Letter #91

Merry Christmas everyone :)

This week was super busy and crazy and funny, and it feels like we didn't really get that much done because of all the holiday things going on for everyone.  But we did have a really cool baptism, so it was definitely a good week.  On Tuesday, we had our mission Christmas party, which was absolutely crazy.  It was really cool to see the whole mission, because I kinda know a lot of people now.  We did a white elephant gift exchange, which was alright.  There were a few pretty funny gifts (i.e. an Assassin's Creed: Unity poster that was altered to read Nicene Creed: One Lord.  One Faith.  One Baptism), but a lot of them weren't that exciting.  Ha, I ended up with a broken bobble-head.  But we had a pretty good group of people, so it was fun.  We also had skits from each zone (and they all were about 3 times the length they were supposed to be, so we ended up going super late), almost all of which made fun of President Blatter's frequent use of the word "gosh."  We also had lunch together and sang some Christmas songs (very loudly), and followed it up with a devotional.  Everyone had to prepare a talk, but only a few people were going to get called on, so it was a little scary.  I didn't prepare super well, so it was a good thing I didn't get called on.   We also read the last chapter of the Book of Mormon together (we have been reading it as a mission for the last 3ish months), and then got out at around 6 (we got there at about 8:30, so it was a long day.  Including travel both ways, it was about 12 hours).  So that was a really good day, but it was long. 

On Wednesday, we had a zone meeting, which was pretty fun.  Since it was Christmas Eve, we decided to make zone lunch into a potluck.  My companion decided that the only thing we could bring to a potluck was a rabbit, so we roasted one of those and brought it for the zone to eat.  It tasted a lot like turkey.  We also had a lot of normal food, so I mostly ate that.  After zone meeting, we had to go out caroling for 2 hours, so we went to downtown Olympia with our zone.  That was pretty cool.  We got to meet a bunch of cool people, and it wasn't raining on us, and we were next to the water and the capitol building, so it was all just really exciting.  We had a lot of people of "alternative lifestyles" come up and talk to us, and a lot of them were a lot nicer to us than most of the Christians that passed by, so that was kinda interesting.  We had a really good time though.

Christmas was really fun too.  We spent a lot of time with other members who fed us all day, and we got to Skype home, and sleep in for an hour.  We had a lot of people take good care of us.

The day after Christmas, we spent most of the day in service.  There was a member who had a Christmas flood and so we helped them salvage out their house for them.  They were redoing one of their walls too, and they were trying to show me how to do that, but construction mud and sheetrock isn't my specialty, so I mostly stuck to cleaning.  Later that day was when we had our baptism, so that day was pretty packed.  The whole family came out to the baptism (all of the family except for the one who just got baptized are non-members or inactive) and then to church on Sunday, so it was really great to see all of them there.

And anyway, that was my week.  I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year this next week!  Bye

Letter #90

Well, we had a pretty good week this week.  It was pretty busy with zone meeting, interviews, and an exchange all back to back, but things are going pretty well in Tumwater in general.  Things are also pretty crazy for everyone over here, because the holidays are coming up so fast, but it's fun too.  We get to go caroling with the zone instead of tracting for an hour tonight, and our mission Christmas party is next week.  We also have a baptism scheduled for the day after Christmas, so that's going to be super exciting too.

We had zone meeting on Wednesday this week, which was pretty fun.  We have them about once a month, so it's pretty fun to get to see the whole zone together, because it doesn't happen super often.  Elder Farr and I had the opportunity to give a blessing to one of the sisters in our zone, because she had been really sick for the last few days.  She had already gone home for medical reasons and then came back out into the mission, so everyone was pretty concerned about her, and she ended up having to go home later last week because she was doing so poorly, but it was really cool to have the chance to give a blessing to her, and to bring an assurance that everything would be alright.

We had interviews on Friday, which were also pretty great.  I asked to train a new missionary next transfer, and was pretty much told no.  Turns out we are only getting 2 new English elders this transfer, and one of them is going to one of the APs who goes home after next transfer, so I guess I probably won't get that this time.  Oh well.  Besides that, everything went fine with interviews.  President Blatter mostly asked me about my post-mission plans, which seemed a little weird considering I'm not really all that close to going home.  But it was good.

Our exchange happened Thursday to Friday, and was pretty standard.  I stayed in my own area, so I didn't really get to meet anyone new or explore new territory, but it was fun to get to go out with a new companion.  I was with Elder Geier, who is only about 2 months out.  I haven't been out with someone that green in a while.  He did a really good job about talking with people though, so I thought he did great.  We had a really crazy wind storm that day to the point that President Blatter texted everyone to go inside if they felt not that safe where they were at.  We had a bunch of small branches on the ground, but nothing too worrisome, so luckily we didn't have to go in.

And then we had a bunch of Christmas stuff last weekend.  We volunteered to help with the tree lighting festival at city hall, which mostly involved us helping kids decorate sugar cookies and make ornaments.  And the night before that, we had our ward Christmas party, where we got to have a dinner with the ward.  We had a really good turnout of investigators and less active members, so it was a really great event.  Our ward didn't think we would have as many people as usual, since we recently had a split in our ward, but, we filled the whole gym.

I miss you guys!  Have a great week :)

Love,

Elder Prue

Letter # 89

Well, I just made it to Tumwater this last week, and it is pretty nice here.  It's weird being back in the south side of the mission.  It really isn't that far away from where I was in terms of actual areas and stuff, but it feels like a completely different atmosphere over here.  And the weather got colder this week too.  We even had a little layer of snow on the ground Friday morning, so everyone got excited about that over here.  I think the coldest it got this week was around 20 degrees and windy, which is about as cold as it ever gets around here.  My companion is from Arizona, so we had to stop and play in every frozen puddle that we passed during tracting and street contacting. 

This week has been pretty crazy with transfers and Thanksgiving right next to each other.  I am now living with 3 other missionaries in a duplex outside of Olympia, which is infamous for being the craziest place in the mission.  It's the capitol of Washington, so you get a lot more liberal people here than in most places in the mission, which makes things pretty interesting.  The big focus of our week has been a new video that the church has put out this week called, "He is the Gift."  It's all based around Jesus Christ being the center of Christmas.  The day after Thanksgiving, we started sharing it with all of our members, investigators, and other random people that we meet during finding, and it has been pretty great so far.  The awesome part about Christmas is how easy it makes it to come up and have conversations with people about the gospel. 

For Thanksgiving, we had a pretty good day.  First of all, we played in the Turkey Bowl, which was probably a bad idea.  It was cold and rainy the whole time, and everyone except the missionaries had cleats.  It got pretty muddy a little bit into it, so we got kinda dirty.  But I caught the ball once, so it was a pretty good game.  We had about 20 people there, including 8 missionaries, so it was a pretty decent sized game, despite the inclement weather.  We got to have Thanksgiving dinners with 2 members, and then afterward, we visited a few other members.  So it was super nice having places to go even though I had only been in the area for 2 days. 

Church felt a little empty this week.  I don't know if it was because we had a holiday this week, or if this is just a smaller ward, but there aren't nearly as many people that go to this ward as we have had at all of my other wards.  We had some pretty good talks, an interesting gospel principles lesson, and a 5th Sunday discussion on covenants.  We have some really nice members here though, so it should be a really nice place to serve.

And that was my week.  I hope you are all doing well!  Have a great week.

-- Elder Prue

Letter #88

Well, we had some pretty crazy transfer calls this last week, and Elder Bradshaw and I are both leaving Orchard Heights.  It's been really hard saying goodbye to everyone, because we actually had a bunch of really good things happening in the ward.  Elder Bradshaw is going to Ocean Shores, and I will be going to Tumwater 1st ward with Elder Smart.  I'm super sad to leave Port Orchard, especially since I thought this would be my last area, but I am excited to be going to Olympia, since that was one of the places that I always wanted to serve.  I am also excited to have a car again, and to live with other missionaries (Olympia Spanish lives in the same apartment as us).  

We have been teaching a few new investigators this last week that are all fairly interested in the church, which is always super exciting.  A few of them have even agreed to be baptized already, and just need to start coming out to church and take the lessons, and they will be ready.  It's been really hard having to leave such a solid teaching pool, but it definitely feels good to be leaving an area stronger than you found it.  

Anyway, I don't have much more time to email, since we have to leave for transfers pretty soon, but I'm excited to go to Tumwater, and hopefully I will have a lot to say next week after I get there.

Letter #87

Well, this is going to be a pretty short email this week, since I had a bunch of people email me that I had to respond to.  It was a really great week though, since we had our zone conference and a fireside (which I thought was next week).  We also found several new people to teach, which was super exciting.

First of all, zone conference was actually a mission tour, since we had a general authority come.  Elder Snow was in the mission for 3 days.  We had our conference with him on Tuesday, which was really cool.  He was very complimentary towards our mission as a whole, and gave us a bunch of trainings.  He also told all of us to prepare a 5 minute talk on faith, and a few of us would present them in the conference, MTC sacrament meeting style, but I didn't have to give one, but during lunch, our mission president told me that he had put my name on the list of people to give their talks, but we ran out of time early.  So I was actually kinda glad about that.  It was a really good experience though, and I'm glad we had it.

On Sunday, we had a missionary musical fireside in Sequim, so we got to drive way up north to the top of Washington, which I had never done before.  my companion thinks that we saw Canada from there, but I'm not sure whether we did or not.  At any rate, it is way out in the country next to Twilight land.  A bunch of people from the Port Angeles stake came over to see it, and it was actually probably the best one that I've been to so far.  We also had my old bishop from Poulsbo there, and someone that I knew in Kingston, so it was kinda cool seeing some old familiar faces too.

And I am actually all out of time now, so this is as much as I'm going to be able to send, but it was a really great week :)  We have transfers next week, so don't send any more mail to my current address until I find out if I'm staying or not.

Letter #86

Well, I don't have a ton of time this week, but I took notes again for what I'm going to write about, so hopefully we have another pretty good letter this week.

So for the last couple of weeks, we have been working really hard to promote the nativity festival we have here in the Bremerton stake, and I can't remember if I've talked about this much yet or not, so I'm just going to talk about it anyway.  So the nativity festival is a really cool event that our stake does every year where they display over 500 nativities, perform Christmas music, have a live nativity, and have activities for children.  And it is a really professional event that they put on, so it's super exciting to go to.  Last year, there were about 1800 people who went, and our goal for attendance this year is 5000 people, so we have been working to invite as many people as possible to that.  In each ward, we are trying to get an invitation to every less active member to make sure they all know about it.  It has been quite the undertaking, and it's keeping us pretty busy. 

Every other week, we go to the veteran's home to pass the sacrament to the members there, and this last Sunday was one of those weeks.  I can't remember if I've talked about this before either, but seeing as it is Veteran's Day tomorrow, I thought it was worth mentioning again.  The veteran's home is a really great place to go, because the people there are so nice, and really appreciate us coming over to visit them.  We usually have about 4 members living there come over for the service, and then about 10 people from our ward to do the music, pass the sacrament, and speak.  We had the Sunday School President come and speak to them yesterday, and he had a really great talk about staying in boats that was based off of the conference talk by Elder Ballard.  And we had 3 other people who aren't usually there come and visit for part of the service, so it seemed a lot fuller than normal in our little room.  So that was a great experience.

I also got to play amateur music composer this week since some of the missionaries in our district wanted parts for a song that doesn't have parts that they wanted to sing in transfer meeting.  So that was kinda cool.  Oh, and speaking of transfers, those are in 2 weeks. 

Well, this next week, we have mission tour going on, which means we will be having a member of the seventy come and speak with our mission and be involved in different parts of the things we do.  So we are all really excited about that over here.  My half of the mission gets to meet with him tomorrow, and the rest of it meets with him on Wednesday. 

And that was my week.  I think it looks a lot longer when I double space the paragraphs like this, so I think I'm always going to do that now.  Well, I love you all!  Talk to you later.

Letter #85

Well, I tried to write myself a few notes this week so I would have a better letter, so hopefully that worked for me.

This week was super busy, and I don't even know what we did, but I'm exhausted today.  On Friday we had our Halloween quarantine in Bremerton.  We had someone from the Nativity Festival committee come and tell us some stuff that's going on with that so that we can advertise it in our wards and as we go out door to door talking to people.  The fliers they gave us to hand out look super professional.  They legitimately look like something you would pay $10-$15 to get into, and people get super intense about it.  The one I went to last year in Gig Harbor was seriously the best church activity I have ever been to, so we're trying to work people up again this year to invite all of their friends to it.  After that, we had a zone meeting that was pretty much just a review of general conference.  We played a Jeopardy style game that brought out my state champion scholastic skills.  My team won, of course.  And after that, we got to see a movie.  The zone leaders tried to trick us into thinking that the Blatters wanted us to watch The Testaments, but it was actually The Best Two Years.

And then on Saturday, we got to help with a move.  It was supposed to be like 2 hours long and not a big deal, but there was a lot of expensive oak furniture that needed to go up the spiral stairs, and all the other people that showed up were in their 50s or later.  So we ended up spending most of our day taking care of that move.  It was super tiring, and I think I actually hurt my arms pretty badly during it somehow (they're better now), but we were both in bad shape by the time we had that move finished. Anyway, we finished out that day the best we could, and then had a very brief planning at 9:00, and I went to bed.  With the time change, I managed to get 10 1/2 hours of sleep, which was actually super nice.  Probably the best night of sleep I've had in almost 2 years.  But that day, was the first Sunday, so we were both fasting, and the night before, I prayed for a non-member to come to church that we weren't planning on being there, because I felt like we had been working really hard all week, and just didn't have anything come of it.  And then at church the next day after ward council, we walked into the chapel and saw 2 people that we didn't recognize.  After we talked to them, we found out that one of them was a less active who was trying to come back out to church, and her husband was not a member.  They were super friendly and they fit in super well, and we are going to be teaching them coming up, so we were way excited about that.

For Sunday school this last week, we went to the family history class that our ward does during the second hour.  That was pretty interesting.  They had extra computers there, so the teacher had me log into my family tree and try to get something done.  So I pulled mine up, and I had no idea what to do with it.  But then the teacher looked at some stuff on my tree and helped me learn how to tell if records were duplicated, and how to fix those and stuff like that, so that was pretty interesting too.  I'm not really that good with that kind of stuff normally, so it was kinda fun.

An that was pretty much my week.  Hopefully this is a better email than normal :)  Hope you guys are all doing well!  Bye

Letter #84

We had a really busy week this week, and the weather was super crazy for us.  We had some really crazy rainstorms, and a whole lot of wind and a little bit of sun a few times.  But mostly wind and rain.  Over the weekend, a  bunch of people around here lost power in Port Orchard, and I'm told that about 2/3 of Seattle had power out too at one point.  And then there were fallen leaves and trees all over the place, including one fairly large tree that took up an entire entrance to our apartment complex.  But things are pretty much settled down with the weather now.

We had 3 apartment inspections this week, which was more than I ever thought we would have to have in a period that short, but I guess everyone just needed to be in our apartment this week, so we had to keep it clean the whole week.  Bummer.  Haha, but really, the mission inspectors were really impressed, so we got a gold star from them.  And a little toy thing that looked like a green army man, except it was tan-ish and a nephrite soldier.

I also made a paper chain to count down until Christmas.  My companion was sick for a while, so I had fun making that.  Also, Halloween is this week, which is pretty crazy.  We are having a zone meeting, and we get to watch a movie for that.  They haven't told us which one yet, but rumor is it might be Frozen. 

Ah, well I just ran out of time again, so this is another lame letter.  Happy Halloween everyone :)

Letter #83

This week was kinda long and not that eventful, since I was sick for a decent chunk of the week, and all our investigators were sick too, it seems like.  On Tuesday, we had our transfer meeting, which was really great.  We had a lot of missionaries go home, which was so weird to see.  We had more than normal going home, so this was one of the longest transfer meetings that I've ever been to.  Our ride had to go early, so I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone, which was sad, but the meeting was really great. 

On Sunday, we had a musical fireside, which was also a really great meeting.  The turnout wasn't the greatest, because we found out about it pretty last minute, but we had a lot of really great musical numbers there.  We also had some recent converts from the surrounding stake share their conversion stories, which were all pretty interesting.  I got to see Elder Stirling, so that was really nice. 

Ah, I have like one minute left, and I barely have an email to send.  But I guess this is better than nothing?

Letter #82

Transfer calls came this last week, and Elder Bradshaw and I will be staying together in Orchard Heights for another transfer.  Our whole entire district is staying the same, which is pretty unusual, but I like everyone we have right now, so I'm not that disappointed about it.  And since I'm staying in this area for another transfer with my same companion, there is a pretty good chance that this might be my last area, which is super wild.  I'm kinda planning on staying here for that whole time now.  This week has been up and down a lot.  Our investigators have been not wanting to keep commitments, which is always annoying, because we know how much happier they would be if they would just come to church every week, and not go to the bar all the time, and sometimes they just can't do that.  But we've had some pretty great stuff this week too.

Ward conference was this week, which was a really cool experience.  It feels like we've hardly had any normal meetings this transfer, because we had 2 fast Sundays, stake conference, general conference, and ward conference in 6 weeks, which only leaves 1 Sunday for normal meetings.  Ward conference was great though.  Our bishop talked about 4 truths about God that has gotten him through challenges.  The first was that God is always good.  The second is that this world is fallen. The third is that God never forgets us, and the forth is that all things work for good for those who love God.  And he brought those together really well.  And then our Stake President gave a really awesome talk afterwards that I don't remember super well, because I don't have my notes with me right now.  It was really awesome though.

We have been trying to work more with our members in finding new people to teach here.  Our current game plan involves teaching the restoration to members, and then extending the invitation given by Elder Ballard 2 conferences ago to invite 1 person to take the missionary discussions in the next 3 months.  So we will see how that goes.  We had one of our first lessons last night, and it seemed like it went pretty well.  Afterward, we left a reading assignment from Preach My Gospel, because I guess our leaders want members reading out of that more too.  So hopefully that goes over well.

Well, I am almost out of time now, and I still have to email our mission president, so I'm going to end this here.  Love you guys, bye!

Letter #81

This week was way packed with stuff, and pretty busy, so I'll try to go over as much of the stuff as possible.  So the coolest part about this week was that we got to the temple with one of the recent converts in this ward.  We have been spending a lot of time planning out this trip and helping the recent converts here with family history so they would be able to go and do family names, and then early last week, once we had everything planned, we called President Blatter to get permission to go, and he said that we couldn't because Donald was baptized before the specific rule change that let us go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  But then our awesome ward mission leader wanted us to come really badly, so he got our mission president's email address and wrote a long email about all the reasons that we should go, and President Blatter changed his mind on us and let us come along.  So we took the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle on Friday and drove from there to the temple.  That was way cool because we got to be on the water, and when we go to the temple with the mission, we actually never get to drive through Seattle, because the temple is actually out in Bellevue.  So I got to drive through Seattle for the first time too.  The temple was really great.  Donald is pretty old and not that stable, so he didn't actually get baptized for any of his family names, but he got to be a part of the confirmations, which was cool for him.  His wife was one of the family names that he had done, and so it was a really special trip for him.  Afterwards, we got to have dinner in the cafeteria in the temple, which I had never been to before either.  So it was a really fun trip.  We drove back through Tacoma on the way home, which wasn't super exciting, except that I got to see a few of my old areas again.

The other great part about this last week was conference.  This was the last conference of my mission, which is kinda crazy.  We told our investigator to pray about modern prophets and then watch conference, and she said that she loved it, and believes in prophets now, and had a really good experience with that, which is exciting for us.  And it was way fun to hear a bunch of talks in other languages.  Anyway, I 'm all out of time now, but I hope you all have a great week!  Oh, and transfers are this next week, so I'll tell you if I'm moving!

Letter #80

Well, this week has actually been pretty busy.  The big highlight of the week was that we got to go to Zion's Camp out in Belfair.  We did a bunch of ropes course things that were supposed to be team building exercises because our mission president thinks that we need to do better at being united as a mission.  All of the activities required us to work with other missionaries in our group to do something that we couldn't do alone, like climbing up a ~15 ft wall, a trust fall, and getting through a net without moving the cords holding the net up.  We had a lot of fun with that stuff and it was really great to be out in the woods for a while (it rained a little while we were out there, but it was pretty dry for the most part).  I also got to see a bunch of my really good friends that I haven't been around for a while, so it was really exciting all around.  Probably the best part was that we got to watch Meet the Mormons at the end, 2 weeks before it releases in theaters.  It was really good!  I think they try to make it look like white people are a minority in our church, which is pretty funny, but I think it does a really good job at catching a lot of the cultural dynamics of the people in the church.

Lately we have been planning out a huge temple trip for the recent converts in our ward, so that has kept us pretty busy.  We are really hoping that we will get to go (we probabaly will, but we still have to get permission from our mission president), because then we will get to take the ferry to Seattle, which we would not get to take out here otherwise.  We are really excited to get to go to the temple though, and we are also super excited for our recent converts who have never been to the temple.

General conference is this next week, which is cool because I've been looking forward to this for a while now.  This will be the last general conference of my mission, so it had better be a good one.  Haha, Elder Muro thinks they're going to announce China opening for missionary work.  So we'll see, I guess.  We've also been trying to teach the members discussions that we normally teach to investigators, to get them more excited about finding people for us to teach, and so we have a good opportunity to tell them that they should be studying Preach My Gospel and inviting one person every 3 months to take the missionary discussions like Elder Ballard asked everyone to do last conference.  We've just started that, so hopefully that goes well.  

Anyway, I'm out of time now, but I love you all and hope you guys have a great week!

Letter #79

I don't have my planner this week, so I guess I'm going to have to try my best to remember what happened this week, but I this it was a pretty good one.

Oh, so the most exciting thing about this coming week that we just found out is that we get to go to Zion's camp again!  We went last year, and it was super fun, because we mostly just got to play outside all day.  We get to do that this coming Friday, and half of the mission will be there, and so I'll get to see a bunch of people, and we'll be out in the middle of the woods all day.  And it will be a spiritual experience or whatever.

Our investigator didn't come to church this week, but she is moving in with one of our members today!  So that should be a better situation for her.

We had zone meeting this week, which was really good.  We talked about how to better involve members in missionary work.  We have been trying to make that a focus anyway lately, especially in our finding, and as part of that, we decided that we want to start teaching members the missionary discussions.  PMG says that you should let your ward mission leader be in charge of making those appointments, which I was all for, since I was kinda overwhelmed with figuring out how to do that, and luckily, he seemed pretty excited about being told something more specific to do for his new calling, and so we ran it by the ward council yesterday, and everyone in there got way excited about that too, so we passed around sign-up sheets in church for people who would want to listen to us, and so we're starting to make appointments doing that.  And hopefully that goes well.  Our first member appointment is tonight, so we're excited to get started with that.

Wow, and I'm almost out of time now, and my letter is still really lame, so I'm sorry about that.  But hopefully this next week should be great.  Conference is coming up, so that's worth being excited about.  Women's conference is this Saturday, and the "real" conference starts next weekend.  Yep yep.  Well, I love you all!  Talk to you guys later.

Letter #78

Well, this week ended up being pretty eventful, especially this weekend.  Pretty much every person we planned to meet with didn't actually meet with us, so we spent most of our time walking around and trying to meet new people.

Well, the most exciting thing about this last week was stake conference.  We had President Worthen from BYU come up and speak to us, so that was pretty special.  We had a 2 hour session for the youth in our stake Saturday afternoon, and then the stake fed us all dinner, and then at 7 we had another 2 hour session, and then another 2 hour session the next morning from 10-12.  So we spent a long time there.  President Worthen was speaking for the entire youth session, which was almost entirely spent in Q&A format.  A lot of my notes from that section don't make much sense, but I think that session was good.  The adult session after that was probably the best.  President Worthen shared a story from Sheri Dew, who wanted to try out for the girl's basketball team at BYU, but didn't because she got too intimidated by her competition.  After she told that story the first time, the coach from that year, who had been coaching women sports at BYU for 42 years said that that year in that sport, she was 1 person short of a full roster, and that was the only time in her entire career that had happened.  I don't remember the point of that story, but it was kinda painful how he told it.  And then somehow, there was this overarching theme in the conference, where all the speakers kept bringing up the fact that time doesn't exist in eternity.  But the actual theme from the first presidency was supposed to be hastening the work of salvation.  The Sunday session started with the stake president saying that most of us would probably be offended by his talk, so we all knew right away that it was going to be a good one.  Basically, he told us all that we need to do a better job of observing the Sabbath.

Saturday morning I got to go back to Poulsbo for a baptism!  That was super exciting, and it reminded me how much I miss Poulsbo, especially my ward and district over there.  It was probably the best baptism of my mission too.  Everything was super organized and well done.  We also had interviews with our mission president, which was fairly uneventful, except that it was my second to last one.

Well, I am about out of time now, but I love you all!  Bye

Letter #77

Okay, well, I have a lot of stuff to talk about this week, and not very much time, so I'm going to try to make it through everything.

My new area is pretty great.  It's right in Port Orchard, and we don't have a car because the area is so small, but it's a cool place to be.  Most of the ward is pretty old, but they're all way nice to us.  We had a super good fast and testimony this week with no crazy people, which was really good, because we had an investigator there for her first time.  She is getting baptized in 2 weeks, and coming out to church was kinda the next big step she was having trouble with.  She's really shy,  So it was super exciting to have her there.  We also had this one guy show up to church that we just said hi to.  Turns out he was a less active member, and when we said hello to him, he had this feeling that he needed to start coming out to church again, and he showed up the next day.  So it was super cool seeing him there too.  That was really great, because the same day that we said hi to him, everyone was shouting at us and someone at a yard sale bashed us for like half an hour straight, and it was a little bit of a downer day before that.

Elder's Quorum is crazy in this ward.  Everyone was super rowdy, which I'm not used to in EQ.  The guys in front of me took a selfie in the middle of class, and I photo-bombed it, cause I thought it was silly that two 30-year-olds were taking selfies in the middle of class.

Every time you have to change an area, it's super crazy, because you have to pick up everything you own and start life completely over in a new place, and everything is completely different, but this transition has felt super natural for the first time.  Maybe because I've been out so long now, but it's been great here, and I love my new companion.  Well, I'm out of time unfortunately, so this is it, but I love you all!  Talk to you later, bye

Letter #76

Today is transfer day, and I got my transfer call to the Orchard Heights ward, so I'm heading out of Poulsbo this afternoon to go to Port Orchard.  I'm super sad to leave here, but I've heard a lot of great things about this ward that I'm going to from people who have served there already, so I'm excited to go there.  It's only about a 45 minute drive from Poulsbo to Port Orchard, so I'm not going that far, but I have to go all the way down to Tacoma for transfer meeting before I go there.  Also, this might be my last area, so that is crazy too.

Well, I'm the worst emailer ever, because I can't think of anything that happened this week.  We had a zone meeting, I guess.  And that was fun.  We have 2 missionaries in our zone who are going home tomorrow, so they shared their final testimonies there.  One of the missionaries going home in our zone is my trainer, so that's crazy.  He's my first companion to go home.  Well, go home on time, I guess.

Also, this is like the first ward that I am leaving that I think really liked me, haha.  People actually asked if I would be coming back after the mission, and Mark and Rebecca's family gave me this super cute candy poster, and I just felt really loved, which was cool.

I think we played piano and sang church music with an investigator one night this week.  It might have been last week, but I don't think it was.  I was the pianist, so the music quality was questionable at best.

Anyway, I want to email President Blatter before I run out of time, so I'm going to end this email here.  Love you guys!  Bye

Letter #75

Well, this transfer is almost over.  We are just starting week 6 today, which means that we should be getting our transfer calls on Saturday, and then moving to new areas will take place the following Tuesday.  So that should be interesting to see what happens.  We will be getting 4 new zone leaders in the mission and 1 new AP, so it's pretty exciting to think about what's going to change coming up.  Apparently the mission president called all of the zone leaders to ask for suggestions for leadership this coming transfer, since he doesn't know everyone in the mission super well yet.

Anyway, this week wasn't super exciting.  I got to go on an exchange with Elder Muro in Poulsbo 1st ward, but we both ended up having meetings at the church, so we saw each other quite a bit still, and everyone in Poulsbo 1st dropped our appointments, so it wasn't that great of an exchange.  I slept in Elder Davidson's bed about 1 mile away from my own.  And we had dinner with the Spears, who I already knew pretty well because Brother Spear doesn't like going to Sunday School.  Other than that, it was a whatever exchange.

Oh, church was interesting.  We were waiting for our ride after church when the Kingston ward got out of sacrament meeting, and someone about my age came up to me and asked me where I was from.  I said I was from Idaho, and she asked if I was from Rexburg (I said yes).  So yeah, turns out that she (Angie Head) graduated from Madison 2 years before me, which kinda surprised me, because you don't really expect to find people that you know in Kingston, Washington.  Not that I actually knew her, but she recognized me, which was cool anyway, cause that made me feel famous.

And the person that we have been teaching lately is still planning on getting baptized, which is good.  We're all pretty excited about that.  And we have another person who we've been talking with lately who is also a pretty good candidate for baptism, as long as his health improves.  He could pretty much drop dead at any moment according to him, but we gave him a blessing, and we're optimistic for him.

This last week, I've been studying mostly out of the beginning of Mosiah still and chapter 10 out of Preach My Gospel, which is about improving our teaching skills.  And then I've also been reading through some conference talks.  This next conference is just over a month away, so I'm excited for some new material to read.

Anyway, that was my week.  Oh yeah, PS, if anyone hasn't seen the Mormon Message called The Hope of God's Light (http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3701964025001) yet, it's super good.

Letter #74

This week was really long and tiring, but a lot of good things happened too.  We were walking like pioneer children all week long.  But I am officially turning 18 months this week, which is pretty wild.  Also, this transfer will be over in another 2 weeks, so it will be interesting to see what kind of changes happen coming up.

Well, the most exciting thing from this last week was probably street contacting at art fest.  And exciting just means that we got to see a bunch of really cool art from local vendors while everyone got mad at us and told us we should leave.  But there is sooooo much great local art around here.  I'm always impressed with that.

I have been reading the Ensign lately for studies.  I can't believe I never read the Ensign before my mission.  Well, I guess I can, but I actually do like reading it now.  There's some interesting stuff about marking your scriptures in different colors, and dating.  Plus some other cool stories that are fun to read.  And in my Book of Mormon reading, I've been finishing up Jacob and Enos, Jerom, Omni.  Those chapters are pretty different than most of the Book of Mormon.  And my Preach My Gospel reading has been all over the place.  I recently noticed that when other people ask me about Preach My Gospel, I pretty much know where almost everything is in there.

And we finally have an investigator who is going to get baptized!  We haven't had a baptism in Poulsbo since I've gotten here, so we're pretty excited for it.  It will be happening the week after transfers, so I might not even be here for it, but our ward is pretty excited about it.

Haha, oh yeah, and we had a run-in with some Kirby vacuum salespeople yesterday.  They were pretty cool.  We talked about knocking doors and stuff.  And we got a tracting treasure too yesterday.  It was this painting of Jesus on a piece of metal.  We're going to hang it up in our apartment.

Well, that's about all I can think of to say right now.  I miss you guys!  Love you, bye.

Letter #73

Well, today was a day to learn valuable lessons.  For example, Elder Hendricks learned this morning while I was in the shower the difference between "Dishwashing Soap" and "Dishwasher Detergent," and why we only use the latter when loading up the dishwasher.  I've never seen someone make that mistake in real life before, so that was gratifying in a way, since I didn't actually have to clean up the mess myself.

I drove barefoot today for the first time in my life.  Not my favorite way to drive.  I almost hit a woodpecker that was in the middle of the road, but then I noticed it and stopped so it wouldn't get hit.

Well, I've been going back to working hard to write good normal journals, but I forgot to bring that to see if I had anything interesting to talk about this week, so I guess I probably didn't.  We had a zone activity today on the beach way up in Hansville (which is way in the middle of no where).  We pretty much just played ultimate.  It was pretty fun to see the rest of the zone.  We have Zone Conference tomorrow too, so I'll get to see them again then too.

Well, Elder Hendricks and Elder Davidson both had birthdays this last week.  Elder Hendricks turned 26 and I think Elder Davidson turned 21.  Their birthday was on the same day, which was super silly.  We had ice cream, and ice cream cake during district meeting, so that was a wild time.

Well, we got a super late start emailing, and so I'm going to have to end this now.  Love you all, bye

Letter #72

Well, this week was pretty good.  We didn't have the car, so we got to do a bunch of walking, but that's nice, because then everyone sees you a lot and thinks you're working really hard, even though you actually are getting way less done.

This week, we had exchanges, which was nice.  I got to go to Poulsbo 1st for the day with Elder Davidson.  We didn't do anything too exciting, but being with someone who isn't your normal companion has a way of making things more upbeat.  We didn't have anything too out of the ordinary happen, but it was a pretty good day.

The weather has been super sunny lately.  It was kinda humid too this last week, which made it pretty bad, but besides that, the heat isn't really much to complain about.  It's way sunnier out by Seattle than it is closer to the ocean, and this has been a pretty long summer for the area, so it's been really nice for quite a while. 

Well, we got a few new investigators this last week, and I recommitted myself to journaling, so that was all good stuff.  And I'm out of time, so I need to finish this up before the computer kicks me off.  Love you all, bye :)

Letter #71

Okay, so transfer calls are in, and I will be staying with Elder Hendricks for another transfer in Poulsbo.  So that's exciting.  Not many people got transferred this transfer.  Almost everyone who is moving is either going home, or filling a place of someone who is going home.  There's only one person moving out of our district (she's going home) and the sister who is staying there is training this transfer.  I'm way sad that I don't get to go to transfer meeting, but I do like most of my district for the most part, and the ward here is really awesome, so I'm glad I don't have to leave these people yet.

Oh, so yesterday was my 17-month mark.  I'm about to be a year and a half old in less than a month now.  I'm getting way old.  But that's cool.

We got invited to go to mutual this last week, which was exciting.  We had a campfire on the beach (of the hood canal, not the ocean, so it was kinda a fake beach) and talked about missions.  A bunch of the youth just got back from trek, and Camp Helaman (a weird missionary camp thing.  I haven't heard of anything like it anywhere else.), and so a lot of them had cool experiences from that that we talked about, and so that was cool.  We even had a non-member there (from the other ward, unfortunately) who should really be baptized, cause he went to all these things too, and is more solid in the church than some of the other young men we have.

We got to do some yard work for a less active member this week too, which was nice.  It's so weird talking to RMs who don't go to church any more.  But he is nice to us and everything, because he was a missionary too at one point.

Oh yeah, and we just barely got a call that Poulsbo 1st won't have a car anymore.  So we'll be sharing with them again this transfer.  Which is kinda sad, but whatever, I guess.  Days go by a lot faster without a car, cause travel takes so much longer, and you can't get as much done.  But it's not all bad, cause you get more exercise, and everyone thinks you're working a lot harder, cause they see you around more.

Well, this email is super non-substantive, but I've always struggled to describe my life as an inventory of events.  I hope everyone is well :)  Love you all, bye

Letter #70

Well, I don't have that much to talk about this week.  It was a pretty normal week.  We had district meeting this week, which was super nice.  It's actually the second one we've had all transfer with all of the extra meetings we've had with the new mission president coming.  And the last one too, since we have zone meeting again this next week.  District meetings are the funnest because they're pretty laid back most of the time, and you get to see other missionaries and stuff like that.  Oh yeah, and talk about missionary things.  That part's always super awkward though, because we never have any investigators to talk about.  Except we just got one now, so that was great.  Everyone was so proud of us.

Anyway, transfers are coming up this next week, which is wild.  We will find out about transfers this Saturday, probably, unless President Blatter decides to change that.  I guess we'll find out soon.  We have interviews with him on Saturday, so that will be exciting.  It doesn't sound like they're going to be super intense, so that's good.  I'm pretty excited for that.

On Thursday, we got to help out with a service activity in Kingston.  We moved a piano for a member out there.  And then he fed us some pizza.  We also got to help Rebecca with some service on Saturday, which was also super wild.  We were cleaning up her deck/veranda so she could sit up there without being surrounded by deadly spiders.  So we got to clear away a bunch of spider nests and mildew and stuff until it was beautiful.

And we had our first sit-down lesson with an investigator that we've had in a long time this last week.  And that was really nice.  Hendricks claims it's the first one that he's had on his mission, but I think there are some that he's had in Port Orchard that he isn't counting that he should.  But the point is that it's been a while.

Oh, and the Taco Bell workers told us that Ed Sheeran has a new album out, and now I just really want to listen to that.

Well, that's everything that I can think of from this week.  Having a new mission president is starting to feel a little less like President Weaver is on vacation and coming back soon, and more like we're going to have President Blatter forever.  Next week should be a little more exciting, so hopefully I'll have a better letter then.  I'll try to video journal more!  I love you all, and I'll talk to you later.

Letter #69

Well, I am short on time already, and so this might be a short email, but I'll do my best to get something good out.

So we got to meet our new mission president this week, which was pretty exciting.  He seems like a pretty great guy so far, so I'm pretty excited.  We have transfers in about 2 weeks, so that will be interesting to see what he does with that.  He's already conducted an emergency transfer in Gig Harbor, so it sounds like he's not afraid to make changes.  So we'll find out how that goes next week.  We met him officially at a meeting in Silverdale this last week, and I think he's pretty overwhelmed/intimidated still over the idea of being a mission president, but his family made an introduction video about him, and they all seem to like him alright, so that's a good sign that he's an alright guy.

So fun fact about Poulsbo:  The 3rd of July is actually a bigger holiday than the 4th of July.  We were at an apartment trying to visit a less active, and someone who was outside having a barbecue said, "Come on guys, don't you know it's the 3rd of July?" at us, but not really to us.  And there was a lot of fireworks and drunk people and stuff.  And the next day was a fairly normal day.  There wasn't a parade (I guess they have one for Memorial Day, but not the 4th of July), and we had to go all the way up to Port Gamble to find anyone celebrating.  We were supposed to be in by 8 that day, and we spent most of our time with members in the ward who don't get out that much, so that was actually pretty fun too.

Anyway, I'm about out of time now, so I'm going to have to end this email now, but I love you all!  Talk to you guys later.

Letter #68

Shout out to Rebecca who said that my emails suck and need to be better.  Thanks for putting them on a blog mom.

Our new mission president got here on Thursday, so that was really exciting.  I guess we got 122 new ones all over the world, and ours was one of them.  I will meet him officially on Wednesday, but we got to hear him on conference call last night, and he seems pretty cool.  I felt like I should be intimidated by him, and then after I listened to him talk, I realized that he's still a n00b at this and he should be intimidated by me.  Just kidding.  But really.  So yeah, I like him so far, and it'll be great to meet him for real this week.  He's letting us wear shorts when we play sports outside for p day (the Weavers stopped letting us do that for some reason), so he's popular already.

We also got to say goodbye to our old mission president this last week.  He was pretty sad to leave us all, and he wanted to tell us all to be on our best behavior for the new Mission President and all that.  We also got a letter from the First Presidency changing a few things about the way that we teach, so that was interesting.  Nothing too wild, but we are supposed to teach the first 5 lessons before they get baptized now, instead of 1-4 before baptism and 1-5 afterwards.  Also, they want us to stay in touch with our converts for a whole year after their baptism.  Then the Weavers gave us coins (I guess it's a military tradition), and we hugged and said goodbye.

We almost got an investigator this week.  We had an appointment with this one referral from the Chimacum missionaries, and then right as we got there, they were pulling out of the driveway with a pinky promise to call us back.  They haven't.

Also, we were in charge of sharing time again this week.  The kids were a little rowdy and not that interested in family history, so it was decent, but not the best.  The leaders were all thrilled that they didn't have to do it, and told us that it really didn't matter what we did, because the primary kids just love missionaries anyway.  So they all told us we did well.  It was pretty crazy in there though.

Well, the text is way magnified on this computer, so this letter looks pretty long already.  Also, I can't think of anything else interesting to say, except the story about how I got sassy with someone on a doorstep earlier, which I usually don't do, and I don't think anyone on the other end of these letters would be impressed.  So the end.

Letter #67

Okay, well this week was pretty good.  We've been working up to getting our new mission president this week, and the time will finally be here on Thursday, so that's pretty suspenseful right now.  The Weavers have been trying to get around to see as many people as possible before they leave, so they will be our favorites still when the new guy comes around.

So we had an exchange on Tuesday this week, which was pretty early in the transfer to have one.  Usually they happen around week 4 give or take depending on the district leader and how many exchanges they have to do that transfer.  This is probably the earliest in the transfer that I have ever done an exchange.  So I went with Elder Muro for the day, and Elder Hendricks went with Elder Davidson in Poulsbo First for the day.  So that was pretty nice.  We got to talk to Sean, the recent convert that moved in across the parking lot from us, so that was cool.  He usually has some pretty funny things to say, but it was a more somber visit than normal.  We also did some tracting and stuff.

And then we had a zone meeting this week, which was pretty great as well.  It was a weird last minute sentimental introspection training that the Weavers wanted us to do to change our lives right before the new mission president came, so it was a little bit unorthodox, but I got to see the rest of the zone, so we still had a fun time.  I have a pretty good zone, so it was nice to see everyone.  Most of the people in our zone are at least a year out, and so my companion is the youngest by far.

We also had park day this week, so we weren't allowed to use our cars on Thursday.  We did a lot of walking, and we live on a hill, and everyone else lives on different hills, and so we did a lot of walking up and down hills.  And Elder Hendricks got to meet Christa, so that made my day a lot better.  She is a little bit different, and Elder Hendricks was a little surprised at the encounter.

The Weavers took our zone out to lunch on Saturday, so that was super nice of them.  We went out to Round Table, which is a pizza place in Silverdale.  We got pictures with the Weavers and free food, and with travel time included, we had about a 2 hour lunch, and plus we got to see the entire zone again, so we had a fun time with that too.  We are having a "mini-zone conference" (aka goodbye party) with the Weavers tomorrow, so that should be the last time we see them officially before they go home.  So that will be a blast.  It will be interesting to see when/how we meet the new mission president.

And that's pretty much everything interesting that happened this last week.  So yeah, sorry there aren't any cool missionary stories.  We talked to some people, and we had a few pretty interesting rejections.  So that's about it.

Letter #66

Well, this week was the first one since transfers, and so it's been pretty wild.  There were some big changes in the district, so it's been weird getting used to so many new people again.  And my new companion looks like a 30-year-old version of Elder Rasband, but he's actually only 25.

It got rainy again this week, which I was kinda hoping we'd be done with for another month or two, but no such luck.  It started raining a bunch on Thursday, and then it's been fairly rainy since then.  We talked to someone on a porch the other day, and after talking to him for a while, he asked for a pamphlet, and my companion didn't have any with him, but I like to keep one of each in my bag for just such an occasion.  So I went to pull out a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet (he talked about getting a Restoration pamphlet about a year prior), and I noticed that I only had The Law of Chastity and The Word of Wisdom left.  And neither of them seemed all that fitting for a first encounter, but he was smoking a fat cigar, and I didn't think he would be having too many chastity issues, so I just handed him the WoW one.  And I thought it was a pretty awkward/funny moment.

This is President Weaver's last full week in the mission.  So yeah, that's pretty weird.  We're having "mini zone conferences" aka goodbye parties this next week before they leave so they can say goodbye to all of us.  The Blatters will come in a week from Thursday, and they will officially be the new royal couple as soon as they get off the plane.  So that will be interesting to see how things change with that.

Someone asked me if I would dedicate their home tonight, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to do that, because the white handbook is pretty vague about it, so I guess I'll have to ask around on that one.

Um, yep.  I don't think I have that many great stories from this week.  We did a lot of tracting and got really wet and walked a lot and talked to a few people, and prayed with a wicken and climbed a bunch of stupid hills.  And that's about it.

Letter #65

Sorry this has been the worst 2 weeks for emailing ever :(  I'm like the only one who actually cares about it, so we kinda have a hard time getting around to it... But I'm going to be the only one of the 4 of us staying here, so I guess we probably won't have that problem as much anymore.  And we might be getting another car here, so we wouldn't have to share one anymore, which might also potentially make that easier.  I am staying and getting Elder Hendricks, and I don't know him that well (he's only been out 1 transfer, so I will be follow-up training).  So I'm about to go pick him up in about an hour and a half.  Also in my district, I'm going to have Elder Muro, who is the missionary that came out with me who Lisa Burns knows really well. Yep, I did get my money.  They mailed me a new card last night, and I tried to use it, and then realized that I didn't have a PIN for it, and then I realized that I probably should've at least tried my last PIN.  So I'm going to see if that works next time I get to pay for something.  Okay, well, we're running late for reals now, because we have to get to Tacoma still, so I have to end this now, but I love you tons, and I hope to have a better emailing session next week!

Letter #64

This last week was actually quite eventful.  We had zone conference on Tuesday, which makes our last zone conference with the Weavers.  It was probably the best one that I've been to in a while, so that was good.  We talked about teaching simply and praying and keeping area books up to date and things like that.  We had it right in Silverdale, which is where our stake center is, so it was nice not having to drive for an hour to get to it.  The Weavers got all teary on us because they have less than a month left now, and they are sad to leave us.  I think they're pretty trunky though.  Anyway, that took up most of Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we went on exchanges with the District Leader.  I got to go to Poulsbo 1st ward with Elder Werk, and Elder Jameson stayed in Poulsbo 2nd with Elder Haynie.  So that was pretty fun.  We had a good time in the other ward, though it was hardly my most productive day on the mission.  Haha, but we still got some stuff done.  The biggest thing that interrupted our day was around 5:00 when President Weaver called and said that he wanted to interview everyone in our district.  So that was crazy.  We had to drive out from Suquamish back to the church for that.  And pretty much he was asking us all how we liked our areas and companions, because I guess there has been some amount of drama in our district.  Funny how that stuff happens sometimes.  Anyway, I basically told him that I'm pretty happy with everything right now, and then he asked if I wanted an emergency transfer, and I said no, and then he was all like, "Are you sure? You aren't just telling me that?"  And I was all like, "Ya."  So that was silly.  I'm pretty sure he brought all of us over there for nothing, but whatever.

And then I was sick for a couple of days after that.  It was the first time I've really played the sick card in a few months, so we had some blah days after that.  But I'm better now, so whatevs.

Oh yeah, and then Sunday was pretty wild too.  We were in charge of sharing time.  Which is 20 minutes long.  Twice.  So that's 40 minutes to entertain like 75 kids probs between the two groups.  And that was super stressful, but we made it through.  Thanks mom.

And yeah, that was pretty much our week.  Yesterday for P day, we played hockey with the zone, so that was fun, I guess.  I actually played the piano while everyone else did that.  I'm getting pretty good, actually.  But yeah, fun stuff.  We have the car this week, and there are more and more patches of "blue clouds" (aka clear sky) around, so that's nice.  We miss the sun sometimes over here.

Letter #63

Okay, so this week has been crazy.  The biggest thing that happened this last weekend was Viking Fest, which is basically this big carnival/fair thing that happens every year in downtown Poulsbo.  And that was in our area, so we went street contacting around there at the most opportune times of the day, because most of the city was down there some days.  And it was actually pretty boring most of the time.  We went during the parade, and talked to other people in the back of the lines who were also bored (mostly dentists, actually) as middle school marching bands marched and people on horses trotted about (well, the horses, not the people on them).  And then we talked to the viking people a little bit.  They were wild.  They spend their lives dressed up like vikings and crafting bronze jewelry and drinking horns.  They talked to us for a little while.  And then we met some members around there who talked to us.  And someone gave us a trillion dollar bill.  Turns out it was fake.

Well, the weather this week was actually really sunny, so that was pretty nice this week.  We got to help some people with some service, so that was pretty excellent.  We did some lawn mowing and such.  So yeah, jeans and stuff.

Okay, well this email is pretty boring, because this entire week was building up to viking fest, and then viking fest wasn't that cool, and now it's over, and we didn't find hardly anyone during the rest of the week.  So my DL said I can talk about him and all his special abilities.  He's pretty okay, actually.

Well, I'm literally out of material now.  Love you all :)

Letter #62

Well, I feel like I don't have that much to talk about today since I just barely emailed home yesterday, but I'll see what I can do.

So this week, we did a lot of walking, and the weather was super rainy, so it was a little bit miserable if we're in honest mode right now.  We don't have much of a teaching pool right now, so we have been trying to do a lot of finding this week, and we haven't been having too much success yet.  We are finally starting to pick up some people who have some decent potential, but we're excited about having the car again this week so we can make it around to places faster than we have been this last week.

So besides getting to call home on Mother's Day, I also had to give a talk.  And it was supposed to be pretty short, and of course, I talked faster than I needed to, so it was more like 2 minutes instead of 5 like it was supposed to be, but people still told me that I did a good job because they are really nice and stuff.  And luckily the other speakers went way over on their talks, so it was actually a pretty good thing that I didn't speak for very long.

We also volunteered at the food bank again this week, so that was cool.  The USPS food drive thing was this week, and so we helped sort all the food as the mailmen brought it in.  It's a pretty straight forward job, but sometimes there was weird stuff that you don't know how to sort.  The weirdest thing I found while I was there was a can of quail eggs.  That was pretty weird.

Also, our church got new carpet.

Well, that's pretty much this week.  I literally can't think of anything else worth talking about right now.  It was a pretty good week.