Interesting discovery this morning. . . MUSHROOMS! Apparently we are now growing mushrooms in the basement of the home we live at. Interesting discovery while doing laundry, who knew ;) That was random. Maybe the spiders will eat the mushrooms.

Pretty good week. It started with an AWESOME Zone Conference in Moses Lake. The entire conference was on the Book of Mormon. President Palmer said that "our testimonies are only as deep or as fragile as our study of the Book of Mormon is." It was super powerful. Elder Holland told us that our mission will only succeed to the degree that us as missionaries are in the Book of Mormon. He said that everything we teach should be based on the Book of Mormon. If our lessons to our investigators are not based on the Book of Mormon than they will not progress or succeed. President also quoted a general authority saying "if our testimonies of the Gospel are not based upon the Book of Mormon than they are built upon a very unsure foundation." It is so true! The more I read the Book of Mormon the more I know his words are true. The Book of Mormon testifies of every truth and so much of Christ. If we don't base everything upon the Book of Mormon than we don't know very much for certain. I can definitely see this in the investigators that we teach. We also did a scripture chase on the questions of the soul. The Book of Mormon can answer just about every question. Sister Haws and I won for our age groups so we got to compete against each other and two others for the big candy bar. It was pretty fun. We also found out who our new mission president will be in July. His name is Mullen from Orem, Utah. They have 5 kids and their two youngest twin boys who are 17 will be coming out with them. It was sad to think of the Palmers leaving, but they said they felt comfortable handing us off to the Mullens because they said they were awesome. They'll definitely have some big shoes to fill. President Palmer will be a general authority someday, we all know it ;) He also issued us a challenge to read the Book of Mormon by Mother's Day and mark all the references to Christ, His attributes, and anytime He speaks. I did that the last time I read the Book of Mormon, but it's so fun to do it again. It really is amazing!

One of our recent converts of 6 months ago had started smoking again. We did the 15-step quit smoking program that the church has and he has completely stopped! It's the most phenomenal thing ever! The Church has a program for everything and they actually work. He's one of our favorite converts to teach because he's so excited to do what is right and feels so horrible that he started smoking again. But now he's done for life!

We had to "discontinue teaching" (we're not supposed to say "dropped" anymore) one of our investigators. She wasn't doing any of the reading or coming to church. She mostly just enjoyed the company. We thought we did it in a very loving way and she seemed okay, but then she called us later furious that we would do that to her. It reminded me of the scripture that says that the guilty taketh the truth to be hard. So true and so sad. I have definitely learned that those who feel guilty have a very hard time accepting the truth because they know it's true and they know they're not doing it.

Another hard, bitter-sweet moment was with Maria y Eutiquio. He is the one that has been alcohol free for an entire month. We went to see her this last weekend and she was weeping. Tiquio had relapsed, pretty bad. She locked him out of the house and he tried breaking in. She was worried someone would call the cops on him and he would be deported so she let him back in. It's so sad because they are both so ready for baptism and have such strong testimonies, but apparently he's struggling more than we had hoped. We haven't seen him since. It's so hard to know how to help in these situations, but luckily the Lord knows all. She spent a half hour telling us all that had happened and we were dumbfounded. We couldn't say anything because it was such a shock from the entire last month of him completely turning around. So we turned to the scriptures. We had assigned her to read Enos 1 and she had. Being typical Maria and doing the opposite of anything we would expect her to do she started talking about how there were cows and horses during that day, but no pigs. We couldn't imagine that this was all she got out of this chapter, but finally she went to the doctrine verses. She was so excited about praying with real intent and she knew she hadn't been. The spirit was so strong and we knew she had her answer. She was so excited about what she read that she said "give me another chapter to read, I can't wait to see what it says." Wow! This is the true power of the Book of Mormon.

Our newlyweds are doing pretty good. Mari has read all the way through Jacob now. She can't put it down. She reads during her breaks at work and until 3 in the morning because she can't sleep. She not only reads, but she studies and reads all the footnotes too! We don't even do that! She'll be asking us to be baptized before we can ask her before too long. Her son that was missing has finally been found. He's in jail and he was staying with her sister. She was pretty upset that everybody knew where he was, but nobody would tell her. It's so sad to see how the choices of one person can affect another so much.

Well I better get running, but I love you all! Thank you so much for all of your support. The Church is true and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It's undeniable

Love,
Herman Probst