Elder Joshua Stoddard - Washington Spokane Mission 2015

Monday, January 30, 2017

Week 77 - Mission schedule changes

This was posted on the door of a less active member

We found that the snow was so hard we could stand on it, so we took a lot of pictures

There have been some crazy changes to mission life this week! Also we have had a ton of meetings this past week. We had a worldwide missionary broadcast this last week, and we also had a zone conference on Thursday and on Friday and we had to do our weekly planning. So this week has just flown by!

I'll start with telling you about the changes to our daily schedule. So at the end of the missionary broadcast on Wednesday the missionary council announced these changes which took effect immediately. Our daily schedule used to be that we would get up at 6:30 exercise for 30 mins and then study at 8 for an hour and then do companionship study at 9 for an hour. And we had an hour for lunch and dinner at some time during the day, but dinner was supposed to be finished by 6 normally. At the end of the day we would come in at 9 and plan for 30 mins. Now our schedule is that, in the morning before 10 we are supposed to exercise for 30 mins, plan our day for 30 mins, study personally for an hour, and eat breakfast and shower and stuff. During the day we have 30 mins for lunch, an hour for dinner, and an hour for companionship study when we can fit them in best. And then at 9 we come in and prepare for bed for an hour and a half. But we can go to bed at 9:30 pm if we want! It has been nice.

And because we spent so much time out of our area, we didn't have a ton of time to proselyte. We worked in the town of Plummer a little though and we tracted into a guy named Tim who let us in and we talked to him for 40 mins. He told us about a lot of trials he has gone through and we testified to him that our message would help him. We weren't able to teach him then, but we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he told us that we could come back later and that he really needed the conversation we had. We are excited to meet with him again.

Not too much has been going on though. We are really struggling to find new investigators right now. It is so hard to find people in these small communities where everyone is either not interested in religion or already has one that they want to stick to. But we will keep trying!

That was my week. It was alright. There were some hard times, some good times, some weird times, and some sad times. But it would be too difficult to write them all so I'm just going to leave it with what I've got written. I sure love you all!

Monday, January 23, 2017

Week 76 - flesh eating bacteria!!!

I have a story to tell that happened last night. So on Saturday we were at a fireside for our ward. After the meeting one of the members pulled us aside and asked us to come with him to give a less-active member a blessing. He had just been admitted to the ER because he fell and hurt himself. So we go with him and give him a blessing of healing. Then yesterday, Sunday, we got a call from the Bishop. And he informs us that the hospital had found that the member we blessed had a flesh eating bacteria, MRSA, all over his face and head. And to top it off he told us that the bacteria was highly contagious, and he advised us that we should call our Mission President and ask him what to do. So we did and he instructed us to stay in our apartment p-day and avoid other people and to call Sister Clark (she is the mission office nurse) for advice in the morning. So we went to bed thinking that we would be staying inside all day today and that possibly our flesh might be eaten by bacteria. Fortunately when we woke up today we had all of our flesh right where it was supposed to be and when we called Sister Clark she told us that while MRSA is contagious it is usually transmitted through open wounds and that we probably shouldn't worry about it. So everything is okay! But it was a pretty gloomy night and morning until we found out that we were gonna be fine.

Last photos with Elder Collins