. I'm so grateful for this tender mercy because without it I wouldn't be able to be a very effective missionary. It's a team effort between the Lord and His Spirit and my companion and I. It's going to be a great month and I pray that you will feel the love I have for all of you guys! Have an amazing week!
Love,
Elder Fonnesbeck
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| It finally snowed!! Well kinda haha. Just enough to make us happy! |
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