Monday, November 19th, 2018

Hello everyone! I have a little more time to write my Email this week, so there will hopefully be a little more detail. 

We woke up one morning this week and looked out the window and saw about 1/8 of an inch of snow on the ground. It was pretty exciting. It rained the rest of the day, so it melted all the snow. Since then it has not been below freezing so the very wet ground has not turned to ice. There was one day this week where it was 34 degrees and windy and raining. I put on my full winter gear for that day. 

The mission office is trying to find a new apartment for our area that is more accessible for missionaries in the future, so the housing coordinator asked us to go and check on a few places. The first place we went to looked decent, so we decided to tract in the area, not only to find people to teach the restored gospel to but in hopes that we would be able to see inside of the apartments to see how suitable they would be. The first door we knocked on did not answer, but the lady was talking to us through the door,  which happens all the time. She expressed her disinterest, so we moved on. I had already made it to the next floor, but my companion had turned around because he wanted to put a pass along card in the door. I am looking down the stairs at him putting a card in the door, and it turns out the lady is still looking through the peephole, and instead of thinking we were putting a little gift on her door, she thought we were trying to break in. So she pounds on the door super loud, and my companion just takes off running, and of course, I follow him. We made it to the car and we decided to move onto the next place. Well, the next place our housing coordinator asked us to check on ended up just being a retirement community. 

There is a family in our ward that we are teaching the new member lessons to so that they can all be sealed together in the Temple. We are teaching the grandparents, the parents, their 2 adopted girls, and their many other children which I lose count of. Everyone is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and they all have records, except the grandpa. He claims to have been baptized in the church, and so does his wife, but we have no idea, and nobody can find his records. Hopefully, we find them, but if not, he may need to be re-baptized, which is a process I am unfamiliar with. In Preach My Gospel it says in these situations to work with the Bishop.  

There is another family in the ward who has two teenage boys that we are teaching, to help them prepare to receive the Aaronic priesthood. The family is from the Philippines, and after the lesson, they gave us fried plantains to munch on.

We had a bizarre lesson this week with a Philippino male nurse we met at a rehab center while visiting a member there. The only place that he feels comfortable meeting with us is in a mall food court. We tried to ignore the atmosphere, and teach him a lesson, but halfway through the lesson, he excused himself and bought dinner. It was strange, but at least he got us some food too. He started asking questions about the word of wisdom, and we told him smoking was against Gods commandments. Right after our discussion about the word of wisdom, he excuses himself again and goes outside and takes a smoke break. This will be a hard one.

There is a man named Robert that was referred to us by his friend who is a member living in Virginia, and yesterday, the member brought his friend Robert to church. Robert loved church and he is excited to come back! 

There is a lady that comes to church every week and she has been coming for the past year, but she is not a member. Her friend is a member and they work together, and her friend has been bringing her for the past year. The lady has kind of been known to avoid the missionaries at church, but after me and my companion gave our talks last week in sacrament meeting, she came up to us and asked if we could have dinner with her sometime! We are having dinner with her this week at the member's house! 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

Elder Dallin McKay Spurgeon 

Here are the things I am grateful for:

- A Loving Heavenly Father who blesses me every day.

- Jesus Christ, and how he lived, died and lived for me again.

- The companionship of the Holy Ghost.

- My Earthly Parents.

- A living Prophet.

- The Book of Mormon and the Bible. 

- The sacrament. 

- Temples.

- Knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. 

- Personal Revelation.

- The opportunity to serve a full-time mission.

- The Priesthood. 

- The best siblings ever. 

- Marvel.

- Sandwiches of all kinds.

- Y'all 💖