Fletcher Madsen formerly in Africa

Another week in Spokane gone by. Time is really starting to fly. I don't know anything about my visa yet, but I've had an awesome time here, so I wouldn't be too mad spending some more time in Spokane. The members in our ward are awesome, and always make sure we get fed plenty. Brother Fletcher (no, not me) is a mission legend. The Elders in our zone have breakfast with him every p-day, and Elder Smith and I have been over to his house many times. He's always willing to feed us and drive us and our bikes up the giant south hill that we struggle up every day.  Brother Fletcher had his hand bitten by a few dogs, and after a few weeks of pain pills not working, said he couldn't take it anymore and asked us to give him a priesthood blessing. The next day, he thanked us and told us it was already better. Another blessing we gave ended up being a very special spiritual experience. We were teaching our first lesson to a man that told us he believed in God but had ...

What a week! Spokane really is amazing. Even though we find some people that don't know much about us and hate us for no reason, most people in Spokane are really nice. There's so much that I could share from this week, so I guess I'll just pick a few highlights.  Elder Smith and I went on exchanges with our zone leaders on Friday. We had four lessons planned for that day, and I was in charge of our area, so that was kind of scary, but luckily Elder Sautter knows a lot more than me about anything and everything, so he helped me out a lot. On the way to one of our lessons, I crashed my bike at a stoplight, so that was some nice public  humiliation. I ripped u p m y pants a nd my shirt and got some scrapes and bruises, but I wasn't about to miss any of our lessons, so I got up and biked on over. One of the people we were teaching gave me some iodine for the cuts, so I had to really try to not scream while putting it on. But to be honest, I hardly even thought about ...

This week went by so fast. I wish I had more time to email, but I have a few minutes so hopefully I remember enough from this week. Something our mission president has encouraged us to do is to pray for, seek, and expect miracles to happen as we go about doing the Lord's work. Elder Smith and I have already seen plenty of miracles.  When I saw that I was staying in the states for a while, I figured finding people willing to hear our message would be a lot harder, which is for the most part true, but everyone here is so nice, and we've already seen a few miracles. One big miracle was finding Dale. We decided to knock on his door one day, but he didn't answer for a long time. We thought the door wouldn't open so we got on our bikes, but as we were starting to leave, he opened the door and yelled after us and invited us in. He shared a lot with us and invited us to teach him that Friday and even asked about going to our church. We were so surprised by a lot of th...

I can't believe I'm actually in the field now! Spokane is pretty awesome, my mission president and his wife are absolutely amazing, and so is my trainer, Elder Smith. Speaking English all the time now is kind of weird, mas, tudo bem. We play basketball every morning with the other Elders in our area, so I still get a chance to ball out, don't worry. Also, a member fed us Moose last night, so my weird eating adventures have only just begun. The flight here was less than 2 hours, so much better than the 30 hours of flying that I was originally planning on doing.  My very first day here we already started to see miracles. I didn't have a bike yet, so my companion decided to try somewhere else to tract. The second door that we knocked on ended up being a lady whose son was recently baptized, and we're meeting with her again in a few days. Elder Smith and I have already seen great things happen by following the spirit and opening our mouths, something I still n...