Season 17: Enumclaw 1st. Episode 1:His Perfect Will and Timing

Time keeps on marching on and on! I remember at the beginning of my mission reading Jordan Stouts season 17 emails and I wondered if I would ever get there. I have now and it is going way to fast.

The work here in Enumclaw is great. It is similar to North Tapps, but a lot more rural. Our ward is the biggest ward in the mission and as a result a good amount of driving happens. I love the ward so much already! They are all so wonderful and willing to help. Coming up we are going to be starting a 40 day fast soon. The work here is going to be on fire. I am expecting miracles with all of the swell stuff that is happening. 

The work here was going slow, but is now starting to pick up real quick. We have been blessed to find some great investigators who are actually seeking to know the truth and desiring to have help with their concerns. Here is a super summary of each of them.

Johan and Catherine were found right after we followed up with a former investigator. They were out on their porch smoking when we came up and talked to them. Catherine had never really opened up or talked to missionaries before, but the circumstances she and her family were in has placed her in a place where she is willing to listen and learn. Her son is going through some very hard things with the death of his fiance of 10 years. She is looking for help and comfort. I am grateful we were striving to talk to everyone because it would have been really easy to just walk right by. Obedience brings blessings to us and Souls to Christ.

Ty and Jakin are members of a christian church in the area. They have some great respect for the Mormon church and were very kind when we talked with them. Jakin who just graduated from High School asked the missionaries to come by when they were at the library. He has some big concerns, but if he is willing we can help him overcome them. One of them is using a scripture in Galations 1:8 to say that any Angel or anything preached is accursed/not the word of God. We have prayed and have a great lesson plan this evening to talk with them about it.

The others are Brother and Sister Martelle. She described herself as a "Neo-Pagan." Interesting... We are going to have fun teaching them :)

Elder Rasband came and visited our mission! It was very powerful and I received that he was a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator in these last days! One thing I learned is that he is the 98th Apostle of this dispensation to be set apart and given those keys. It was amazing and an experience that I am not going to forget.

Sorry its short, but times a running out!

Love Ya!

Elder Sumsion

"Search the Book of Mormon and the words of the living prophets every day, every day, every day! It’s the key to spiritual survival and avoiding deception. Without it, we are spiritually lost."

 

-Elder Kevin W. Pearson "Stay by the Tree"

Season 16: Skyway. Episode 6:Tender Mercies

The Renton Zone.

Part of the Skyway Ward. By head from left. Sister Stevenson, Brother Stephens, Bro Sablan,
Sister Sablan, Elder Knowles, Justine (new convert), Elder Rex, Elder Sumsion, Jazmine, Bishop Munson,
Sister Beck, Elder Payne, and Elder Richards.

We found a frog and got some action photo's :)

Howdy and Hello!

The transfer calls came in and I am heading out of Skyway! After almost 8 months/6 transfers I am heading to the Enumclaw 1st ward for my last 6 weeks. My companion will be Elder Fenton. I have been on 1 exchange with him and I am excited to serve with him. This is going to be an old companionship because I am pretty sure he just started his last 12 weeks. 0.0

This week has been very grand and swell. It seems like the best week in an area is usually the last one. It seemed that Elder Richards and I weren't having as much fruit as we could and I was thinking and about the different things we could do to find those who are ready. I remembered that we weren't doing the best at keeping up on the area book work. The area book is something that missionaries have in every area that is a record of the work you have done there. I have learned on my mission that it is a way to account for the work you are doing in the part of the vineyard you are serving in. I also learned that if you aren't doing a good job of keeping track of those God is blessing you to find, why would he bless you with more if you were going to forget?

As soon as we got all caught up that is when we started experiencing and seeing many more miracles.

One of those great blessings came in a way that we didn't expect. We were talking to people along Rainier Avenue and Kenyon Street when we needed to use the restroom. We walked to the closest store called "Store and Grocery." In it there were no public restrooms, but the guy from Ethiopia working there let us use them. Afterwards we got talking to him. He has had great interactions with the church in the past and really loves the missionaries. David grew up in a christian household, but with split religions just like Joseph Smith. We shared that story and he really connected with it and the other things we were sharing!

We came back days later with a Book of Mormon in Amharic for him and he nearly jumped with excitement when he saw it! He is sooo sincere and I love him! He is a busy fellow and so we are going to be stopping by at various points to teach him a little bit at a time while the store is the least busy.

Great tender mercies come all of the time in missionary work and it is easy to miss 'em if you aren't look n'! Often times we will get people who want us to visit them, but they will be in an apartment complex with a locked gate or a door that we cant get passed. Then to make things worse they have these call boxes next to them to let the person know we are here, but 90% of the time they dont even work! I have seen Gods hand in simple ways to get us in those complexes and they are all nice. Yesterday we had 2 of those experiences. We came to the door and it was locked and the call box wasnt working. A lady walked on in, but she closed it to purposefully not let us in. Elder Richards shared an idea of "Is there a back door?" Yes, there was and it was slightly ajar to the point where the lock didn't engage.

The other one came when we were trying to deliver a Bible to a lady in a complex with a gate and a voice box that didn't work. Just to the side there were some kids throwing paper airplanes and one of the planes went of the fence. The kid ran out the door and let us in on his way back in. BUT there was a second locked door we had to get through and it was locked. We started to walk away from it and just before we completely left the complex, the kids yelled for us that they got the 2nd door open. They held it open for us and let us in. The Lord will provide for His servants :)

Elder Richards is going to be a trainer this coming transfer. I am super happy for him! He has progressed a lot during this transfer and I expect will continue to. Training is a refining process as a missionary for the trainer and the trainee. There are several reasons of why you are called as a missionary to go wherever you are called to go. Reasons include for the particular people your specific example will work for, the Mission President you will have, and I also believe for the trainer who welcomes you into the mission. Elder Joshua Graham played a vital role in my missionary service for which I will ever be grateful.

Love you all! Continue to be faithful and work hard. That is what I am doing. One little phrase I love is...

"You will spend 18 years preparing for it.

2 years doing it.

And the rest of your life reflecting on it."

This transfer is going fast with a visit from Elder Rasband this Saturday, a Zone Conference, Interviews, and a visit from Elder Robert C. Gay of the 70. I pray to do my best in this short time I have.

--

Sincerely,

Elder Sumsion

"Search the Book of Mormon and the words of the living prophets every day, every day, every day! It’s the key to spiritual survival and avoiding deception. Without it, we are spiritually lost."

 

-Elder Kevin W. Pearson "Stay by the Tree"

Season 16: Skyway B. Episode 5: Bisrats!

The District! From Left: Elders Ward, Perkins, Sumsion, Richards, Sisters Livingstone, Ericson, Beck, and Stevenson.

All of us have gifts. Elder Richards has the drawing skills and I do not. I got some sideways thumbs up skills.... and I dont know if Elder Richards does or not ;)

Howdy Howdy!

Today I identified several things that I wanted to share, but I am not sure how to cohesively put it all together. 

Elder Richards and I are still progressing and making progress. One of the goals that we are working on is to be in bed trying to sleep exactly at (or before) 10:30pm. My whole mission I have done it where I start saying my prayers right at 10:30pm and then afterwards I would go to bed. I have also been on exchanges with Assistants where they have done the same thing and so I felt like I was being completely obedient to it. Elder Richards has had several promptings since the beginning of the year that he should be in bed at 10:30pm. He had been doing the same thing as me, but we both felt prompted that we should strive to be in bed trying to sleep at 10:30pm exactly. Its been great for me because its a goal that has been causing me to try and change 22 months of habit and it is tough to change, but it has been a great experience working over it. It has truly been a sacrifce as I spend time that I would normally spend writing in my journal or just sitting and thinking instead on praying. The Lord sacrifices when we try to obey and we are both trying to be exactly obedient.

That is one lesson about revelation that I can share with you in a short sentance. Heavenly Father is not likely to inspire you to do something else if you haven't acted on what He has told you to do. Think of yourself in a giant maze with your Heavenly Father on the top of a huge tower in the middle. He knows the way to the exit. You ask him for direction and where to go and He will tell you something like "Take 20 steps and then turn right." When you follow that pattern eventually you will get out of the maze. 

But if you instead ask Him to tell you the whole route that you need to go, you would forget it and get lost anyway. Ask Him and he will give it to you bit by bit. When you follow Gods direction, He will tell you more. 

We are still searching and seeking for the elect here in the area. There is a goal that the mission has set to help 111 people repent and be baptized by the end of the transfer. On Thursday night I was having a conference call with the District brainstorming and counseling on what we could do as a District to help contribute to and reach this goal. Through a flurry of ideas, The Spirit led us to what we should do. It was determined that we would fast on Saturday to Sunday that each area would be blessed with a family to teach and who would be baptized. On Friday night we shared ideas of how to find these families over another conference call.

We fasted and it was awesome! I love fasting and praying for miracles because they do happen. In Skyway B we experienced some great blessings I believe to be related to the fast. No direct fruit for the Skyway B area, but we did get to send as a referral to several other missionaries some families!

Three I can specifically remember. 1)We met this mom of 5 kids who is Latino and lives in Federal Way. She accepted for the Spanish Missionaries to come by and visit her there. She also gave us some fresh apples that they were delivering to some family. We got this huge bag of about 20 apples. We were grateful! 2) We met a man from Samoa who lives in Kent. He has had several interactions with the church in the past that have all been positive. He enjoyed talking with us and we got to send him over to the Samoan missionaries of the Seattle mission. 3) We met this nice 7th Day Adventist Filipino woman who accepted for the missionaries in Puyallup to go and visit.

Yesterday while we were finding we met this man from Ethiopia. He name was Bisrats. In Amharic apparently it means "surprise!" He said he was alright with us coming by and visiting with him this Friday. We have also met several other individuals who said we could come back. The work is great here in the Lords service!

You never know what you may find or what may come up as you are serving the Lord, but you can trust that all of the surprises will be good ones.

Love you all!

Elder Sumsion

"Search the Book of Mormon and the words of the living prophets every day, every day, every day! It’s the key to spiritual survival and avoiding deception. Without it, we are spiritually lost."

 

-Elder Kevin W. Pearson "Stay by the Tree"

Season 16: Skyway B. Episode 4: Drop Now to Baptize Later

Exchange with Elder Payne. This was an exchange I just loved! It was stress free and we had some good fun cooking a fancy meal (mashed potatoes, low-quality Mac-N-Cheese, and some cornbread muffins). Elders sure know how to cook (the left over things in their apartments)!

Nice Clouds :)

Rainbow :)

There are signs like this all around where we serve and we never get to go find out what is so unbelievable or exciting or electrifying. 

Howdy howdy everyone!

Its been a groovy week for preaching to gospel! I have a goal to help 5 people come unto Christ by repenting and being baptized before the end of November. Throughout the week I had the realization that those individuals who will be baptized by the time would be found now. So Elder Richards and I are setting goals and making plans as per usual in the work of the Lord. We have been exercising the faith to filter/drop this past week so we can find those individuals. We have already seen the blessing of starting that process.

One sad event occurred yesterday with Mia dropping us... over text. With a previous lesson we had with her she said that she felt that she had offended Sister Kemp and she said she felt bad for wasting our time. She has for now decided to stay Catholic. Elder Richards and I prayed fervently to know how to respond to this drop and we received specific direction on what we should do to respond.

We did what the Spirit prompted us to do and we feel certain that the Lords will will happen. I feel a spirit of peace knowing that we have done all we could and that in the end it will work out for her.

We had a lesson with John yesterday night. We have been teaching him the Word of Wisdom for several times and he doesn't remember it when we come by. He also expressed that he doesn't want to be Mormon because he has been Catholic his whole life and so has his parents and he just wants it to stay that way. He is in such a state where we aren't able to communicate with him well and where he isnt able to understand what we are saying. So we told him to give us a call of when he wants us to come back and visit him and he said he would.

There is the news in terms of investigators dropped, but investigators found is another story. One individual we were blessed to be placed in the path of was Brandon. He is Chinese and converted to Christianity 2 years ago. He shared an experience where he got in an accident and was stuck in the mud and prayed for God to help him. Eventually after 8 hours someone came and got him and he saw it as a sign from God.

We will be blessed with many many more individuals to come and I am excited to see the blessings.

General Conference was swell too! The questions I had were certainly answered and I cant wait to take more time to reflect on the things there. It was also cool to see Mr. Wiser conducting the Priesthood Session.

I am going to get heading out. I hope you have a wonderful week!

--

Sincerely,

Elder Sumsion

"Search the Book of Mormon and the words of the living prophets every day, every day, every day! It’s the key to spiritual survival and avoiding deception. Without it, we are spiritually lost."

 

-Elder Kevin W. Pearson "Stay by the Tree"