Week 1

Hey eh?
 
Well this week I got a new companion and he is pretty sweet. His name is Elder Mitchell Maxwell from Mcgrawth, Alberta, Canada. He was a big time hockey player before his mission and gave it up to come out. He is really a hard worker and we have a lot of fun together. I am really glad to be where I am at. This week we decided to really exercise our faith. We dropped 2 people we had been teaching, even though we really liked them and we had good discussions, they ultimately had no desire. It is hard to shave down an already small teaching pool. We were confident the Lord would provide, and he did. We were able to find 2 more solid families to begin teaching.
 
 We visited Wayne this week and he was sick in bed. Just the night before me and Elder Maxwell were talking, saying how much easier it would be if all people could just suddenly stop smoking. As we began talking with him, he said he had gone to ER for COPD and was recommended to stop smoking by his doctor. Now he didn't stop completely, but he has drastically reduced his intake and we are helping him quit completely this week. I really feel that he is one of the people I am still in Roanoke for. We also visited another individual who has met with missionaries for over 20 years. We had only visited him twice over the last few months, because he said he would only get baptized when he moves to Utah. Well as we were driving home from church yesterday, I had the strong impression to stop by on him. So we turned around to go see him. He let us in and told us that he had an interesting week. He said that he had died this past week! He had a heart attack and was out for a while. He is doing fine now, but he wanted a blessing. During all the time of meeting with members and elders he had never had blessing, but knew he needed one. Afterwards he told us that he knew he hadn't accomplished his purpose in life yet. We talked about what that entailed and we are planning to meet again with him this week. Pretty crazy health week.
 
Last night we also visit Clara. We hadn't seen her in a few weeks and wanted to stop by. She said she didn't have her Book of Mormon, because her step dad was always reading it! We assumed that she hadn't read any during that time, come to find out she had read a good portion of "what is and how do you say Ahlma?" It was sweet! She loves it too. We also taught Greg twice this week.
 
A really great week. I love my comp and I am really enjoying soaking it all in. Sorry I have no time!
 
Love ya
Elder Dumke