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"