May 21, 2018

Family,

Okay so this week I think I'm just going to touch over some of the better points of the week. We were able to have 3 lessons with our investigator who is on date for June 9th. She is progressing and for the most part most her family is pretty supportive even though they are mostly all Catholics. She is from Guam. She was having a party at her house so on Tuesday she asked us to mow her lawn and clean up her yard because it was very much overgrown. It was fun to get out and work.

We were able to have our first lesson with the (M) family. They are less active members that were baptized within the last 5 years. They moved here from Texas a little over a year ago and just haven't been out to church. They are a younger couple with 2 kids that are like 4 and 5. We taught them on Tuesday and they had us over for dinner on Friday and then again on Sunday!! They are also doing really well. It's cool because we  met them through our investigator (J) because they are good friends. We have been able to go through all the lessons with them together for the most part.

Thursday we had zone conference which went pretty good. Elder Wright and I taught about Strengthening Our Desire to Serve and Our Faith that we can accomplish what we set out to do. We tied it along with Joseph Smith's first vision account and how his desire was to know what church to join. Joseph Smith had full confidence and faith that he would receive an answer and was fully willing to get up off his knees after he prayed to go and join what ever church he was told to join. As he prayed the first thing that came to him was opposition. He was seized upon by some dark unknown spirit. We all have opposition in our lives especially when we are trying to do what is right. Joseph then exerted all of his power to call upon the name of the Lord and was delivered from the darkness and not only received an answer but a specific answer and later he had instructions given to him of how to accomplish it. Which is what we know as the Restoration of the Gospel. That is a quick run down of what we went over but it was pretty good!

Saturday we had our Finding Festival which was way fun. We moved it to week 5 of the transfer but we mixed it up this time. We didn't do any tracting but everything was done out in public. We rode from 10:00 - 5:00. We rode the buses around federal way talking to people, we set up whiteboards with questions about God in parks and taught people. Some missionaries went to the baseball games that were going on and drew the Gospel of Jesus Christ into hop scotch and taught people there. It was a good day! We ended up finding 33 potential investigators and 4 new investigators as a zone!! It was a good day.

Sunday we had a pretty cool experience. We were at this big apartment complex. We had prayed and felt that we should go and tract there as we were doing our planning in the morning. When we got there we felt like we should pray to know what specific building to go to. As we did it was pretty interesting because we both got a different answer. (It has been a testimony builder for me as I have been on my mission that almost every day as my companions and I pray we come out with the same answer of what we should do. Then we see miracles as we go and do it. But this time it was different)

I felt like we should go to apartment B and Elder Wright thought we should go to apartment A.

We decided either way they were both on the other end of the complex so we were kinda confused but decided to start walking that way. We were about to get in the car to just drive over there but I decided that we might as well just walk and talk to people as we go. As we were about half way there we met 2 guys about 19 and 20 walking home. (D) & (V) We stopped and talked to them and they were so prepared to hear what we had to say. They said that they had talked with missionaries in the past and they invited them out to play basketball and have a lesson but they forgot where it was. Every Friday night at 7:00 we play basketball with the ward mission leader and invite all the non members we find and our investigators. Anyways they should be coming this week. We taught them about the Book of Mormon and they both asked for a copy and said that they would have some read before Friday night!

I'm so grateful for the way that the Lord works. I'm pretty sure that if he would have given us both the impression to go to apartment A or both of us to go to apartment B, we most likely would have been so excited to get there that we might not have taken the time to talk to these 2 guys along the way. Trying to do "what the Lord wanted us to do" but missed the wonderful opportunities that He was presenting to us along the way.

I'm so grateful for the Spirit in my life. We have seen many miracles the past couple weeks ad we have listened to the promptings of the Spirit which has lead us to much success. I know that the promises of the Spirit extend beyond missionary work as well and we should constantly be striving to listen to and follow the promptings as they come to us in our daily lives as well. I pray that you will all follow promptings so that you will find more guidance in all that you need.

I love you all and hope you have a good week!!

Elder Ethan Wayne Stucki

~Mom...(answers for Ty)

I did not use an umbrella.
Thermals are good. I would not get the thermal long john garments but just get regular thermals to wear over your garments. I never used shoe polish. journals are good. I would get a big one with big pages because it makes you write more if you try to fill out the whole page each day and also then you can put things in it like the programs of baptisms and things like that. .38 G2 pilot pens are the best. pencils are good to. sticky notes are good. oh well that's good then! also if anyone is ever wanting to send any gift card, there is a buffalo wild wings here...okay we will take you up on that next Tuesday because everyone goes there the last week of the transfer. yes transfers will be next Tuesday. Highlighters are nice for Preach My Gospel. don't use them in scriptures though it ruins them. color pencils are good for scriptures and certain pens as well to underline as long as they don't bleed through