Next Stop: HILLSBORO

Next stop: HILLSBORO Well some bitter sweet news is that I have left Gresham to head to Hillsboro! I loved my time in Gresham and it was so amazing to see all the people we helped come closer to Christ! But let me tell you Hillsboro is AMAZING!! I can't even begin to describe the amount of miracles and success we have been seeing as we work diligently and come the spirit every minute of every day!! Transfer details: So my new companion is the one and only, THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND ELDER RIGGS. I have known him since the online MTC and it is so amazing to be serving alongside him. I got called to Hillsboro to be a Zone Leader and it has been absolutely AMAZING so far. I have loved having the opportunity to support and serve the missionaries here in Hillsboro! The missionaries here are top notch and this zone is seriously going to have a miracle filled transfer we are already seeing it!! CRAZY MIRACLES Let me just preface this by saying that in the past week and a half or so Elder Riggs and I have found 13 NEW PEOPLE TO TEACH!! God truly has been guiding us to those who has prepared to hear this gospel and its divine message! Here are some of the stories of how we came to find them!! Sorry this is longer than most of my emails but trust me these are too amazing not to include!! Miracle #1 One day we planned to have a pass off lesson with some sisters in another zone. As the time approached for the lesson elder Riggs phone has just died. In the process of this we were returning a mattress to a sisters apartment and as we were leaving they offered him a charger. However Riggs for whatever reason just did not take the charger it's like he just couldn't accept it... (that was the miracle... continue reading to see Haha) so with a dead phone we head the lesson and dont see the sisters anywhere. I then saw a guy working on his car so we decided that in the meantime we could go talk with him. Turns out he was really searching for something more in his life and he wanted us to come back and talk to him more about what we believe. We then knocked the ladies door who we were going to have the lesson with and she said that she had to cancel and that she sister should have called us to let us know. We realized at that moment that if Elder Riggs phone had alive we would have gotten the call and not gone to the place where the lesson was at ... we weren't there for the lesson that day we were there for that guy and the lord provided a way for us to meet him!!! Miracle #2 One day we went to visit a lady that requested for us to bring her a bible. She didn't answer so we decided to walked around the apartment complex for a bit. We then see a lady in the middle of the complex and we both approach each other and she immediately asks to hear our message!! We promptly started with a prayer and proceeded to teach her the entire restoration and set up a return appointment. Once again we were not there that day to visit the lady with a bible. We were meant to meet a lady who was truly ready to accept the gospel!!! Miracle #3 Not even about 10 minutes later from the previous miracle we are driving and I saw a street sign and it really sticks out to me for some reason. We keep driving and I just got an urge to turn back. I was sort of hesitant but then the feeling came back again and I knew I had to turn around. So we flipped a U turn and headed down the street I saw and we found ourselves in an apartment complex. I saw a latino dude getting out of his car with a bunch of bags so we introduced ourselves and offered our help! We then introduced our message and shared the message of the restoration and gave him a pamphlet and a BOM!! He told us a time we could come back and he seemed super excited to learn more! Miracle #4 So one day we rolled up to an apartment complex looking for a former investigator. We saw that we were at the right apartment # but not the right building so we decided to walk around to find it. During that time we ran into a couple that we talked to who were just getting back from a trip. We talked about the church and they said that maybe they could find a time to have us over. After a little while of searching we decided that we probably were in the right spot at the start so we decided to head back. On the way back we ran into another guy and brought up the gospel! He said that he would like to have us teach him in his home and told us to come back Friday! Although no one was home on the door we knocked it was amazing to see that we were there for those few people the lord had prepared for us to meet! Miracle #5 One day we were in a complex also going to visit some former Investigaors and Riggs noticed a car that looked familiar. He recounted a story of how they found a guy who was super interested but they couldn't get his # and his other comp who went home had his address. But he knew that he drove that car. We found the car parked in the complex and we decided to knock some doors and take some guesses to see if we could find him. After just the 3rd door he opens up and was super happy to see us! He told us to come back on Friday because he was busy at the moment but it was so cool!!

Miracle #6 We have been teaching this lady Norma in our area for a while and she hasn't been progressing a ton. We have brought up baptism a lot but she is always a bit hesitant. One lesson we really emphasized that she pray and read the BOM BOM truly find out for herself if baptism was the next step for her. A couple days later she texts us asking why we want her to get baptized so bad. We decide to respond by asking her how she has felt or changed since meeting with us. She told us it felt good and then immediately told us that she would like to get baptized July 3rd!!! It was so amazing that she was able to recognize the change in her life and make the commitment to be baptized!!!

I just want to emphasize to everyone reading this that these occurrences are guided by God and are in no way coincidences. As we have had the faith to find people we are seeing that every day without fail we come into contact with those who are eagerly interested in this gospel. These miracles have been a huge testimony builder to me that the spirit will always testify of truth. We have seen countless people feel the spirit and accept our invitations to learn more as we testify of what we know is true. God truly is among us and he is in the details of our lives!!!

Also side note: Brian got baptized and I was able to attend the baptism!! 

Zachary sent June 16 at 5:04 PM