Letter #4 - March 25, 2013

So we had a little bit of a slow week in our area, but we have a lot of stuff set up for this next week, so hopefully, if things go well, the work will pick up quite a bit. We were fed dinner every day this last week, so we are well taken care of by the ward over here. And it was sunny yesterday, and sunny so far today, so it's beautiful over here. Our mission president says that Spring in Tacoma is like the garden of Eden. We have so many flowers coming out right now, and everything is so green already, and it's just all so great.

So I think I told you about Sonya last time. Well she never called us up, but we met her at church yesterday, and we got her number, so we are going to be teaching her this next week, and she wants to get baptized. So that's super exciting. She is living with her mom right now, and she wants us to teach her mom with her, so that's really cool. I don't know how old she is, but she has a 16 year old son, so I would guess around 40, but she doesn't look quite that old. Also, I think I was telling you about Brian as well, but as long as he doesn't smoke at all this week, he will be baptized on Saturday. He didn't make it out to church yesterday, because he wasn't feeling well, but he called us up while we were visiting with one of Elder Kearney's recent converts from last transfer, and said that he really wanted to smoke, so we went over and helped him clean his apartment until that went away.

So our most recent investigator that we're about to pick up is Tianna. She is a neighbor of Brother Torella's (he feeds us every Saturday), and she just had a baby. Well Brother Torella has been telling her about the church for quite some time now, and then he arranged for the Relief Society to bring her meals, and we went over on Sunday, and made an appointment to go back and visit her tomorrow, so that's really exciting. Brother Torella was baptized about a year and a half ago, and all these people that knew him saw this huge change in his life when that happened, and since then, about 6 people have investigated and joined the church from that since then, just in our ward. Well Tianna has been super impressed with our church so far (the relief society doesn't get birthday cake for nothing), and wants to learn more, so that would be really cool if she got baptized.

We had what is called a park day earlier this week, which just means that we can't drive at all on that day. Luckily it was nice and sunny on that day too. We had to change up our plans a bunch, because we didn't plan on that, but we got a bunch of doors knocked, and so that was a good chance to do that.

Okay, so I promise I will send my pictures home this next week, but you aren't going to be that happy with my pictures. I don't have that many. But we aren't allowed to take pictures while prosyliting (sp?), so it's hard to get a good chance for that.

Oh, yeah, so I bought a pink tie last Monday, because I've always wanted one, and this was pretty much the first time I've been somewhere that sells ties since I've left the house, and so I got one, and I wore it yesterday, and it was a hit. I got all sorts of compliments on it.

Well, we might hit up downtown Tacoma today for P-day, but I'm not really sure yet. A couple people in our zone wanted to check it out today, but a lot of the other people we talk to a bunch don't have any money left this month, so we might not do that. Also, Elder Kearney didn't want to go to the art museum, so we'll see. Anyway, I love you all and miss you tons!

The next little part is from a letter to his grandma.

Well, there's not all that much more to say about Washington. There is moss EVERYWHERE, and the air is really humid, and there's a lot of rain. We have a bunch of trees in a lot of places, but my area is right in the middle of the city. And the rich people are on the north side, and the poor people are on the south side, so we do most of our tracting on the south side. Our church building is really old. It was built in 1949, and we have one member in our ward who helped build it. The best part of the building is this wall in the chapel that raises and lowers. So we have our overflow in the cultural hall, and the wall that is inbetween the chapel and the cultural hall lowers into the floor. There are only 2 like it in the church, and one of them is broken. My boss at BYU actually went to the stake center for the stake I'm in right now, so that's really cool. I don't remember anything she said about it, but that it was on 12th and Pearl, and that's where we go for zone meetings and district meetings. We have the Pugit Sound in our district, which is basically this huge body of water that is attacted to the ocean, like a bay. It's really pretty. And there are a ton of hills. And we have some roads here that are made of brick, so those are pretty crazy.

 I'm am doing really well right now :) I have a great companion, and the ward here takes care of us. I'm starting to get to know a couple of the other missionaries in the zone too, so that's nice. Haha, I don't know what else you want to hear about from me, but I am doing super well right now.

 Yes! I did get my box. Thanks so much! Elder Kearney was happy too, so he says thanks as well :)

Well thanks for emailing me! I love you and miss you tons! Talk to you later :)

Letter #3

Hey, so I will probably be on for a little while longer, since I still have to write my letter to the Mission President, so if you have any burning questions, send them fast, and I'll answer them now :)

Okay, so I'm going to do my best to cover everything from this week, but it feels like so much happened this week, but it all went so fast, and I don't know what you heard from Kelly, but she and Kimmy got most of the good stuff from this week already. I had my first baptism this week. First three baptisms, actually. Elder Kearney and I baptized 3 grandchildren of an active sister in our ward. Their parents are less active, so they were not baptized at 8, but they were still 9, 11, and 13, so they were really easy to teach, and wanted to be baptized and everything. They got baptized on Thursday, and it was a pretty small event. It was pretty much only the family there, but it was still pretty great. We had to show up 2 hours early to fill up the font, and so we were at the church for a total of 4 hours that day. We got special permission to confirm them on the same day too, so I confirmed one of the kids. And then we got a bunch of extra juice and cookies afterward, that we gave to one of our investigators, because we already had too much food at the apartment. We made it a celebration for him not smoking for a day and a half at that point. We need him to stop smoking for 5 days in a row to get baptized, and then he's pretty much ready too.

Kelly told you about Sonja (Sonya?)? (halfway through writing this letter, I realized that you meant Sanjay.) I think I've met like 5 Sonjas this week, and I don't know which one you're talking about, but the big one that we had happen to us was yesterday, there was someone named Sonja that showed up in our ward. I didn't get around to talking to her, because there are just so many people that I don't know yet, and she looked like a pretty active member. Well, anyway, that evening, we had a dinner apointment with the Petersons, and in the middle of it, Brother Peterson asks if we met this Sonja, and I remembered what she looked like, but I didn't actually talk to her. So he said that he saw her wandering around, and so he went up to her, and she said that she didn't know where she was going. So he pointed her to Sunday School, and got to know her a little bit. She had the missionary discussions in California a couple of years ago, and wanted to get baptized, but stuff just came up, and she wasn't able to, but now she's living here, and she made it out to church, and she really wants to get baptized still, and she's going to keep coming to church every Sunday and everything, but she wants the discussions again, and so we're going to get to teach her soon, and get her baptized. So we're super excited about that. Right after he was telling us all of that, I got a text from the Ward Mission Leader that said, "Call me after your dinner apointment. I have good news :)" And apparently, he heard about the same person, and so we're all so excited for her. And we're excited for us too, because we're pretty much out of people in our regular teaching pool, so it's just pretty awesome.

The other morning, we ran the Narrows Bridge. That was pretty fun. It is a mile in each direction, but my companion is not much of a runner, and it was all windy, so I didn't want to be waiting at the end all by myself for forever, so I walked about half of the way.

I feel kinda stupid, but that blog address that I gave you is thebeautifulwa-tac.blogspot.com , not what I sent you with the @ symbol.

So some of the people that have been out for about 7 weeks now are actually training new missionaries. I hope I'm not a trainer this next transfer, because I do not feel ready for that at all.

Oh, yeah, and tell Dad thanks for his letter. I loved that talk he sent. It was super good. We've been talking a ton about faith here, and how it is a principle of belief, and principle of action, and a principle of power. Someone at the MTC defined a miracle as the natural outcome of exercising faith, or something along those lines. And that's a super cool way to think about it, because we see miracles all the time, especially here in the WA-TAC. Lots of really cool ones too. But when we are on the Lord's errand, we should expect to have miracles. And I think I had some other thoughts on faith too, but I can't think of any right now.

Okay, this letter feels pathetically short, but I can't think of much else to say... I love you all, and hope you are doing well!

Letter #2 - First One From Washington

Hey! So I finally got a chance to write again, so I will do my best to cover everything worth talking about, but there's just so much. I have 2 letters and a couple of little emails from you to respond to, plus our mission president's wife gave us a paper of things that moms really want to hear about that you should put in your first letter home, so I will try to cover as many of those things as possible. Also, before I forget, if you haven't found it yet, there's supposed to be a blog from the mission president's wife at thebeautifulwa-tac.blogspot.com I haven't really gotten a chance to look at it at all, but she said that she puts pictures up there and stuff like that, and she supposedly keeps it pretty up to date.

Okay, so first of all, I am in the heart of Tacoma, Washington right now. The area I'm in right now is called the Stadium ward. I love this city so much. You'll be lucky to get me home after 2 years. We flew into Seattle on Tuesday in the morning, and it is beautiful. Everything here is green and moss grows everywhere. I'll try to get my SD card sent home soon, but I don't have any Washington pictures yet. We have been pretty busy. We have a car in my area, so I haven't had to figure anything out with my bike situation yet, but I will get back to you when something happens with that. We have more cars in this mission than any other mission in the world.

Apparently, being a WA-TAC missionary is a big deal. We used to be the highest baptizing mission in the US, and right now, we're about 3rd, I think. But I guess Gordon B. Hinkley said that this was the best mission in the world at one point, and that every mission should be like ours. And everyone just talks this place up a lot. It is a really cool place though.

We don't have a very big teaching pool right now, so we're doing a lot of door-to-door tracting. And that goes a lot better than I would have thought. A lot of people politely say that they aren't interested after listening to you for a couple minutes, rather than slamming the door in your face as soon as they see you, so that's nice. We placed 6 copies of the Book of Mormon this last week. And that doesn't really mean a lot to me, because I don't have anything to compare it to, but it seems pretty good to me. My trainer said that last transfer didn't get nearly the numbers we are getting right now, probably because we were in the poorer side of town this time, and last transfer they focused more on the richer side.

My trainer's name is Elder Kearney. He's a pretty cool guy. He's from Utah (a small town I haven't really heard of before), and he's been out about 6 months now. I'm his second boy, as they call it. He really likes rock climbing. And that's about all I have to say about him. I really like him though.

We've had 2 beautiful sunny days, and the rest has been rainy. It would be nice if the rain was a little warmer, but besides that, the weather is amazing. The rain isn't really a downpour like the kind of rain you get when it comes in Rexburg. Someone here described it like walking in a cloud, where it's always kinda misting down, but not really coming down in hard drops... It's kinda hard to describe.

We had dinner with a member family yesterday, and that was really good. They fed me way too much though. We've been trying to establish a better relationship with the members this week since we've been here, so that it's easier to get the active members involved in member missionary work. Of about 700 members in our boundaries, 140 are active. So we should be having 3 sacraments in our building instead of 1. And ward council only happens once a month, so it's hard to get things done between auxilliaries in the church. So it's hard to try to get people converted and coming to church after baptism if the members don't have an active interest in doing their part in fellowshipping those people. I think the main problem is in home teaching. We just hear about so many families here who have been baptized, and want to come to church, but just don't have the drive to do it on their own. So we're doing our best to get them to work harder on those kinds of things, and to help out how we can. By the way, the bishop is a great person. I've met with him twice now, and he is awesome. He told me to not offend the gay community, and to not convert any muslims unless they came to us specifically, because their family could be killed if they converted. He is a military guy, and was on tour in the middle east, so that was important to him. Not a fun talk to be having. But he's very Christ-like, and does a lot for his ward.

Your letters make me so happy! In the MTC, we were encouraged to only write letters on P-days, but my trainer said that we could use the time before personal study in the mornings to do that too, so I'll try to write letters home so you can get stickers sometime. I have gotten the Pokemon stationary one, and the hand drawn stationary one. We're going to go to the mission office after the library today, so I might have more mail soon. If you want to send me mail to my apartment address, I will get it sooner, but if you send me anything after I move away (next transfer is around April 16 or 17, and I may or may not move), it might never make it to me. So here's that address:

The weirdest thing about this place is living with only one other person. It's a HUGE apartment for 2 people. Like about half the size of a CP apartment. Makes me not very excited to get married. Hahaha

All of the Elders from my district at the MTC came out to Tacoma with me, and all of the Sisters went out to a different mission (Minneapolis?). So that's cool.

Also, you asked about Amy. We committed her to baptism before we left the MTC, but that was right before we left, so we didn't actually get anything past that. She was... a difficult investigator. But we love her so much.

Well, I'm about out of time here, so I'm going to have to tie off this letter. I hope I told you everything you wanted to know. If you want any more details about stuff here, just send me more questions, and I'm more than glad to direct my letters that way more :) I love you all and miss you tons!

Dates to Remember

Just thought I would include some important dates while I remember them.

Received call on October 31, 2012
Went through the temple on February 1, 2013
Set apart as a missionary on February 19, 2013
Entered the MTC on February 20, 2013
Arrived in Washington on March 5, 2013