Giving Thanks for Blessings and Miracles!

Dear Family,

Thanksgiving was pretty great! Elder Miner and I got to eat with 2 different families! The Ainuu family kind of canceled on us. They let us come over, but they told us when we got there that they changed their minds and wanted to go to their parent's house for Thanksgiving. They gave us some food (The typical turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, but with Macaroni and Cheese, too) and we still got to talk, but it ended up only being about 30 minutes. The last 90 minutes of dinner, we spent over at another less-active family, with Sister Tingey. They made Italian Sodas for Thanksgiving. I usually don't like sodas, but they were so good!

I could go on about what cool things we got to do at the Thanksgiving Activities, but I would rather tell you a couple of miracles that happened this week. And I am so grateful for them!

Elder Miner's bike (which is borrowed from another missionary) has had troubles this week. We found out on Friday, that it had a flat front tire. We tried to patch it up, but every time we thought we fixed it, we found another hole in the inner tube. The inner tube had about 8 holes in it. I have no idea how it had that many holes, but it became apparent that it was irreparable. We had to make an emergency visit to the bike shop. Due to all of the red lights, we arrived around 6:55. I thought that the shop closed at 6:00 and when we approached, the lights were off and it was obviously closed. We were in the parking lot about to turn around, when another car came up behind us and parked. The man that got out of the car happened to be the owner of the shop and he was just out for a few minutes. The shop was really supposed to close at 7:00, but he said that he was gone to help out one of his friends. When we showed him the inner tube, he gave us 2 brand new ones for free! I was totally shocked. If we didn't have all of those red lights (and it was pretty much every single stop light) we would have shown up and left before the owner got back. So, this was a double miracle!

I told you a couple of weeks ago about our goal to find 5 new investigators each week. The last 2 weeks, we didn't reach our goal, but this week, we have been blessed! Heavenly Father has lead us to a family of 4 (actually 5, but the father wasn't in our lesson) and they are searching for the truth! I hope that we can help them come closer to Christ by helping them be baptized!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Steiner.

P.S. I still haven't written down Sister Tuiloma's conversion story. She actually hasn't been baptized, yet. What I hear from our member fellowship is that she is still committed to be baptized! I will tell you this much, the theme of her story is "Open Your Door". It will be a lot shorter than the first one, but that is because I have a bad memory. I hope that I can get her to write down her story and send it to me.

Items Received:

* Letter from Grandma and Grandpa Sheffield. Thank you! I love you!

Q & A

Do you have transfers the same week as Christmas?
* No. President Eaton decided to shorten the transfer to 5 weeks, so transfers are a week and a half before Christmas.
* My companion will probably not be Elder Miner. I have served in Scenic Hill for almost 6 months. Odds are that I am going to a new area for Christmas.

Will that affect your call home? Where will you go to make the call?
* All I can do is set up skype calls with the Alfrey's in Scenic Hill. Pretty much all I can hope for is that my companion in "my probably future" area has Christmas calls set up.

Do you even have Facetime or Skype?
* Yes. Calls made in this mission are generally done over Skype, but I think Facetime might work, too.

Do you know anyone that has that technology that will share so we can see you on Christmas?
* So far, I know the Alfrey's did it for Elder Nelson and Elder Green on Mother's Day. I hope Christmas works for them.

Elder Miner is ready to celebrate Christmas! He really likes to wrap his blanket around his head.

We decided that we wanted more Thanksgiving food, so we had Stuffing! YES!! I love it!

It was foggy all day on Sunday. I loved it! It felt like an adventure! Also, can you find our Ponderizing Scripture in the reflection on our windshield? I had to print a reversed paper in order to make it reflect the right way.

Knowing that my time in Scenic Hill is winding down, and as Elder Miner's training is almost complete, I took him to see the Seattle Horizon, just like my trainer showed me.