Today we took our entire zone out to the beach. It was about an hour and a half drive there and back but it was totally worth it. We went to Pacific City and we were able to sit down as a zone and Elder Irvine and I had planned out a little lesson about living our lives the way that Christ lived his. The theme for our mission is to build upon the rock and the image is haystack rock in Pacific City. So we sat in front of that huge rock and we were able to read from the scriptures and talk about how we could become more Christ-like. It was great and the spirit was really strong. It was also a way fun to sit on the beach and eat, fly a kite, play a little volleyball, take pictures and just play in the sand. After that we went to the Cheese Factory in Tillamook. It was super busy, so busy that we didn't even stand in line to get ice creame. But that is just the way that it works sometimes. The Hawkers from our ward were able to drive us out there and we really had a great time with them. They are out "go to" members and they live conveniently close, across the parking lot. I was fun though because they have a 12 passenger van so we had four missionaries and them in there.
This past week was also way cool! On Thursday we had MLC in Newberg. We weren't able to have it at the mission home this time because they had one of the neighbors file a complaint about all the missionaries going in an out all the time. Hopefully they can get that resolved soon because it would be really terrible if they couldn't use the mission home for its intended purpose. MLC was really interesting though because the former missions have finally started to come together and lets just say that there have been a few growing pains. There are definite differences in the Portland and the Eugene Mission cultures and it has made for a few interesting companionship's and meetings etc. We were able to get much of that resolved at MLC and we have Zone conference this coming week and that should also help smooth out the edges. It was cool though because we were able to also spend quite a bit of time talking about vision. President asked Elder Irvine and I to share our vision and talk about what we did to come up with it. That was cool to be able to share with the leadership of the mission what we were doing in our area and in our zone.
Friday we had our weekly planning day. We really wanted to seek the will of the Lord and to do what he would have us do. We prayed and we asked Him what he would have us do. We felt very prompted that we needed to and that we could assist in helping Chelsea and Wendi get baptized. So that became our focus. We prayed for them we made them a very specific part of out fast. We knew that in order for us to get this accomplished that we needed them to come to church and in Wendi's case we needed to meet with her because we hadn't heard from her in three weeks.
So the first thing that we did Saturday is we went to go visit Wendi's fellow-shipper. Unfortunately no one had heard form her and the daughter that had heard from her was at the Laurel High Adventure... We really din't know what to do at that point. So we just kept her in our prayers and kept her in our thoughts. Some how we figured that it would all turn out fine. At this pint we turned our focus to Chelsea. We called her to remind her to fast. Three weeks ago we asked her to pray set a date that she would know if the church was true or not. She picked August 4th, fast Sunday. So when we taught her on Wednesday we focused our lesson on fasting and the power that could come from that. When we called she wasn't able to talk but she said that she would call us back later, so we told her that we went to bed at 10:30. We are in our apartment and we have started our planning session. No call yet. We decided that if we hadn't heard from her by 10:20 that we would just text her to remind her to fast. We really didn't want her to miss out on that opportunity. She called at 10:10 and we talked with her about fasting and she said that she had been thinking about it all day and that she would see us in the morning at church.
Sunday morning we had a meeting with our Stake Presidency and President Samuelian along with President Lewis (1st councilor in the mission presidency). That meeting was great and we are going to see great things come from that meeting. It was all in vision and what we need to do to progress the work. We got out of that meeting and walked into the chapel (8:40) and there was Chelsea sitting all by herself. We walked over and she asked where Amy (Sister Updike who invited her to take the lessons) was. We told her that we didn't know but we introduced her to President Samuelian and Lewis. Sister Samuelian and their daughter Nicole, who is waiting to go on her mission to Florida in a couple of weeks, were also there. So we introduced them to Chelsea and Nicole came and sat down by her. It was perfect because they are very close in age. Sacrament starts and I had seen RayAnn walk in to the chapel and sit down with the Ellison's. We were singing the opening hymn and Elder Irvine leans over to me and says,"Wendi is here." In my mind I switched Wendi with RayAnn so I just brushed it off and said I know. Then I saw Wendi sitting with the Shurts and then I realized that it was her. I was so excited! So we had a week full of miracles. Sunday afternoon we had a lesson with Chelsea and we asked her if she had gotten her answer yet and what she saud was that she could no longer say that there wasn't a God but she didn't feel like she could say that there was for sure. We think that she knows that it is true but is afraid to admit it. We are still working with her and she will come to see it and be able to admit it soon.
Thanks for all that you do for me! I love you very much!
Dustin
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