Week 4-Rock Springs, WY

Elder Bass and Elder Clark

(I copied part of my letter to him at the beginning so you will understand his responses. )

Me: It sounds like you are being well-fed!!  What did you do with 5 pizzas?  What kind of food do you usually get?  Have you gained any weight?  Do your pants still fit? :)  Are the members strong in Rock Springs?  Are you starting to get to know the members?  Are you and Elder Clark over just one ward there?  How many missionaries are in Rock Springs?

We ate the pizzas. We've been getting so much pizza lately. We are so spoiled by our members, but the work gets hard. We are a no-tracting mission. We get all sorts and varieties of meals, all are good though!

The people out here are actually a really rough group. Most of the men do grunt work in mines and have pretty rough schedules. That's why a lot of people are inactive! They're super outdoorsy. Everyone hunts and fishes and camps and everything outdoors. I am learning to love the people here even though I've only been in the field two weeks. In Rock Springs there are 2 sets of elders and 2 sets of sisters. I cover three wards. So, I'm pretty much at church all day Sunday going to different meetings and sacrament meetings and so forth! My companion and I bore our testimony in all three of our wards in an effort to help get them to trust us and everything! I have definitely seen a rougher side of life. I have fasted and prayed for charity and love and I am really starting to see them more how God sees them!

My companion is a cool guy. We work hard and have seen results even if small in our area! We have started this 7-day missionary work challenge! We just started it so we'll see how it works. We get along really well. Somedays he likes to sleep a little longer than he's supposed to but we do get really tired. I don't have a scale so I don't know if I've gained weight. I most likely have. We get fed every night easily. I'm starting to know the members now so it only goes up from here. My suit pants actually are a little tight. We have a gym in our apartment complex and I exercise everyday (except Sunday). Elder Clark and I really have been trying hard to teach people and be better missionaries and we have started to see success. For the Fourth, we had a zone meeting an hour or so away! Everything is so far away in Wyoming! We have had to make the drive to Salt Lake Way too many times! After we got back, we went to a golf course thing for fireworks. We just did it for exposure and to meet new people! My companion participated in a pie eating contest! It was pretty fun overall but we had to be in before the fireworks even started!

Anyways a kinda cool experience... we were teaching someone in the samari apartments. We stopped by because she didn't come to church and she's one that we had on date for baptism, so we were like what the heck. Her mother was there and her mother is sick so we happened to run into the guys who were giving her the sacrament! We gave her the sacrament and then they left. Her mother started to explain that Heather had been having some problems about the Book of Mormon. So we were like, hey let's read a chapter right now! She has been struggling with A LOT from her past. This guy abused her and has left her super scarred. I gave a prayer fervently before we started and asked that Heather would feel the power of the atonement to let those things go and focus and know that as we read she would feel the truth of what we were talking about. The spirit was so strong, she started to tear up and cry. We read through some of Alma chapter 34 together. She cried at multiple points. I tried to listen to understand and ask inspired questions. We stopped every 6 verses or so and talked about the different thoughts and impressions that we had and said that these were the spirit. We left gave her a chapter to read and concluded. I was happy because I felt she came closer to God from our visit.

Dad asked for experiences where I was guided by the spirit. Honestly we always are. We have a lot of people that we see and we feel like we should visit certain names and we just go from there. We had three cool lessons last night. That was just one of them.

One instance was Thursday, we felt like we should stop by just to see if she was home. Randomly, no one had visited her in a long time. She opened to us and was super receptive. She explained that her son went through these series of medical issues the past few weeks and could've died. But miraculously, she said that it was a miracle from God that he's alive and he's fine now. She said she wouldn't have let us in if it would have been a month or so ago, but this experience had opened her eyes. We were like-sweet. She works THREE jobs so it was a miracle that we even saw her. We asked her to take the lessons and she was was silent for a little bit then said she thought that was a good idea! Anyways keep giving me stories from home! I love to read them! Love you guys!

Elder Bass

Later Notes:

Most nights we would get in at around 9-9:30. We would almost always have ping-pong tournaments. We would play many games of ping pong. Everyone in the Apartment was always really good,

I would always sleep in the long car rides. This particular one I fell asleep relatively fast. I remember Elder Clark was super tired as well. He swerved off the road and we almost died... This trip was when we headed to the new missionary training.

I got a letter from Cassidy this particular week. I was super thrilled about it. I was under the silent subconscious misconception that she was the only attractive mormon girl.

Elder Clark participated in a pie eating contest. We talked to quite a few people that night. My contacting shifted significantly through my mission. At this point it was a lot less direct and more shifted towards building a relationship and breaking down walls.