Remember the Importance of Enduring to the End

I am not getting used to being senior companion haha it's tough. But
it's been super great being here with Sister Michaud. She is such a
great worker and we are constantly trying to improve our teaching
skills and our companionship unity. This week has been more tough than
previous weeks but that's life so we keep on working and pressing
forward. We had a lot of people cancel their appointments so we did a
lot of door knocking and street contacting. Which produced some
results! We met a woman named Shay and she was interested in having us
come and teach her so we are going back on Tuesday! And she has read
the things we gave her and that itself is a miracle. We have also had
a lot of people laugh at is this week and slam doors but the good
always out ways the bad. We had a few wonderful miracles. We put Jeran
on date for baptism for the 8th of August and Chris called us and said
he wanted to be baptized. But then he missed his appointment and won't
call us back. So lots of prayers. We taught Marlena and Phil about the
plan of salvation and it went good, they have lots of questions so we
are preparing a lot for their lessons, which we do for all lessons but
even more. Jeffery said he hasn't got his answer yet, which I think he
has he just isn't recognizing it so we are going to work on that with
him.

We met a lot of interesting people this week. One of them was drunk
and she was asking us to pray for her son who had his face ran
over...and we were in the more sketchier part of our area and we heard
these loud noises which sounded like a gun but were fireworks. Both
Sister Michaud and I flinched and she said, "notice I didn't flinch,
but if I duck you get on the ground!" That was rather comforting to
hear haha. So no worries we are being taken care of here in Portland.
We meet a lot of drunk people....on the Fourth of July this guy wanted
help up a hill and he was very drunk so the elders went and helped him
away from us. Portland is truly the greatest.

On the fourth we went to help some people move in and that took most
of the day and then we went to have dinner with Lourdes, a recent
convert, and she took us down to the Columbia river to watch all the
fire work shows in Portland and Vancouver. It was kind of like the
time we all went out to Pasco, but I was glad to be there. The elders
in our district came with us so we all had a great time but we didn't
get to bed until 11:30 and that was just brutal the next morning haha.

We had a lot of meetings this week too, one of them being the
trainer/trainee meeting and president talked to us for a while. Which
is always just amazing. He talked about who we are as Washington
Vancouver missionaries and what that means. It was really hard to
loose 14 elders to the Yakima mission, I served with most of them.
This mission is just a huge family and they will all be so missed. But
the Kennewick mission lost about 100 missionaries so they took even
more of a hit. It's all in the Lord's plan, and as president Taylor
always says, "God doesn't do random" we are getting 30 new
missionaries next transfer and over half of the mission will be under
a year! It's crazy what's happening here, the work is certainly being
hastened.

I'm so glad to hear that everyone is doing good! I hope you all
remember the importance of enduring to the end and how much we are
strengthened by the lord everyday.

Love,
Sister Stephens