Spanish Work and Miracles

Hey all,

I'm going to start with the crazy stuff this week and it'll progressively get more spiritual. On tuesday we had an awesome District Meeting on Tuesday and a wonderful dinner with the Bishop and his family. It was Spanish's day to have the car so the Bishop's son, who is preparing his mission papers, dropped us off on the East side of the city. We tried to visit a few people around there then decided to try down Market St, at the center of the city, so that Spanish could pick us up without wasting too many miles. We stopped at McDonald's, one of two public bathrooms in the city, and a guys started talking to us there. He did the normal spiel about needing money and we gave our normal answer of we don't have anything, which usually gets people to go away. But not this guy, he just kept talking and getting more and more insulting until he finally called me racist because I didn't have any cash on me... that makes total sense, right? When we finally got out of there we started down Market St again and we got talking to a lady around 8:30, who's opening line was that she was a prophet. She talked for about 5 minutes about how she isn't doing drugs, well, not the hard stuff anymore, apparently she can't function without the cold pills... It was around this point that a man came over, obviously a friend of hers and started talking to us. I felt the phone buzz twice while we were talking but I didn't want to be rude by pulling it out, especially since the man thought it was rude to look away from him, even for a second. it was one of those conversations where he insisted on telling us his life story of Drug overdoses and fun stuff like that and wouldn't let us leave, no matter how many times we tried to politely say goodbye. So he finally had to leave to go back to the YMCA and we were able to continue to the normal pickup point at 9 o'clock. It was at this point that I got a chance to look at the phone. Apparently Spanish was way too far north of the city to pick us up so we were on our own for finding a way home. So we started walking. It was good though that we had that time because there was nothing Elder Graff and I could do but walk and talk to each other, because there was nobody else out. We ended up having a really good talk about God's Plan versus our Agency, and why certain things happen and how God can possibly hope to keep his plan in one piece with all our imperfect selves running around like chickens with our heads cut off. But by the end of the day, 6 miles in 35 degrees and some super whacky people, I love it! As much as I wouldn't trade what I see and hear out here for anything, I was so glad to crawl into bed that night. 

On Thursday we had Exchanges with our District Leader, Elder Barlow. I got to go to the Spanish area, which covers the same basic area we do, just speaking spanish, with Elder Barlow's trainee, Elder Price. It was a pretty fun day, especially since the very minimal spanish I remember from high School only really allows me to have a basic understanding of what's going on. The fact that it was raining like the flood and we forgot our coats in the car made for a very wet night. We had a lesson and Elder Price would look at me every once in a while because he can't remember a word, sadly, i wasn't much help since I remember enough spanish to say that I can't speak spanish. He did ask me to find a few things in english that he could translate. We also had a lesson with a Recent Convert who converted from Jehovah's Witness. She spoke  good enough so I was actually able to be involved in the conversation. She has been having concerns about Jehovah being Christ so the next morning I spent Personal study trying to find parallels between Jehovah and Jesus in the Old and New Testament. On the way home that night we stopped for gas and the donut shop is right next door so we stopped for a couple. Then we found out that if you buy the day olds, which are just like the fresh ones, just packed better, you can buy 3 dozen for 5 bucks. We also got trapped talking to 3 really old guys. It honestly looked like a scene out of the Andy Griffith Show. But one guy was telling us about how we're the best church but he doesn't go to church, another guy who was telling the first guy to just go to church, and the third guy telling me how the Church made him sign his records out of the church 30 years ago, because he was studying Astrology. All very interesting people.

Friday I went out with Elder Barlow in my area and we walked around the city and tried contacting there. We stopped by a Less active that we met with about 2 months ago but haven't been able to meet with him since named Brother Claghorn. He let us in and we started talking and the Spirit was so strong. He insisted on taking our picture and putting it on the ward Facebook Page. He said the prayer at the end and he was crying by the end of it. It was such an incredible experience. Sadly he didn't make it to church this week but we'll keep working on him. On Thursday and Friday it was in the 60s, and on Saturday it snowed 4 inches in about 5 hours. We weren't allowed to go out in the Evening because of the weather so We hung out with the two sets of Spanish Elders at their apartment, about a 5 minutes walk from ours. Then Sunday it was back to the 40s. That's Pennsylvania for you. We had an amazing Gospel Principles lesson on the Holy Ghost, sadly no investigators there, but the members had a great time.

Love you all,

Elder Howell

Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58