Woweee!!!
It has been such a crazy week!!! This has definitely been one of the best weeks of my mission!! So many incredible things have happened!!!
On Monday, we ran around and said goodbye to some of the members of the Totem Lake Ward. It was super sad to say good bye to some of the families, especially the Olsens and the Christensens. The Christensen kids are super attached to all of us missionaries. We had a really cool moment with the Olsens, to. We were leaving a message with them, and Brother Olsen just started talking about how incredible it has been to watch all of the Portuguese work go on and how they feel like they have such a connection to Brasil after going down there several times. He got totally teary talking about it.
On Tuesday, we woke up, and Ifinished getting all of my bags packed. We took off and got some tracting in before we had to meet at the Bothell stake center. I started getting super sad to leave Kirkland. I got even sadder when Elder Diago called me to say good-bye. He was all teary. The good thing is that I get to go down there and see them every Sunday at the Portuguese sacrament meeting.
At the Bothell Stake Center, President Beardall and President Williams( Stake President) talked to us for a while and gave us the rundown on everything that is happening in the stake. Not only are we whitewashing a whole zone of missionaries, but all of the ward boundaries changed on Sunday, which involved eliminating and combining several new units to make new wards. It was really cool, though, to be there with all the missionaries going to the zone. They are all awesome!! The Spirit was super strong as President Williams testified of how unique and special an opportunity that we have here. This is a really incredible opportunity because the missionaries from the Everett Mission have not been able to leave their apartments for pretty much the last year. There has been no work done outside the apartment, so all of these people have been waiting for us to contact them!! It is like a completely fresh start!!
I am so excited to be with Elder Ward!! He is an awesome missionary. I already know him really well because we served in the Portuguese group for several transfers together, though not as companions. We drive a minivan!! Only one of the other four companionships of elders drives a car, so we have to pick pretty much all of the Elders for P-Day shopping and for district councils.
On Tuesday, we went and dropped all of our stuff off at our apartment (which is super nice) and then we had an appointment at 5:30. I was able to set up a good amount of appointments for us before the transfer because I had a bunch of contacts that live in Bothell. This appointment was with Guilherme and Juliana. They are soooooo cool!! We started teaching them English, but it turns out they met with missionaries a couple years ago!! They love us already!! We had a second class with them later in the week and they fed us an entire meal afterwards. Guilherme invited us to go play soccer with him and a bunch of other BRazilians every Wednesday at a field right next to our house.
On Wednesday, we had to go take the other Elders shopping because no one had a chance to buy food on P-Day. After that, we went tracting for a while. We had some really cool experiences!! We said a prayer that we would be led to Brazilians, and the very first door we knocked was a Brazilian named Felipe. He wasn't interested in the gospel, but he works at a local coffee shop called Kitanda and said he would put up an advertisement for us. It was super cool because he was the very first door we knocked on. I definitely gained a huge testimony this week of how the Lord answers prayers and guides us by the Spirit. WE found at least one new Brazilian family every single day this week. This is remarkable, especially because none of the other 7 companionships ran into a single Brazilian family!! The Lord knows us and how to do His work through us!!
Another cool thing that happened at least once every day this week was that someone would let us immediately in after we knocked on their door each day this week! Every time, we would teach and talk for 30 minutes to an hour!! We met some really cool people.
We knocked on Jans' door. He left the church when he was 16 and has had a lot of interesting life experiences since then. He had a phase of life where he was very against the church and would do a ton of research to try and disprove the church. Currently, his feelings towards the church have neutralized and his relationship with his family is a lot more stable. We talked with him for a long time to see if we could help him come back.
We ran into another super less active member named Rachel. She let us right in to talk with her and her fiance, Brandon. He is Catholic, but he really wants to understand where Rachel is coming from, so he started asking us a bunch of questions. It was awesome. We talked about parts of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome, and before we finished, they asked us if we could come back on Saturday to explain more. On Saturday, we were on an exchange with the Assistants in the morning, so I went to teach them with Elder Rose. It went so well!! They had looked over the pamphlets for the plan of Salvation and the Restoration and had questions ready for us. Brandon's dad John was also there, and he was super cool. We had an awesome discussion.We taught them about the premortal life and they totally thought it made sense. After we did that, we taught them the Restoration, and it went so well!! We have another appointment with them tonight!!!
We got to have an in person lesson with Anna Paula and Marcio for the first time ever!! We have been teaching them on zoom for the last while, and it was so much better to be there in person. We taught them about receiving answers to prayer and how personal revelation works. THey opened up so much! It was awesome!!
On Thursday, we also had Zone Conference. It was super good!!I really love President and Sister Beardall!!
We ran into a really cool young guy named Michael. He is a Christian, and we gave him a BOok of Mormon and talked to him for a while at the doorstep. We set up a return appointment, and it went through!! We came back and had a really interesting conversation with him. He knows the Bible very well, but the cool thing is that we can actually talk with him openly about our beliefs and what the differences are.
On Friday, after we taught Guilherme and Juliana for the second time, we were tracting in their apartment complex. We knocked into this really cool Brazilian family that let us right in!! Their names are Marcello, Lidia, and Sabrina. The crazy thing is that Elder War taught them a couple times over zoom, but it was just too hard over video call and they were super busy three months ago. We talked with them for a while, and they want to start taking English classes with us again! We have two appointments set up with them for next week!!
On Saturday, we also went down to Enumclaw, right next to Mount Rainier!! It was such a pretty drive. Elder Ward served there for the last two transfers, and he got to baptize one of the people that he taught.The Spirit was really strong there. We had to drive for an hour and half to get there. I have now been to all 12 zones in this mission at one point or another, which is pretty crazy!!
Sunday was one of the best days!! We were led to four new Brazilian households!! They all live in the same complex!! We have been asking all of the Brazilians we know where the highest concentration of Brazilians is. We have narrowed it down to 2 areas so far. We got to do some work up in North Creek, which is one of them, earlier in the week. We had planned on tracting in Kenmore on Sunday, which is the other. When we got there, we realized that Elder Ward had forgotten his mask at home. We can't tract without masks, so we walked around for a while to see if we could find one. We were not successful, so we decided that the best course of action would be to buy another, despite it being the Sabbath. We were too far away from home to go back. It was definitely inspired for that to happen. When we left the dollar tree, we saw a guy walking on the other side of the street that had on a Brazil jacket. He was across four lanes of traffic, so we ran ahead to the crosswalk, crossed, and then chased him down!! He was not Brazilian, but in the half mile that it took to get to him, we passed by the Cedar Park apartments. We had forgotten about them, but earlier in the week, another Brazilian had told us that some Brazilians lived over there. We knocked for about 2h ours, and had some good success, but we did not find any Brazilians. On the last side of the complex, we found the first household of Brazilians. Five doors later, we found a really cool Brazilian lady named Marliette. We set up an appointment with her later this week. She was super cool. We asked her if she knew any other Brazilians in the complex, and she gave us the door numbers of all the others!! We knocked on the other doors, and we gave them both Book of Mormons and got return appointments with both!! One of them let us in and we talked for 30 minutes!!
I had the feeling that miracles were going to happen this week, but this has been truly incredible. I feel really blessed to be part of this!! I think that this has been the most joyous week of my mission!! I am truly amazed by how incredible God˜s plan is!!!
Doctrine and Covenants 8:2-3
2 Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.
3 Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.
I love representing the Savior in Brasil and Washington, I love the Gospel and Atonement of Christ, I love my family, and I love my Redeemer. I am ready and excited to work harder, learn more, and love better this week!
Love,
Elder Warren Matthew Dudley
Photo 1 - Last tracting session with Elder Beardall and Elder Ludgate the morning before the transfer
Photo 2 Elder Ward and I
Photo 3-4 - Morning workouts
Photo 5 - At Guilherme and Juliana’s house with their bird
Photo 6 - Tracting
Photo 7 - Zone conference with the Bothell Zone
Photo 8 - The special Transfer meeting. Left to right: (back row) Elder Lam, Elder Collard, Elder Whitney, Elder Depew, Elder Ballard, Elder Dudley, Elder Ward, Elder Simms, Elder Robb, Elder Whitley, Elder Huntsman (Next Row) Sister Schnebly, Sister McCurdy, Sister Bradshaw, Sister Lott, President Beardall, Sister Beardall, President Williams (Bothell Stake President), Sister Williams, Sister Rees, Sister Meyers
Photo 9 - Elder Ward and I
