MTC memories and a continual stream of interesting people

Hey all,

So I didn't mention this last week because I wanted to be sure, but Elder Moffett got transferred into the Inner Harbor area so we spent some time deciding how to divide up the area and who's going to take which area. We finished by deciding to split the area close to the original boarder when there were three sets in the ward, we moved it a little south to even it up, and Elder Moffett and his brand new trainee, Elder Munden, took the Northern area while Elder Haslam and I are now fully in the city. It is so much fun!! We see so many cool things, and quite a few strange things too, and we couldn't be happier. We've spent quite a bit of time down at the harbor simply because there are so many people down in that area. 

We managed to get two new investigators this week and one of their stories is so cool! The first one was originally a Bible referral near North Ave who we got to teach on Wednesday. Her name is Sherilla and she is so cool. We got right into the Book of Mormon and read the introduction with her then ended up talking about prophets and the first vision! She said she had a day off the next day and was going to sit down and read it so we're going to meet with her again this week. Our second new investigator was also a Bible Referral that we saw late Saturday night. He and his wife invited us in and we started talking to them. Turns out, he is already a member, he just stopped going quite a few years ago. His wife, who is actually his second wife, his first he got sealed to then they got divorced after they went inactive, used to be an investigator down in Richmond but never got baptized. They said they couldn't make it to church this week, because it was Stake Conference out in Essex, which is an hour and 20 minute bus ride one way... but they said they'd love to come the next week. They were so happy and excited. They asked us if we had any extra Quads because they miss theirs so much, I can't wait to see where this goes. 

We also had two meetings with Julia this week, one of which went amazingly and the other, not so much. The first lesson was about the Word of Wisdom, which I was slightly nervous about. We already knew that she up and quit drinking back in May so I wasn't worried about that, just about the smoking and coffee bit. But she asked about smoking right when we sat down and had a prayer so we were able to naturally go into that. At the end of the lesson she started half-talking to herself that she needs to throw away her patches and tea, all without us asking her to. The second lesson didn't go quite as well and for one solitary reason, her Husband is a Jehovah's Witness. Up until this point he's been pretty supportive, not interested in our message at all, but supportive of Julia finding a religion. But he kind of sat in on our lesson on Friday, he was in the next room, and he eventually ended up coming over and just went off on us. I was so glad that Brother Garner was with us because I had no clue what to do. But there was one positive thing that came out of that confrontation, I looked over at Julia a few times and she was nodding along to what Brother Garner was saying, and she kept stopping her husband so Brother Garner or Elder Haslam and I could say something. I was glad that I was able to get a confirmation that what we're teaching Julia has been having an impact, which confirmation I got from both our lessons this week.

Other than that this week has been pretty quiet. I've started to learn which people actually want to talk to us and which ones just want to talk at us, for various reasons. We had one guy who was talking to us and I knew we needed to leave but we had the new set with us as well so I couldn't signal them that we needed to leave as well as Elder Haslam. Thankfully Brother Garner was picking us up so he came over and saved us. This guy did insist on giving me a tie though, simply because I complimented him on it. So I have a new tie.

Love you all,

Elder Howell

Proverbs 3:5