Martin Luther King

Today at 2:57 PM

Hello everyone!

Sorry I'm a day late. With it being Martin Luther King Jr. Day the library was closed yesterday so we get to email today!

It's been kind of a slow week this past week. Lots of ups and downs as far as the work goes. Lots of really amazing things happened, but also some not so good things... A day in the life of a missionary!

Our investigator, Rashel, who was planning to be baptized on Jan 31st fell off date this week. She still hasn't shown up to church and she is still struggling with the word of wisdom. She's making improvement though, she hasn't completely cut out coffee and she hasn't been smoking as nearly as much as she was. So she will definitely be entering the waters of baptism, it's just going to take a little more time than we hoped for.

We had an awesome lesson with Erik this last week. We've really had to take baby steps with him and our invitations. But this last lesson we had with him we invited him again to come to church with us, and he said that he will! We were both very excited about this, knowing the type of person that Erik was when we first met him, he has really come a long way.

We had a new investigator this week, Micheal. He has a pretty sad story. He has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and tells us that he barely has a few months to live. So his response to us inviting him to read the Book of Mormon was, "I'll give it a shot". :)

We were out tracting when the Seahawks were playing last Sunday and all of a sudden we heard loud screaming coming from every direction from all over town. We looked at each other and said, well, the Seahawks won. Going to the SUPER BOWL!! YEAH!!

Last Tuesday we went on exchanges. And I was finally able to take over the area for the first time! I was super excited and I felt very ready to do it. And things started off super great! Everything was going according to plan and running very smoothly...until the very end of the night. We planned to go see our investigator, Karen, who's on date for baptism. She lives WAY out in the boonies so it takes a while to get there. I was with Elder Tipton at the time and he was driving. We were more than half way to Karen's house when the gas light came on. Crap. We decided just to keep going because if we turned back to get gas we wouldn't have enough time to teach Karen and make it back for curfew. So, we just kept driving. We were about a half a mile away from her house when the car slowly came to stop. We were completely out of gas. It was 15 degrees outside and it was pitch black. Our first reaction was to say a prayer and ask for guidance about what we need to do. After we prayed we walked up the road to the nearest house we could find to ask for help. No answer. We found another house, no answer. We found another house, a lady answered and told us that about a mile down the road in the opposite direction there was a man that would help you. We kept walking up the road and we finally made it to Karen's house. At that point I thought, it will all be okay, she can help us and we can even have a lesson with her! For the first time ever her house didn't have a single light on and no one came to the door. So, we started our journey back to the car. After walking for about 20 minutes in the freezing cold we could see someone in the distance holding a flashlight. They were right around our car and they were looking to see why it was sitting in the middle of the road. As soon as he spotted us he shouted, "You boys need some help?" we both shouted "YES!!" We told him our situation and he told us that he had a gallon of gas in his shed. He lived in the first house we found but he just got back from a bible study class so he wasn't home before (go figure!) and that he would be happy to help us out. He put a gallon in our tank and we were both so grateful for that man and what he did to help us. On the ride home Elder Tipton and I were talking about why things happened the way that they did. Why our Heavenly Father didn't just send the man earlier or why didn't He have Karen help us? And I realized that it's because sometimes our Heavenly Father requires us to pass through tribulation before we find salvation. Most of the times He requires us to work for what He wants to bless us with. He wants us to do all that we can, then He will provide a way. I have definitely found this to be true in the mission field. Most of the time things are very very hard. But our Heavenly Father requires for it to be so. Because in the end, we are able to understand and grow so much from our suffering.

I'm so very grateful for my Heavenly Father who loves me enough to call me to pass through tribulation. Because I know that through the help of Jesus Christ, we can all get through anything. And I'm so grateful for the chance that I have as a missionary to preach His gospel to the people here in Washington. The church is true and I love my Savior!

Thank you all for your love and support!

Elder Scott