Street Contacting (Night Time Edition!)

 Hola todos!

This week has definitely felt like my longest week for sure! But it's so nice that it's finally P-Day and I can just chill. Having this opportunity to write to you all is also such a blessing. 

At the beginning of this week, Elder Rehkow and I felt that we needed to try something different. We have just been going at it and were not experiencing any fruit from our labors. No real 'New People' to be teaching. So this week, instead of making a goal to find 1 new person, we made a goal to find 5 new people! We did this to show the Lord that we have faith enough to find 5 new people and we were willing to work for it. So everyday, we contacted at a breakneck pace. Every free 10 minutes we got, we were out walking around. Instead of doing our language study at night, we walked around until 9:00 pm. Even though it was super dark out, we were still walking through neighborhoods and parks until 9:00 pm. My feet basically hurt all the time now so that's cool. It didn't help that I got a blister on my foot too.

Throughout the whole week, we didn't find a single new person. It was pretty discouraging, I was convinced that we would find 5 people throughout the week haha. I remember getting back to the car on Sunday night after walking for 3 hours and just being so tired and sad. But honestly, its not too big of a deal. We worked really hard and I'm sure it made a difference in someone's life. There were also a lot of funny and awesome encounters for sure, especially when your walking around at night in Las Vegas!

For the most part, most people we talked to were either using drugs at that time or may not have been the most sane people. But every once in a while we had a good discussion! We actually handed out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon during the week which is pretty great for our area. On one night in particular, at 8:55 while we were heading back to our car, we ran into a guy taking something out to his car. His name was Gabe and he was super nice. We talked for a little bit and turns out, he was actually a convert but hasn't been to the church in a while. He wasn't from around here though and he was just staying with his parents for a week. We asked to share a lesson with him on Friday and he said yeah! His parents weren't members so we were hoping that they would be there during the lesson. 

When we got there on Friday, his parents took one look at us and went inside the house. Gabe came outside and said we should do the lesson on the front porch. Luckily, everyday in Vegas has super nice weather! We shared chapter 32 from Alma and talked about faith. I don't know how to explain it, but the spirit was there that day. It was so strong and Gabe felt it too. He started to cry and said he needed to hear that. After a few years of not going to church, he wanted to go back to church and start reading the Book of Mormon again. It was literally a miracle to meet him at 8:55 pm before we left the neighborhood, and then be able to help him on Friday. It was an amazing experience!

A bunch of other fun stuff happened this week! We saw a cat while night contacting which was pretty awesome. He just followed us for 30 minutes and basically became our best bud.

Our new cat friend

We are still playing basketball at the park. That's been pretty fun. Next time we play, I wanna write Helaman 5:12 on the bottom of my shoes. I want everyone to see my firm foundation in Christ as I dunk of them. I also played basketball with my cousin on Saturday. That was pretty great. Oh and I had a really weird dinner with one of the members in my ward. He made us these massive steaks and supersized potatoes! These things were huge. He also said that if we ate a whole steak and a supersized potato without puking, we would get 60 bucks. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the potato. Like not even joking, those things were like tanks! My companion however ate it all and got 60 bucks. Usually he's not a big eater but he's also super competitive. He'd rather die than let anyone beat him in anything. 

Me and my potato

This week, I also had a story that I will cherish forever. It really shows how service and never giving up really can help you do anything! So Elder Rehkow and I ended up knocking on a members door We don't knock doors during Covid-19 but if they're a member we can. We've never met with him before and it said in our records that a member lived there. His wife answered and she was super nice but adamant that they didn't want us sharing a message or anything. The family was Baptist now and really did not want to talk 'theology' or whatever. We somehow convinced her to let us do some service for the family.  It was a miracle we even got to do that for them. So the next day we showed up to pull weeds in their front and back yard. We asked another member who was a youth to come help weed so we had him there to help too. After finishing, the lawn looked really good and we kept our promise of not talking about church! What's interesting is that after we left, the family texted us and told us that we should come over for dinner sometime! They even said we could share a spiritual thought! So the next day, all three of us had dinner with them and it went super well. They were super nice and we shared a short scripture with them. We read James 1:5-6 and talked about how we can ask God for any knowledge we lack.

It goes to show how service can really soften the hearts of people. They didn't care about us, until we showed them that we really cared about them!

I love you all and am thankful that you read my emails! I know that this church is true and there is nothing that is going to stop me from sharing its divinity. I hope you all have an excellent week!

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Night time selfie