Issaquah Transfer 7 week 5

hello!

this last week has been interesting, i found out what freezing rain is and how ice/snow/giant trees aren't the best combo. "snowpocalips" or "snowmagedon" as our bishop liked to call it came and went this last week, it was pretty crazy, it snowed probably about a foot and had freezing rain and then more snow. all of that made issaquah lose power for about 2 days and look like world war 3 just happened. trees were falling everywhere and the town didnt even look the same. it was fun though!

our apartment didnt have power so we went and slept with the kenyon family out in the tiger mountain ward, they had a generator to power their house so we stayed out there with another companionship. it was really fun but weird when we stoped by our apartment a day or so later we were inside and the temperature was 53 inside our apartment! its was a pretty crazy week, but i have never been so gratefull for power and for things to finally get back to normal. elder aiken and i decided we would have made terrible pioneers after this last week.

this sunday we had the castro family at church, they are a family of 5 that we have been working with and they are all on date for feb 11th! the dad figure wasnt able to come because he had to make up work but other than that we had 4 members of the family there and they loved it! we had such a neat miracle with them on friday when the power was out. we were not even sure if we were going to teach them or not because of the snow and no power, their fellowship was out of town but we decided to stop by anyway to see of we could teach them. somehow the power came on like an hour before we decided to go teach them. we had planned to watch the restoration dvd with them, but that wasnt going to work because they didnt have power a few hours before, but somehow the power was on for just long enough for us to go over watch the dvd with them put sandras boyfriend on date and then leave. right after we left the power to all of issaquah shut off again! it was a miracle that we were able to teach them and help them progress in the gospel that night.

vickie who is on date for feb 4th is still doing pretty well. she is currently "mad" at us because no one from the congregation checked up on her during the storm, which people tried. but it will all get worked out, as far as we know she is still doing great with the word of wisdom and she may have gotten anti-ed by her family but i know god wants this sister baptized so i know none of this will matter.

its been a good week though i have learned so much! i cant wait for the snow to leave and for life to get back to normal. bit i hope you all have a great week!

love you
elder berry

Issaquah Transfer 7 Week 4

hello!

its snowing here and its coming down pretty good, issaquah has been shut down all day which has been great! whats even better too is on the news this morning they told everyone to stay home from work!!! its going to be the greatest day ever, everyone is at home!

this last week has been great! we have seen so many miracles and we are teaching a bunch of awesome people who are amazing! we are teaching a lady vickie, i think i told you about her last week but she is awesome! she is a miracle. she is one of our former investigators and we dropped her cause she refused to live the work of wisdom, but god has softened her heart and now she is on day number 2 with out smoking and drinking coffee! we went over last week to take away her coffee and she even gave us her whole coffee pot! we were just expecting to steal her coffee and stuff but no she unplugged the whole coffee pot off her counter and gave it all to us. she is excited to get baptized and for this change in her life!

we have the castro family on date for dec11th!!! it is a family of four, it is a single mom with three kids and they are amazing! she has been looking for a church for along time. she especially wanted one that would have programs for her kids and that wasnt to big of a church. she told us that that would be her deal breaker, but thankfully the true church of christ has youth programs and is like a familiy! they are awesome but they are in the early stages of the teaching process so there is a long way to go but god will provide a way for this amazing family to enter into his fold!

well i hope you have a great week!

love you
elder berry

Issaquah Transfer 7 Week 3

hola!

this last week has been a great week here! things are finally back to normal after the holidays and its awesome. we have still been looking and working to try to find people to teach and baptize this week. it was a good week though we found alot of great people so there will be some great things coming in the next few weeks.

last night we had a really neat miracle, we stopped by one of our former investigators, we dropped her a while back because she couldnt give up smoking and coffee. we felt prompted to stop by yesterday and we set up a lesson with her and right before we left she said" by the way i think im ready to give up smoking and coffee" we just about died we were so excited! we had been having a rough week and we haven't been teaching any progressing investigators and just hearing her say that was so exciting. she truely needs the gospel in her life, her husband just died a few months ago and she needs the gospel in her life. god truly has been preparing her.

also we had another really neat experience this week too. we were on our way home from another area in the zone and we were driving into town when elder aiken pulled in to a parking lot of this shopping center in downtown issaquah. he remembered a guy we had taught a few months back. this man lives in a little apartment on top of a bar. to get to it you have to walk around the bar up a dirty set of stairs to his door. we went up there and he answered the door. he smiled and let us in, we talked with him for a second and then he said he had some people we needed to pray for. he took us back into his smoke filled apartment to a room and parted the curtain that was used as a door. there was a bunch of homeless people there, but they weren't to excited to see us. so we went back out and taught our investigator. when we said the closing prayer one of the kids that was in the other room ran over and sat down for the prayer. he said he had been listening to our lesson the whole time and wants us to come back and teach him! it was so neat to see a lost soul searching for god and do anything to find him.

i was a great week i have learned so much in my time as a missionary and i know god loves his children and wants them to return to live with him again.

i hope you all have a great week!

love you
elder berry