I'm Still Here and Still Dry!

March 9, 2015

Dear Family,

How's it going y'all? How are things going in good ole Spokane, Washington? I'm really glad that Mom had a fun birthday. I just wish I could've been there. Don't worry, I promise that I'll make up for it somehow. I'm also glad that Aubrey's ankle is healing up. Thank goodness, I was a little worried when I first got the news. But hey, this shows that you can't keep a good Alley down.

As you all probably already heard, Martin did get flooded. However, I'm happy to report that Elder Barney, our Martin friends, and I were kept safe from the flood. The creek behind our trailer did get high but it would've taken a lot more snow and rain to make it reach us. Still, when we saw that and the other parts of town underwater, I told Elder Barney, "I think we're going to need to rent a couple boats and do our proselyting from there." Lol :) Who knows? Maybe one of these days we could proselyte on canoes. I'll call this new missionary finding tool: Row-by Preaching. :) Anyway, we were kept safe and the roads are now safe to drive on. Most of the town has dried up by now.

I admit that this week was a slow week. With the flood blocking a lot of roads and a couple of teaching appointments falling through on us (even though they were on days that there was no flood), I admit that it's during those moments where I say to myself, "I can't wait for this week to be over." However, there was one cool event that happened. My favorite senior missionary couple, the Winns, (I'm not just saying that because they're the only senior missionary couple in our area, lol) invited us to have dinner at their apartment along with a couple people that they've been working with, I'll refer to them as R and D. R is a less-active member and D is his investigating girlfriend. The Winns wanted us to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had a great dinner, fun conversation, and an amazing lesson. The spirit was just so strong there and I felt like Elder Barney and I were a well-oiled machine teaching them.

But my highlight of that night was when I extended the baptismal invitation to D! I was so happy about that accomplishment because I'm always so nervous about extending this invitation. It's a long story but I always get nervous about extending this invitation because I don't know what kind of response I will get. However, I've been praying to Heavenly Father to give me the faith and courage to extend this invitation at the next chance I get. One of the things that helped me overcome this fear was remembering a counsel from the Zone Leaders when they said, "It's important to find out what concerns our investigators have. Baptism invitations can help us find out." I won't go into detail about the concerns we found out from R and D, but I just want to say that I'm proud of the progress that I've been making and that the Lord helped me to overcome one of my fears!

Well, I think that should do it. I hope you guys have a great week. I love you all and miss you all.

Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Elder Michael Alley