First off thank you much for the package! Me and all of the other elders have just been pounding all the food like crazy! :D Haha it was great! Those were some awesome videos of the anvil firing! I've never seen it before so it was sweet!!! Cedar Rapids is the second biggest city in our mission and its like 160,000 or so people I think? Its similar but definitely different from Des Moines. We have three wards in the city and a couple of branches scattered around the stake. Guess what?! Waverly is actually in this stake! I was looking at a map of the stake boundaries and I see "Waverly branch" just about 80 miles north of here!
Guess what? This week we had the bikes because we are in a car share with some other elders in our zone and it was HOT AND HUMID! But! It was absolutely FANTASTIC too!!!!!!!!! :D On Monday we had a great p-day! Its so weird to have a zone p-day again and actually see other missionaries instead of just me and my companion! After p-day ended we were knocking and a lady named Julia opened the door. We start talking to her and were able to teach a brief version of the Restoration and she loved it! She is super humble and open to learn! Hahaha so apparently she is 30 but she looks like she is like 22, it was weird! On Tuesday, we went to a couple of appointments but they sadly fell through. Haha so we're on bikes and my bike is kinda goofy and I was gasping and wheezing trying to get that thing to keep going! We were able to fix it up so now it rides like a dream but whew! I am a little out of shape! Haven't touched a bike in like a year! We went and helped Brother Lahman transplant some flowers and grass shrub things and then he fed us Italian sausage! After that we got picked up by Tyler (A recent convert who is hilarious and I love him!) and we were able to go see a less-active member named Joanna. Haha her nickname she always tells us to call her is "Mama Joe." She is hilarious and super cool! That night we had dinner at the Andersens, fantastic Dominican food because Sister Andersen is a convert from the Dominican Republic, and we were able to share a message on obedience. It was great and the Spirit was pretty strong. They are so awesome! :) We also felt like we should go and try by Brian Foster and his family again so we did and we were able to teach him about the baptismal qualifications. Haha Brian and his wife Christine are like a comedy duo! Wednesday we went and helped Brother Quillin (an older gentleman in our ward) mow his lawn and do some weed whacking! After that, we went to our appointment we had with Julia but it sadly fell through because she was at the doctor's office for an sinus infection. We went and gave service at one of the libraries, haha they had me try to straighten a bunch of kids books, and then we did some finding. We were able to talk to a lot of people though because they were everywhere! Our mission is doing a new initiative called OYM which stands for Open Your Mouth. We try to talk to literally EVERYONE we see and its been fun! It was kinda uncomfortable at first for me because I'm not exactly the type to just randomly go up to someone and start talking to them about the gospel. I'm a little more reserved at times y'know? But! Its gotten easier as we've done it more and now its just a blast!
On Thursday we had our weekly planning session which was long but good. :) We were then able to and visit a member, Sister Meyer, and read out of Doctrine and Covenants with her. Hahahaha she is probably one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life! Ok I know I say that about a lot of people but its true. :) As we were riding over to the library to do our Mormon.org time, we stopped and randomly started talking to this guy walking on the sidewalk. He was sweet! His name is Austin and he has kind of been wanting to come back to church again and we were able to set up a return appointment with him for Saturday! On Friday we had our district meeting, it was fantastic and we were trained on beginning with the end in mind, and the Spirit was strong! Brother Lahman randomly called us out of the blue and invited us over for an early dinner so we were like, "Uhh sure!" :) We visited with the Mecks that evening, they're members who just moved here literally two weeks ago, and then we went to see Brian Foster. HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok so we get in there, he sends his kids upstairs, and then after the opening prayer he says, "Ok guys I nedd to tell you something." First off, he tells us about this amazing spiritual experience that he had that morning. After that he says, "I am finally ready and willing to commit my entire life and will to God. He has given me so many blessing like this new fantastic job I just got and many other things and I know that this is the path I need to take. Teach me everything and I will do whatever He asks." We were like, "......Alright." We'd gone in planning to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson but we scrapped that and ended up going over the baptismal interview questions with him and his wife. I've never seen him (and didn't think he would) cry before but like 3 times we were all brought to tears and the Spirit was just insanely powerful. It. Was. A. Straight. Up. Miracle. On Saturday we were able to go with Brother Ford and teach Sarah the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That was an AWESOME lesson! She had some concerns about is she'd be strong enough to stay active after she was baptized but the principle of enduring to the end helped her out a bunch. We arranged a ride for her to come to church and everything and she was pumped to come! Our appointment with Austin sadly fell through but it happens sometimes. SUNDAY WAS AWESOME! Brian and his family all came to church and stayed for the whole three hours and felt the Spirit really strongly and loved every second of it and it was awesome to see how the ward completely fellowshipped him! Whew! That was a long sentence! We went with Brother Bullock to go pick up Sarah but she'd left a note on her door that said, "Go without me to church today sorry. I'm not feeling well." Hey its not a drop so there is hope! :) The rest of the day was HOT! 90 degrees with 80% (or something like that) humidity and it was roasting! However, the Lord was able to bless us with a bunch of super nice people who would give us water as we went. :) We had some fantastic rice, roasted green beans and Spam, and a beef+pepper stir-fry with the Munsons that night though. They are from Hawaii and are probably the most awesome people in the world! This week was just great. :)
Love,
Elder Logan Flake
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