August 18, 2014

Hi family! I don’t know where to begin... Things have been crazy! Yesterday we came home from church and one of the elders in the apartment got thinking and realized they were in a house with bed bugs yesterday and forgot to dry the sheets so he threw the sheets and pillows in the dryer... well a few minutes later it starts making a funny whining noise so he opens it up and flames come out!! Our dryer was on fire and the flames were like 5 feet up there! I ran and got our water that we had and poured it on the fire.. It did nothing! The fire extinguisher we had was also out of spray so another elder ran and got one from the parking garage and by then the fire was bigger! So we got the fire out and then it just smoked and smoked and smoldered forever and our apartment was filled so it was pretty crazy! It looked like a bunch a dead birds were just roasted and feathers were everywhere. The fire department had to come and everything! They said it was most likely caused because it was to full, the belt broke, or there was down fabric in the dryer.. No one was hurt or anything we just don't have power back on yet so last night we had to sleep at the ZL's because our windows were all open with no AC and it was 100 inside... So there's one crazy story! Also going back now to the beginning of the week here is a few cool stories. A big focus has been contacting so we have really been trying to 'contact' people. So Tuesday we were on exchanges and there were 3 of us so in the morning we were having studies and practicing talking with people. So I was pretending to be a person named Earl and the other 2 elders came and were going to talk to me so I laid down on the couch and when they started talking to me I asked for water and they gave me a picture of Jesus.. Well we went out that day and we found Elliot, passed out on the ground, who when we talked to him asked for water and we gave him a picture of Jesus! It was really cool! We had some really good lessons this week; hopefully these people will become investigators. A while ago we talked to some random person who said we could come see them and they pointed out their house to us but we couldn't remember the address so we tried to go see them and were knocking on a few doors in the general area... well we knocked on the first door and at the same time the door behind us opened up and a mom came out with her 2 year old daughter and just stood there, so we started trying to talk with her but she barely spoke English, a minute later her other daughter who is older and knows English came home from school and was pretty much the translator. She said my mom was in the back room praying and heard a voice saying "go open the door" so she listened and there we were!!! SO COOL! We talked a little bit and she was so happy! She was crying and stuff and we couldn't even understand her but the spirit was there! So we just got her a Swahili book of Mormon on Saturday when we went to the visitor’s center with Patricia and are going over to give it to her tonight! One other cool story, so last Sunday a random guy showed up to church and we talked to him, found out his name was Patrick and he lived in our area, we got the major cross streets but not an address. So we had some members sit with him and then after sacrament we were going to talk to him some more. Well after sacrament it seemed everyone wanted to talk to the missionary's and he left before we could snag him... well all last week I was thinking/praying I hope we can find Patrick! On Saturday night we were at the park contacting and it was almost time to go in but we wanted to reach our goal of 40 people contacted in one day so we decided to talk to a couple more people.. Well guess who we found? Patrick! He was at the park with his family and we talked to him and got his number, he said he likes church and wants to come back! That sure was a tender mercy! I am out of time, I'm sorry I couldn’t send you each a little something, but I am glad you are all doing well! I love you! Elder Stevenson