Happy Independence Day!

Playing Football at the National Mall

Playing basketball with a member and some friends

Happy Fourth of July!

Well this has been quite the exciting week for Elder Bailey and I. The week started off pretty great. Monday morning some of us missionaries met at the National mall to play football. It was pretty exciting, except for the fact that it was pretty hot outside.  We had a great time playing so it was worth it. We walked up to the Good Stuff a Eatery afterwards and got some killer burgers. That was the part I was super excited for. They have these fries that they put herbs on and they are surprisingly super good!

Monday night we had a lesson with Shaka. Jacob came on exchanges with us. He is in the priest quorum and his dad really wants him to hang around good influences that'll make him want to serve a mission. Anyway, we had a great lesson with Shaka. The real miracle was at the beginning of the lesson a referral that we received from the Baltimore mission walked into the lesson. We didn't have an address for her so it was a huge miracle! The spirit was in the lesson and you could definitely tell that both of their hearts were softened. 

Tuesday at the farm we didn't have any riders show up so we got to spend the day herding horses into different pastures to eat. That was great because we got to chase after horses trying to catch them it was a lot easier to catch them after we had some caught before hand. We could walk up with the horse and it was as if they couldn't see us which was super strange. 

Our investigator Jacklyn we were able to visit twice this week. The first visit was to see when we could visit her again within the week. We taught her quickly a little review lesson on the Plan of Salvation because it was apparent that she had forgotten the little bit that we had taught her. Our actual appointment with her we talked about prayer and the importance of finding for our selves the truthfulness of our message. She is a bit sarcastic so it's really tons of fun to teach her.

Thursday morning we had the privilege to go and help President and Sister Cooke finish moving things around the mission home for the new Mission President. It was a simple little thing that we got to go do but it was treasured because we were the last ordinary missionaries in person to say goodbye to them. President Cooke out his arm around me and said goodbye which was really sad. He has been a great leader for this mission. We will miss him tons.

Saturday we got to spend time playing basketball with members and their friends. They had a tournament for the whole thing and Bailey and I won the whole tournament. The member thought we were joking when we said we would win. We found out that the new mission President President Johnson wanted to come out on exchanges with us. It was his second day and he was already coming out us. We were the first missionaries that he went on an exchange with so that was awesome. He is still a little washy on the rules, but he was asking questions and I was helping him answer the questions about rules he had.

This mission even though we have had a change of leadership is still directed by the Lord. I know that President Johnson has been called by God to serve and direct the missionaries in this area at this time. He is everything that this mission needs, funny, hard working, and most importantly very spiritual. We will miss President Cooke, but President Johnson will take this mission further than we think we can go. He will push our limits, help us become better disciples of Christ, and better men and women for this rising generation.

Love,

Elder Bentley