Merry Christmas!

Dear Family,

I hope you all had a great Christmas! I sure did! I loved the call home! It was great to see you all! This week has been great! I want to tell you about one of our investigators, John!

John Keo randomly showed up to church a couple of weeks ago. We had never met him before, but he knew a few people in the ward already. In that one day at church, he got a lot of new friends and a lesson set up with us! We taught him a lesson last week, and that's when we realized that we will have to teach a lot simpler than we thought!

We taught him again this week with his daughter, Saleena (I don't know the real spelling). Teaching really simply worked a lot better with him. He learns at a slow pace so we are going to take our time with him. He is progressing well already! He has already stopped smoking and he is working on praying with his daughter if the Book of Mormon is true! It is awesome!

I hope you have all have a great week! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Bretton Steiner.

This is our Christmas Eve picture!

Yes, that is a rubber ducky candle. :)

  We had a power outage on Christmas night, so we got out the only candles we had. :) It was fun doing our daily planning in "Candle Light".

The Fabulous Federal Way Festival of Finding, It'll Be Fun!

Dear Family,

This week has been on the cooler side, in the 20's for a couple of days. The mission did a couple of cool events. We had a Zone Conference on Friday. It was really a half-mission Christmas party, but they have to call it a Zone Conference. It was great! We had a competition to see how many Christmas songs we could sing. It was great!

The other cool event was "The Fabulous Federal Way Festival of Finding, It'll Be Fun!" I added the "It'll Be Fun" because it was always the following phrase President Rasmussen used when he explained it. It took place on Saturday and the whole mission went finding from 10am to 5pm. Not only that, but also no missionary was with their companion. It was a mission wide blitz! We would switch up our companions a couple of times and go finding in an area specified by our Zone Leaders.

Since Saturday was the coldest day of the week, the event came to be known as "The Frigid Fabulous Federal Way Festival of Finding, It'll Be Fun!" That is a long name. It really was a lot of fun! Many people were found and it is a good kick-off for the next year of baptisms!

Christmas is right around the corner! I hope you are preparing to have a great time! I am! I hope you have a great week! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Bretton Steiner.

From the Zone Conference, the whole mission got a yellow shirt with a new mission logo on it. That way, we will look unified when we go do service!

Don't forget the true meaning of Christmas!

Miracles in the Snow!

Dear Family,

First off, Happy Birthday David Harris! Okay, now I can move on...

I have had an awesome, busy week with Elder Ward! It has been colder than usual (30 degrees, burr, that's cold). It has been cold enough for some snow to fall on us. Elder Ward has been so excited that when the second snow storm came (We were on exchanges) he went to the nearby abandoned school and had a snow ball fight with Elder Richards!

The exchange started Thursday night and went for most of the day Friday. It was snowing harder than I have ever seen it in Washington. I was with Elder Bollwinkle in the Skyway B area, which happens to be the most northern area in the mission and covers a little of Seattle. Elder Bollwinkle is on his 2nd transfer here and this is his first exchange taking over the area. He didn't know who to visit, so during daily planning on Thursday night, we said a prayer and asked that our plans for the day would turn out for our good and the good of our Brothers and Sisters. Well, that prayer definitely got answered!

On Friday morning we got a text telling us that a member in the nearby Veteran's Hospital wanted us to go over and give him a blessing. So, that was the first thing that we did. We checked into the hospital as LDS Chaplin and the lead chaplin led us to John Austin. We shared a scripture with him and gave him a blessing. He thanked us for coming by. On our way out of his room, the lead chaplin came back to us and said, "Another person saw you and wants to you visit him, too".

So we follow her to the next patient's room. This brother was a little older and he was fighting cancer. We talked with him for a little while, neither of us knowing what to say, and we gave him a blessing. As we walked out, we could tell that he felt a lot better and he had a smile on his face. We both felt that the Lord had guided us to where He needed us the most.

Nothing happened according to plan that day, but I felt like we did our best to serve as the Lord's instruments. I know that this is His work and that He will direct our paths. We are not alone in this service. I know that Heavenly Father knows who we are and He will send help. It could be anyone, but He will comfort you. He has promised it.

I am getting excited for Christmas day! I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Bretton Steiner.

I remember! I put that statue in the car a year ago! That car went to Skyway B area after I left. They got a new car, but they kept the statue! 

Elder Ward putting up Christmas lights in our apartment! Yes, he is standing on my desk. :)

This statue looks familiar...

Elder Bollwinkle and I tried to do a selfie, but I guess I didn't aim the camera right.
​

My First Week in Garrison Creek!

Dear Family,

This week has been awesome! Garrison Creek Ward is so great! It is supposed to be a bike area, but we are walking because Elder Ward had a bike accident last transfer and broke his wrist. This week has been full of adventures! Elder Ward and I have run into some interesting people, some more than once, this week. As we have been showing them kindness, they have slowly been opening up to us.

My first full day in the area we ran into a man. He looked like he wasn't completely there, but we talked to him anyway. When we asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ, he grunted something and kept walking. He passed us and after a few steps he turned around and shouted, "I love God!", then kept walking. That was interesting.

Well, the next day, we saw him again. This time he had his dog with him. We were waiting to cross the same crosswalk at a busy street. He didn't have a leash on his dog because it would follow him wherever he went. He told us the dog had fleas, so we didn't pet it. When the walk signal came on, we started walking. Halfway across the street, we looked back and saw his dog still on the other side, unaware that we were crossing because it was scratching itself. The time was almost up to cross the street. The dog might cross at the wrong time and get hit. So we stopped the man as he was walking (he walked with a fast pace) and we pointed back to his dog. We reached the other side as he was calling for his dog. It ran across the street right as the light turned green, but the cars saw it and slowed down. The dog made it safely across the street.

The man was pretty happy that we cared enough about him to help him. After that, he was willing to talk to us. We had a long conversation going down the street. In the end he said he wasn't interested, but he said we can talk whenever we see each other on the street again.

Doing good deeds is a great way to get into the Christmas spirit. I love the Christmas initiative that the Church is doing this year (#LightTheWorld). It gives us a simple challenge each day to serve others. I know that if Christ was here, he would be serving others. I know that this church is true. If you want to feel the Christmas spirit this year, you will do the things that Christ would do.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Bretton Steiner.

​This is Elder Ward standing above the real Garrison Creek.

We got some snow this morning! I haven't seen snow like this since I was in Utah!

Have to get that name tag picture while we can!