Moments from a Missionary

The booth up at the Roanoke star was a grand way to spend our Christmas evening, two people accepted Book of Mormon's who I genuinely believe will read them, but the biggest impact was simply the fact that we were there for 3 evenings before Christmas...many families took time to watch the video and it was wonderful to see parents teach their children the true meaning of Christmas, because of our presence there...many softened hearts and welcome thank you's from many people for going through the effort to be there and bring the spirit of Christ. Today we, with the new Downtown Elders also hand delivered custom thank your cards to each of the city offices that were a part of making this happen and included the Zone Leaders phone number to contact us if the city ever requires our help. We are going to go ahead and reserve the Star for a booth again next year for Christmas and for the 4th of July and place it on the ward Calendar so all the elders will have to do next year is se

Dearest All It seems a long time in coming, but was joyful when our friend R.H. came to church and loved it, we have been teaching him for about two months, solid individual, he is currently a resident at the "Rescue Mission" Recovery Program, the ward frequently does service projects with this facility and was nice for the ward to see some fruits of their labors there as well, Brother H., first came in contact with church when he lived in Utah for a short while, when he got into the Recovery Program (something very similar to West Ridge Academy which my family is familiar with back in Utah) He asked the staff at the Rescue Mission if they knew of any Mormon missionaries in the area, to which thanks to the Ward the rescue mission was able to contact the Elders Quorum President and then refer us to him.  He is originally from Huntington WV, which has been nice to have that connection with him having just served there. He once shared a journal entry (song) he wrote of

Dearest All We have been blessed by many Media referrals, (no doubt in part to the Christmas Initiative) many of them asking for a copy of The Book of Mormon, and other church media like Joy to the world...we have received one at least every two days and for the first time in my mission each one has been contacted with-in a day or two, (also being in the smallest geographical area I have ever served in helps that, and also means we have no excuse not to contact them with- in 24 hours ) and we have 3 new investigators as a result, sincere investigators at that. K.K, excellent man of faith, ordered a Bible and also welcomed The Book of Mormon, we taught him for the second time immediately following specialized training, feeling freshly spiritually sharpened and polished thanks to President Salisbury's wonderful instruction, certainly carried into this appointment, I was particularly astonished by Elder McClune's powerful teaching as we shared the Restoration with Brother K. W

Dearest All The two big highlights from the week Civil Dealings - I was so pleased with the excitement from the ward when they learned of our booth up at the Roanoke Star, the bishop was especially excited and asked the ward to volunteer time to come and join us at the star, which 10 families signed up for various times to join us in sharing the Christmas Spirit with their fellow citizens of Roanoke. At the beginning of the week we received permission from the Roanoke City Parks and Recreation Department to set up at the star...then a couple days later we received another phone call, informing us that we could not do that and proselyting in the parks was against the city's rules and ordinances. Confused I, thought that was strange and seemed a little off-color and limiting of the freedom of religion, so I took some time to read up on the freedom of religion in the public square on LDS.org and Mormon Newsroom. After learning a bit more about the topic and following the council