Words from Elder Chandon Herring in Washington DC

"Well I am officially an experienced missionary. I only have one summer left before I go home. Dang time flies ;) ok so this week was great. It is weird but our most solid investigator is a 10year old girl from a part member family. Her older Brother is a member at 16 yrs old and that is it. Parents dont care (yet) and we will have success with them because we were able to get some pretty good ideas on how to get them involved in a lesson or two. Also I really am beginning to enjoy the 4:30 am lifting it makes the day seem longer and more productive.

Ok tues. The most rain I have ever seen in my life. Literally. It rained/poured ALL day long. It was bad. The buildings here are built to withstand it and all but a few were really damaged. Not mine tho :) But this day started out pretty crumby. We had a full day planned and it was going to be super good but due to the rain either everyone called and cancelled or we showed up and they were stuck somewhere in it. We got soaked and did not have a single live lesson until that night at the ward FHE. I really like those.

This week we went and supported the scouts in the ward for a court of honor. We have 5 scouts. They are some fun kids and it is really good for them to get the attention and show that they have achieved something, The parents here do not parent as well as you mom and dad. They almost always are really snippy and belittle the kids. It is super sad. You can see how sad and hurt some of the kids are emotionally. It is really sad. Another reason for bringing the families to the Gospel. Make them happy!!!!! While we had the down time during the storm I looked at our family History. I looked at the family tree and I went back to a Irish King before Christ. Wow I am Irish!!!!!! :)

Wed. Today we Had a slow morning of finding fake referrals. woo hoo... But when we were doing facebook and family history we saw a super funny video called, "How General Authorities Eat Their Recees Peanut-butter Cups." I bet you could find it on YouTube but I cant look to see if it is there or not. You should watch it tho. It cracked me up! Anyway we had our Ward Coordination meeting and were fed Enchiladas by a member. They were super good! Glad to have something different. Soon after we met with Bessie. She is a Baptist Minister. She is super cool and a great investigator. Some doctrinal issues but we can fix that. She is determined to read the BOM and she has a lot of great experiences with prayer. So she has to have faith to pray and get an answer! I am so excited. She is about 70 and her daughter should have joined us but was out of town. Her daughter is named Linda. She is more solid than Bessie. It was fun teaching bessie tho because she loves to talk. When we tried to teach the Restoration we only got to the sentence, "Joseph Smith prayed..." and then she went off on her life history and all that. We ended bringing it back to reading a chapter in the BOM which was filled with her saying yes as we read. Super funny. People here will yell Hallelujah in church and Amen and everything it is great. But she loved our little talk and prayer with her. So we are coming back and will hopefully teach her about what happened when JS prayed. That is really all she knows so far. Is that he prayed. :) so funny.

Thurs. ZONE TRAINING!!!!!!!!!! I love these days. We learn so much. We had an amazing workshop by E. Little about studying the scriptures. When you study it is great to mark and underline but when you put your name in it, relate the story to your life, and think about it during the day the amount of revelation you receive is 1,000,000,000X's more. It was great. We have some tough goals tho. We want every companionship to get 20 lessons a week and as many as we can under 30 minutes. We can do it but it is tuff! When we got home the Thursday curse left its mark. I had yet another flat tire... I was so dadgum irritated that i could do nothing other than sit, eating goldfish, and stare angrily at the bike while i patched the tube. Even better I guess my tires are not flat proof but patch proof. because the patch did not work!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! But i bought another tube from E Thornton. and off we were. On the bus later that night we were asked by some random people if we were wearing magic underwear. we are the 3rd set of missionaries asked that, that day. IT was a fun discussion and they were not very interested in much else.

Friday. the bread pans came :) i am pumped to make different breads. This was a great day. We had 6 solid lessons one right after the other. and Ceasar fed us these GIANT burritos. They were delicious and huge! We got to see Ben and Adelle. (adelle is the 10 yr old girl that is awesome.) They are both really wild and crazy. Mom knows how much I love little kids too :) Then sis sandy who is a LA (Less Active) that is never in town so we were lucky to catch her. She is really shy but super smily and happy. I hope to get better acquainted with her. Off to Sis Luna for some delicious Juice and a great lesson on the importance of being creative and busy. I love that Mormon Message by the way. It is called Create and it is by Pres. Uchtdorf. some facebook lessons and then sis Onyeka who is on a two week streak of not stripping in the middle of a lesson! And she came to church on sunday!!!!!!!! (Now that's progress!)

Sat. So this whole theory of practice and you get better. Ya it is not true. I have been trying to get better at basketball and every saturday morning when we play I get worse. I know dad, hard to believe i could get any worse huh? But i did stuff E Jensen. :)

Right after we went to the wards former building when it was a branch and cleaned it up. THe building was in pretty bad shape but it still bears the churchs name so we cleaned it. It looks super good now and it's CLEAN!!!! I had the fun job of trying to cut down trees about 1-5" thick with a dull kitchen knife we found. I was having fun tho. had a few lessons with Karen, Sis Bonner, Who we taught the Word of Wisdom to and they will try to do better at it. Smoking is the only problem. They drink like twice a year and they both said that from now on they will just have a Pepsi. :) Then Sis Galloway who we cant figure out. SHe was the former RS Pres but as of about 8 yrs ago was completely inactive. She comes to church when she knows a speaker that invites her and then leaves right after. She is a really incredible lady. I love her so much!

Sun. We had 3 peeps come to church! They loved it and I got to go to Primary with Adelle. :) I hope I am never called to Primary. EVER!!!! (HAHAHAHA!) But we had fun. During Sacrament meeting Adelle stole my ipad and wrote a note in it all by herself. This is what she put in.

hi my name is adele coleman,sister of benjamin coleman. im in church today listening. i had bead and water. bread is jesuses body and the water repersents his blood.

THINGS I KNOW ABOUT JESUS:

1. his father is god

2. god is the king(sort of)

3. jesus sacrificed his life for us

4. if jesus didnt sacrifie his life for us we wouldnt be on this world

5. mary is jesuses mom

6. lord is gods father

7. another name Jesus Christ is the "lord"

8. jesus was baptized even though he was perfect

9. he created earth

10. without him, i cant return to live with Heavenly Father

WHY I LOVE JESUS & GOD

I LOVE THEM BOTH BECAUSE THEY LOVE ME BACK AND EVEN WHEN I DO BAD THINGS THEY STILL FORGIVE ME. ALSO WHEN I SEND A PRAYER TO THEM THHEY WILL HEAR IT AND SEND A SIGN BACK LETTING ME NO THEY HEARD IT.

She is AWESOME!!!!!! For Lunch I was super hungry and was never satisfied. I had to tell myself to stop eating because I would have no food left! We had a Why I Believe at the VC at night. A former pres of SVU spoke with his wife. Super cool people. I also found out that the former Mission Presidents wife was in the General RS Pres as a 2nd counselor. She spoke in conference. Sis Miasoki. That is incorrect spelling but you get the gist of it.

So life here is amazing I am loving the area and the people. I am truly blessed to be able to serve a mission. We are all loved by God and as Adelle said he always sends a sign back after we pray to let us know that he heard it. :) Remember I love you all and you are in my prayers. Choose the right dont do drugs and Madi GET A JOB!!!!! ;)"