Wed, the night wasn't so hot. We got a re-schedule and then a dog so yes! Two appointments that just fell through, kinda sorry to start off on such a note and i hope that i don't complain too much but i would be lieing if i didn't say that this week was really hard.

Thurs, We had a really good appointment with Erika and Bro Asam! Taught the Plan of Salvation and it was really powerful. At the end of it, bro Asam told us that he loved it and he wants us to teach this lesson to more of his friends and he is going to let us know when he has the appointment for us! It is freaking sweet! If it were not for him i would hate this area. He is just the best missionary. I hate having to do member work and give them spiritual thoughts toward them doing something. Member's need to be more like Bro Asam. Just tell us hey i am going to let you know when you can teach my friends. I know it is hard in all and that you have a life, but i hope to be apart of the Work of Salvation for the rest of my life. Whether that be missionary work, family history, big one is family, it is all the same work and it frustrates me when people are not apart of it. But they are more apart of it than i give them credit for. Now i get to rant on anti-people. had a good lesson with Joel and it started out really good. He started to take notes and just asking us ?'s, then it just turns bad when he starts throwing his scriptures out at us in the Bible telling us that we do nothing for salvation that it is a gift and cannot be "worked" towards. I just want to slap people sometimes. He is a super smart guy and knows more than 90% of the people in the Church but that is his downfall...I have realized that knowledge pushes faith out, at least with some people. We need knowledge but there is some times when it is just too much...
We then had Bishop come with us and it is just super good. Checked on people and they answer the door with a member there...had a good chat with two really old guys. John Ward and Curtis Coberley! Bro Coberly came to church so it was nice!! Bro Ward hasn't been in ages but had a good story and we are going to try to visit him again! He served in WW2 and he told us how he led the troops through Normandy by asking the farmers where the mine fields were. They knew which were mined and which weren't and told them where to go. It was a super cool story. hope to get a pic with him before i leave!

Fri, We did the Garden in the morning. It is always fun to get a little dirty. Got the cops called on us, it was funny. bro Corbin showed them his pass and then he looked at our nametags and said i know who you two are...then said have a good day and walked away with a smile on our face. These nametags really do alot for us! Keep us safe in the streets of Anacostia to getting the Liesure World Police off our backs haha. We then had a good visit with Sis Puckett and helped her sort beads and didn't have any other appointments so stayed there for a while till dinner with the Irvines! Super good food as always. We then taught Amelia and Eric and set up a V.C. trip and taught them the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity. No problems..they really are golden!

Sat, We had a Big meeting at the Visitor's Center and really didn't get alot of participation...invited the whole Stake to come and not very many showed up! Kinda sad. Do a big whole thing on getting member's involved with missionary work and not many show up. It was good tho and needs to be polished up but good thing to use the Visitor Center for a tool for member work! We then taught Joel again and he brought a friend. I just had fun fighting haha. Sometimes i just give in. They have to make a comment about everything we say and i have fun making a comment back. When you have two people, who will be forever stuck in their ways you don't really make any progress. It took us an hour to get away from them. Ridiculous haha. I have met alot of anti people this week it seems like. One guy a couple of weeks ago told us he went in our temple with a hidden camera on and he tells us you need to really study your faith cause i know.  Shows that when you are not ready for it is just isn't good. I had a feeling of anger come at me and glad i didn't let is submerge haha kinda felt like hitting him. Sometimes you just need to knock some sense into people. We had Bishop take us to the V.C. Amelia and Eric and had a good time. Had the best sister in the mission give us a tour, which was comforting. Sometimes sister missionary's are just too much haha. Spiritual talk with sisters sometimes just drives it away but i am glad she gave a tour. Maybe it is just because she is from Idaho...prolly true haha. Joesph Smith movie was powerful and we talked about them joining the Church and decided to push is back a week so 3 baptisms on the 8th! Yippee!

Sun, Church was great. We then got to go to a baptism for a guy in DC 3rd that Elder Hall had taught. It was great to see faces again. good ole Sis Mack is still catchin me lookin at them girls haha. She is super funny. I was sad, cause Kirk wasn't there. He just couldn't make it that week i guess. We then had dinner with our new Assistant Ward Mission Leader  it was really good. Nye family. Then watched him give 4 blessings to kids from a part-member family whose dad isn't a member and one of his kids for school. It was a good expierience. We then taught Amelia and Eric the Plan of Salvation! It was good. They were not able to make it to church today cause their car got towed :(...Erika came tho! They will all be ready for baptism tho come Sept 8th!

Mon, District Meeting was okay. Not what i was anticipating it to be but it was good. First one that didn't go how it was in my head haha. Still okay tho. We then got dogged twice. then saw Bro Chatman for the first time in ages. He is just really busy with work. Still is thinking about church tho. Hope he finally decided to act soon. We then met with Bro Groome for a long night. Had a good time with him haha. Kinda were chucks too but he showed us all his Ray Stevens and Charlie Daniels songs. Had a good discussion about alma 34 and it didn't go as well as i thought. Good time tho. I really like him and hope he comes back someday. Just hard .

Tues, Really hard day. Went out and just found anti people. Made me really mad. This guy who is dad's age has been retired since 1987 and is just been doing Bible study basically. loves the bible too much. Compares our church to the Jehovah's Witnesses and just hits my pissed off bone. We gotta run i guess so i gotta cut this short. Not much else when on besides just checking on people and calling people. One of those really long days.

Wed, Temple was swell as was basketball afterwards.
Love ya thanks for the pictures this week!
Talk to ya next week!
Love, Elder Stoor

Wed, So Kimberly held her appointment and we were able to teach her a Restoration and commit her to read the BoM, we gave her a blessing as well. I hope that she will be able to put more light into her life. Hopefully she won't have problems with the "evil spirits" anymore. We then had a really good lesson with Amelia too! Just talked with her mainly and ended up teaching the Law of Tithing and a brief explanation of the PoS! Left her with that pamphlet. It was a good night!

Thurs, We were Weekly Planning today! There seems to be always something to do in the apartment. Updating stuff seems to be endless especially when you are working! We then met with Sis Henry for about an hour. She is coming to church in September haha. Guess that is better than nothing. Just wonder if she will say Oct in September haha. We then visited with a guy that has a 2008 Corvette, 1986 Porsche, 2013 VW Bug, and has rebuilt an old VW Dune Buggy! You can imagine what we talked about haha. I had talked with him before and he wasn't too interested in the gospel. We had a good discussion about life and the job world. Maybe we will get to him when we see him next! Forgot his name tho haha. I don't think we asked for it but talked to him for an hour or so haha. We then had dinner with Bro Berg and then had a meeting afterwards. He is taking off to Montana come this friday to go fishin and i told him he needs to go visit good ole Caribou County! He has been my favorite WML cause he seems to be the only one that is doing things without us telling him what needs to be done! Glad we only have to do our job and not his too!

Fri, We had a good study in the morning and headed to our apt. (good thing it was in our complex) cause a car strolled up and unrolled their window, thought they needed help and it turned out it was Uncle Craig haha. It was really good to see him. It did not make me trunky haha. I am really happy I saw him. Gave me the boost i need right now! It was a little different and i didn't really know what to say, should have invited him to our apt! We taught Erika with Bro Asam tho and had a really good Restoration lesson! At the end we had her pray and it was a really awesome prayer. I then invited her to be baptized right after and Gave her a date for Sept 8th! She threw her hands in the air and said Yipee! That was a first to me! She is super excited for it! really happy for her! We then saw Sis Puckett, She is a sweetheart! I love visiting there. It makes me want to be a better person every time i go over there! We role played with her today! It was super good. She is a very bold missionary and just tells people how it is! It can give a funny story or two! We then had Randy Kimble (LA) and Bro Schaeffer come with us to an appointment! It was great! Taught Eric the Plan of Salvation! I think we have found the reason Amelia and Eric are our investigators. Randy came to church this week for the first time in like 2 years and Eric and him have become friends, funny but they knew each other before.

Sat, We went to help Sis DeBerry get some stuff from her storage unit! Moved every box in her place haha. Eric came with us and then we went to the church afterwards to play basketball. I was super rusty. It was fun tho. We had the Irvines come and it was just a good ole time. We then went to Bro Bergs to talk about some more things he is trying to start to help us see where the less-actives are in the progress coming to church! We then went to dinner with Tommie! She is a super nice lady but is having a hard time in her life. We then saw Amanda and had a good visit with her and her husband. She doesn't want to be taught so we are trying to just build a relationship with her husband so maybe someday he will want to be taught!

Sun, Church was great! Ward Council was good too! We had Amelia and Eric, and Randy come to church! Erika couldn't make it cause her father had a stroke! She wasn't in a good place on Sunday to come to church i guess! Everything is okay now tho. We went to Why I Believe tonight with Amanda! It was super good. Amelia and Eric were supposed to come too but ended up showing up at 8:45 and the thing got over as soon as they called saying they were there. I took them back to the house and we watched the family video and then showed them the twelve apostles picture. It was really powerful. Eric said he felt the Spirit! It was really peaceful. Amelia then lit up and was super happy her son was feeling it too! Really neat experience. Funny moment, when they called they said they couldn't find the place and they were around back and the door wouldn't open. I ran outside and went behind the V.C. and they were not there....yes that is right, they tried to go to the Temple. I was laughing so hard haha. I had to contain myself when they came in view. Temple doors were thankfully locked.

Mon, ZONE CONFERENCE! Man what a long day! It was super good tho as always. Learned alot. There was a really good spirit there. we then had a good visit with Erika. We asked her what did she remember and she hit every point in the Restoration. It was awesome! We then talked about baptism and feasting on the scriptures. Gave her a PoS pamphlet and we will see if she can teach us it next lesson! We then had dinner with the Jupitor's! Super good! Found out there grandaughter just got home from a mission and we were in the same class at the MTC, it was a little funny. We then checked on former's and picked up a good potential out of it! I then had one of the best studies i have had in a long time. Read Alma 34 and kept thinking about Bro Groome the whole time and then did some good repenting and it was just cool as i looked over my notes from Zone Conference. Really just had a strong impression that God is real. It is hard to explain but this was prolly my most spiritual study i have ever had. Feel really good about it. I have been thinking alot about going home and about my mission so far and just came to some conclusions on what i need to do. Kinda weird but Grandma gave me the BoM in 100 days study guide thing and i looked at the calendar and i had exactly 100 days left. I am going to try to do it. and finish where i am at already Alma 34. The scriptures have really given me a boost lately and i am grateful for them.

Tues, We did a little planning this morning for our next investigator's lessons and updating and calling and all that fun stuff. Worked and checked on some people and got cancelled on and dogged haha. We then played basketball at the church again with a good group of young men! It was super fun and i kinda won every game i played. I don't like to lose and i think i impressed alot of them there. Guess i still got a little game left in the tank. We really did alot today but not much to really report on!

Wed, We did something really impressive this morning! We biked to D.C.! It gave us an accomplished feeling today! Kinda crazy maybe but it was worth it! We then went to Natural History Museum and came to the Library of Congress to e-mail! Super duper fun! I love the Mall!
Thanks for all you do!
Love Elder Stoor

Wed, It was really interesting without a phone to go in blind hoping the member we had set up to come to an appointment and have it hold! Well it did and it was really good. Randy is a less-active who we are going to get back into activity. Josh Highum was the member to come and he just got off his mission from the Poky mission haha. Tell those missionaries there in Soda i will betcha they know him. He set the appointment up and came and taught better than us so it was a really good appointment. We then met with another kinda less-active guy. At least in our ward. Bro Coberly is a ward missionary who attends the later ward most of the time cause he can't get himself out of bed haha. It was a good visit.

Thurs, We did a good ole day of using the phone! We called every less-active and potential we have! We made sure everything was updated in our good ole weekly planning session and it took a while. It was broken up by a member taking us to lunch! Chinese Buffet is always a good option. Eat all you can cause on a bike you just burn everything off then some haha. We then went to dinner at a member's home and had him talk our ear off haha. From Ecuador! Really nice guy. Asked one ? that took him the rest of dinner to answer haha. You think i am kidding too. It was fun to listen to him tho so don't think i am complaining. Nice not have to think of anything else to keep the conversation going for once haha. We then taught a potential about the book of mormon at GNC. It was a good time to teach him there we have gone in there almost every p-day to dream about becoming fit and skinny. Built a relationship and now we are going to teach him!

Fri, We put every last former investigator we have on our map! It was great! It is actually really exciting to me to be able to have them all of them up. now we can go to some places we have never been! I dunno what to do after we have checked on all of them. Good news tho. Amelia and Eric are our new investigators! She went to the church last Sunday and sat through a little of sacrament meeting of another ward and gave her info out. We went and taught them a Restoration lesson and it went great! After Joesph Smith's first vision, Amelia said "you know what i think i can believe this. I think i do believe this, because in the Bible God talked and visited all his prophets!" It was a good intro to the Book of Mormon, This is the way that you can really truly know this! It was a powerful lesson! They came to church! Eric is her son who is 20! Good guy! we are really excited. They told everyone they will be back and she is going to bring her twins who are 5 next time too! Introduced her to their primary teacher and everything just seemed to go as planned! We then visited Sis Puckett today as well! She is just a fighter. Also visited with a less active Sis Henry who is making plans to come back to church come September haha. Asam-Eyong family had us over for dinner! It was really good. Spinach with fish in it with the African aftertaste haha. (extra info, but this make my poop green for like 5 days haha) What food can do to ya haha. Never know what you are going to get with African food sometimes. Today was a really good day!

Sat, We went to the Garden and weeded a ton! It was fun. With Bro Corbin! We found a ton of slugs. I really don't like those things haha. We then had a good day of proselyting till dinner with the Sister Wills and her non-member brother! It was excellent! Super good homemade lasagna! We then took off to the Visitor's Center for a concert with a less-active brother! It was the wrong concert for me to go to haha. Opra in 5 different languages haha. It was really interesting haha. Good but not my cup of tea. We had another member who we thought was less-active but apparently is at church every week haha oops. She enjoyed the concert tho.

Sun, 3 People at church! YIPPEE! The Asam-Eyong family brought a friend to church that during Gospel Principles told Elder Appiah that she is going to join the church! Meeting with her tomorrow! Erika is her name! we are super stoked for a member referral! We then took Bro Coberly to the visitors center for a night of music and inspiration! It was super good. Met up with Bro J.S. Armstrong. He has now retired (from the DC 3rd Ward) It was fun to talk to him again. Apparently the FHE that I started there is still going strong. It is a good feeling to know something you started is still going and is an excellent missionary resource! They talked in church the FHE group and gave all the credit to Elder Fisher tho haha. Such a shame when he knows that i did it haha. It is kinda funny.

Mon, District Meeting went swell! We had lunch at Cafe Rio afterwards Yum yum. We met with Bro Groome about family history again. We are going to try to save his ancestors and we are starting to talk about God and things with him as well. His son is a Christian but not mormon pretty much told him that he was going to be damned and it just pissed him off even further haha. I really hope that he will come around. I feel like i have formed a solid relationship with him now and guess we will see. It is hard to see someone who has a testimony of the church but just has a big grudge against God and is now agnostic because of it. He is open to submitting the names he has found for temple work tho. At least have us submit them. He is a good example of not being a hypocrite to me! We then had dinner with the Thompson family. It was really good except their kids went kinda crazy cause the missionary's were there. They were embarrassed haha. Really good dinner tho! Did we go crazy when the missionary's came in Elko?

Tues, We went around our complex with the former list and got alot of them checked on and wrote some things on the records. We then went to Leasure World with Bro Schaffer and checked on the less-actives! It is truly a different world in a secure retirement living place! Cover's half of our area tho it is big! 7,000 people live there haha. We met with a guy from Iran who quit coming to church cause they found out in Iran and he can't come anymore cause he would just endanger his family. He escaped the country and it is just crazy over there. After we went there. We taught Kelvin at GNC again! He is from the Philippians and just started to read the book of mormon! we shared the Restoration super fast cause he is working and left him to read! We then met Kimberley! She is a single lady who is having problems with demons in her house. We gave her a Book of Mormon to read and we are going to go cast them out today at 6! wish us luck haha. She says she isn't living too bad and don't know why this is happening to her. She smokes, had an affair with a married man(but he was in an abusive relationship and is getting out of it haha) and tells us some more things. Told her to start putting light into her life and they will go away. Said a prayer and hopefully it works tonight! Then we looked up and ran home cause it was really dark clouds. Made it home a little early but then the thunder struck and it was a huge downpour outside haha. We just ended our night there! haha

WEd, we are at the Library of Congress! Super fun to be on the mall, visited air and space today and might hit another before going home we will see!
Love you all! Thanks for the e-mails!
Elder Stoor

Wed, Our appointment cancelled tonight so we went and played basketball with the other elder's and they had a couple of potentials and youth that came to play so it was really good! Had some fun, Then a member the Boyce family had us over for dinner! Super fun P-day!

Thurs, We had an appointment that held this morning! Wait....two appointments! No Way!, Esther is a former investigator who was taught about a year ago. Her teaching record says she is golden! There was a J.W. there when we got there but he was really nice and had to get going so he said a prayer with her brother who he is meeting with! Super weird to hear some other faiths pray sometime but it was a good prayer. We then taught a little about the plan of salvation cause Esther asked us if we believed in heaven and hell cause the J.W. don't and it was all awkward cause everyone turned and looked at us...we said yes and said we would explain further about it during the lesson. Anyways it turned out to be really good. She remember's alot from what she was taught and wants us to come every Thursday! We then saw Nikos. We talked to him a while ago and finally got an appointment. We sat down at his table and heard a big boom from the microwave! It was kinda scary haha. He tried to boil an egg in the microwave..apparently it doesn't work lol. We shared a little about he book of Mormon and gave him a copy. Committed him to read he said he would. Kinda shaky on a return appointment tho. Hopefully we will see him again. We then had a good day weekly planning. Planned what we were going to do and put up alot more less-active member's. We have been by every single person on our map at least once and some multiple. I am running out of idea's to do. We have been keeping track of our contacts and we talked to 50 people this week just out on the street. If we would have seriously talked to every single person we saw i don't think it would have gotten about 75. We have been working like crazy and hopefully things will start to fall into place!

Fri, We visited with Sis Puckett today again! What a great lady. She recovered from having to go in an ambulance from church on Sunday! I think she has been in the hospital more than anyone else i know. Her blood pressure just gets too low. She is the culprit of me and knowing my blood pressure is low too haha. Speaking of which...where is mine supposed to be? I don't remember what Dr. Judd always measured it as...We then saw a ton of people to no avail of any door being answered! we had dinner with Bro Berg and his wife! It was super good. Barbeque Chicken! We ate lunch at 11 today and were just starving when we got there. They cooked alot and said we expect you to eat it haha. Well i think they figured we ate about 4.5lbs of chicken combined haha. It was too good and i was full! We then had a long conversation on what we can do with the ward and what he needs to do with his calling! I always struggle when people ask me that ?! There is alot of things that he can do and he is prolly the best ward mission leader i have had on my mission! We then saw one more person that night and he wasn't interested. A former investigator that didn't really like seeing us again...

Sat, today was great! We finally saw Alanson today! We taught him a little lesson also about just how to be happy. He wants it super bad but just doesn't seem to have the action behind his words. He had a court date to get off of parole in October so i hope that he will get things figured out by then and be coming to church regularly before! Got him a ride all ready to go and he bailed again for some reason...we then met a less-active who has been living up here for 5 years and hasn't had contact with the church. Kinda crazy too i think. Talked with him for 10 min. He quit coming cause he decided he liked coffee and smoking too much. Interesting feller. We got a dinner today to pick up from the Kabagama family! They are super awesome! Super good chicken they gave us!

Sun, church was great. Every first Sunday in this ward we go into primary for Sharing time instead of Gospel Principles and then the other Elder's go during Priesthood! It is always nice to go and sing with the Primary. I remember not liking it when i was in Primary but it was just nice to go and sing with them. we also got to go and help teach about missionary work in primary for 10 minutes! Super good. These kids really do have testimony's! we then read some scriptures with Bro Alexander! Changed the meeting to Monday instead of Sunday so we can buy an ice cream! I also thought about it and decided we should try to move it so we don't put off a wrong impression, mormon missionaries go to BK every Sunday after church haha. We then went out with Bro Berg! Had him take us to all the places that are a long ways to bike! We knocked on 8 doors to no avail, then Bro Berg suggested we pray to get in the next one. Well we did and we did get in the next door. It was an active member's home, but we didn't know until they told us that their son-in-law and daughter moved back and they want us to meet with them to get them back to church! They are really nice and the father, Bro Ilagen gave a really spiritual testimony today in church! Really sincere. After that the next door opened! Said the less-active was on vacation! Then, the next door opened too! Part-member family who had us come back the next day! She is pretty less-active but she and her catholic husband had a baby and decided that the best faith to raise him will be mormon! She also claimed it is a little hypocritical of them to want to raise him mormon and not be doing it themselves! I hope that they will want to take the lessons soon. They said they were going to have us over for some Ethiopian food! Can't wait for that! We then were dropped off at the Bethke home for dinner! It was super good and i ate way too much! Hungry bike elder agian. I gave the spiritual thought on prayer and i thought it was pretty powerful because of what happened today. Prayers are heard. I think we sometimes look over them but they really are answered!

Mon, I woke up not feeling good at all today. I think it was because i ate to much to be honest. I was just wiped out all morning. Got feeling better tho thankfully but my boost for today was about 0! Glad i have a good comp who pushed me out the door. Had some awesome appointments today too! Short one with a new investigator Kelvin! He is 21 and says he is "searching" for a church since he moved but he hasn't been looking that hard. shared about what makes our church different..the book of Mormon and set up a time to come back. He sounded pretty sincere when he said he would read it so i hope so. It was super short lesson cause we were on the stairs but i like having short visit's with people. Just get right down to the point of why we are here. We then did some Family History with the Less-active man, Bro Groome. He knows his stuff and started doing family history right after he joined the church and just loves it! Fell away from the church about a year after he joined but Family History stuck to him. I think that is a testimony to me to start people on family history right after they join the church or come back because it just grabs people. I showed him how to run the FamilySearch website a little bit and just had a good talk. He showed us all his stuff from when he first started. Had a huge paper that you can keep track of the temple ordinances for his ancestor's from 5 generations back! I hope that he will tell us yes that we can submit the work for the people he has found. maybe save alot of people with just one person! We shall see if he wants to do that.We then had that visit with the Pena family i talked about yesturday. the part member fam...we then had a good visit with a less active lady sister Perelli! She is from Brazil but is working 7 days a week to make a living! I don't know what to tell people like that. Quit working? She hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon either so hopefully she can start with that step. Line upon Line i suppose

Tues, Zone Training was really good this morning. It truly is an exciting time to be a missionary in the church right now. It feels alot different from when i started. It has all come since the announcement too. The Prophet truly gets revelation from God that is for sure in my mind now! There was a member who came and gave us some good advice. The thing that sticks out most in my mind is what he said about the #'s! "the thing that matter's most to me looking back on my mission, is the things that don't show up in the #'s!" Said a couple more things too. but it was just really good. We ended up losing our phone somewhere after the meeting and now so that is hard now, we have appointments and can't confirm them with the member's we have coming haha. First time i have lost something like that! Makes it kinda hard! We met with Amanda today and also with Sis Francis! It was good meetings. Just talked mainly. They both have non-member husbands. It looks like that would be hard to do. Both seem to be doing okay with it tho so that is good!

Wed, We worked out this morning cause we don't have a phone to call what missionary's with cars are doing haha. Went shopping and came to e-mail! Kinda a chill P-day! It is nice to relax tho!
Thanks for the e-mails! They were good today!
Love Elder Stoor

Seth really enjoyed the American Indian Museum (part of the Smithsonian) ~ he sent 2 pictures today: