January 13

This week Elder Palmer and I were walking on the sidewalk which wasn't cleared, plus it was next to the road which was paved. We were trudging through snow that went up to our knees. So we eventually called a member and asked him to give us a ride, because it would've taken us a couple hours to get to our next appointment.

We finally got rain! It's been a while. That means the snow is slowly going away, but that also means there's going to be a lot of Ice.

I'm teaching another excommunicated member who wants to be rebabtised. Investigators like that are always the easiest people to teach, because they already know how important baptism is and most everything in lessons is a reminder of things they've already been taught.

This was Elder Rhodes first week of teaching district meeting. I was impressed, he's done a great job teaching us and checking in on Elder Palmer & me to see how we're doing.

Also, this week during trade offs I got to spend a day with him. It was a good experience. The highlight of our day though was when we taught this guy who was referred to us by a recent convert. His name is Basie, we briefly taught him the restoration, but I'm not sure how much he got out of that lesson. He's one of the most confused people I've ever taught. He asked us why he never herd of this Joseph Smith guy from the bible, and we explained that he wasn't alive the time the bible was written. We told him multiple times that Joseph Smith was born in the early 1800's. Then he asked us why he's not in any scripture, so we showed him the scripture in 2Nephi 3 that prophesies of Joseph Smith, and said "Well it only says his first name, it doesn't say Smith." Elder Rhodes was smiling but he was getting frustrated. Basie also kept bringing up Rev1:4 which talks about the seven churches, and he tried to use that as a way of arguing that there isn't just one church, and we explained that it just mentions seven churches and nowhere does it say that they belong to Christ. Before we left he told us he'd do some research on Joseph Smith on Mormon.org. Elder Rhodes and I still joke about that visit. :)

Elder Palmer & I visited a couple that we've met multiple times, but haven't been able to set up an appointment with yet. Both of them were pretty hammered. Besides that we had a good visit with them, we finally set up to meet with them Wednesday! We said a prayer with them, and before we left they gave us the game Life, a 'build it yourself' antique ship, and corn chips. Those two are fun to visit. :)

This sunday a speaker wasn't going to be able to make it, so the bishop asked the 4 Elders to bear their testimonies during sacrament meeting. It was cool to have a chance for us 4 to do that for that for the ward.

It's good to hear from everyone. I hope you all have another great week.

Love,

Elder Candland