Dear Family,
Thank
you so much for the e-mail. I have been adjusting to my situation this
week. I got here on Tuesday so I have had some time to adjust.
Battleground is more Rexburgish as far as population. Our are is super
small. We cover an area of maybe a couple square miles. There are quite a
few members that live here. The ward is awesome. They take care of us.
The youth program is amazing. There were a total of about 15 youth in
the wards that I served in in Gresham and Portland. In this ward alone
there is over 30. We are working a lot with the priests and those
working on mission papers so that is fun. We live with the Bennets. I
would rather live in apartments, but they save the church so much money.
They are pretty cool from what I can tell.
Here are some answers galore...
We
are just taking a break from Facebook. We are having a mission
conference on Wednesday to discuss how we can use technology better.
This will probably only be for a few months. It kind of reminds me of
apostasy. God will call a prophet then the people will reject that
prophet and then God will call another prophet when the people have
humbled themselves. Kind of the same thing here with Facebook I think.
I did get my package. Thank you very much. The sweets did not last long! :-)
The
transfer went well. They still had to drag me out of Portland. I was
holding onto anything that I could grab my hands on! :-) Just kidding.
It was hard to leave, but I have enough trust in President Taylor and
the Lord to know that I am needed somewhere else. I feel like I got
traded from the New England Patriots to the Cleveland Browns. The
Vancouver North zone is in major rebuilding mode and Portland is leading
the mission in just abut everything. I am actually excited to see where
we will be in a few months. We are really struggling right now, but we
will get there. The work is tough, but that makes it so much more
rewarding. The ward mission leader seems really on-board and excited
about the work.
I
haven't heard much on the investigators in Portland. Kate is still
doing great. I am planning on going to her baptism on the 14th of March.
I heard that Jordan's mom told them that Jordan wasn't interested
anymore. That is a big fat lie so I wonder how that is working out. I
know the missionary that took my place there and he is awesome so I have
no worries about the area.
My
companion is awesome. It feels like I am being trained all over again.
He was a zone leader at 6 months so he knows exactly what I am going
through. He loves the work and is a hard worker. He is really into body
building and fitness so that should be good for me! I will probably be
in much better shape by the time we are done.
The
zone leader call has been interesting. President Taylor said that the
glamour of leadership callings wears off quickly and that is true. I
have already dealt with some "dirty laundry" in my first week. However, I
am learning to love these missionaries and I am excited to be of
assistance to them. I know most of them pretty well. It is weird because
I am one of the youngest missionaries here. It will be interesting
going on exchanges.
One
thing that has improved is my faith. We prayed and prayed that we would
find a new investigator Saturday evening because our teaching pool is
struggling. I just knew that we would find one and we did. We prayed and
prayed that we would be able to put somebody on-date for baptism before
Sunday night. It was 8:30 and we still didn't have anybody, but I knew
that we would. Sure enough, we stopped by a former investigator and had a
great discussion with him and put him on-date for April 11th. Granted,
he was a little tipsy, but it didn't matter to us. We didn't ask for a
golden investigator, we got what we desired and it was awesome. Then it
was about 8:50 and we decided to try one more person (our curfew is 9:00
unless we are in a lesson then it is 9:30). Elder Aguirre said that he
had met this lady once and she kept dropping appointments and if this
didn't work out then we were dropping her. Again, I just knew that it
was going to work out. She was just getting ready for bed, but she said
that she would love to have us come by and we were able to set up a
return appointment. Our faith is really the motivating drive for what we
do. We say it a lot, but nothing is impossible with God. We can't
really wrap our minds around that. It is possible to go baptize 1000
people tomorrow, but we just lack the faith. the more we can increase
it, the more miracles we will see.
Thank you
for the updates from home. I am glad to hear that everybody is doing
well. It is awesome to hear of everybody leaving for their missions.
Great experiences await. It is a bummer to hear about basketball. Sounds
like a repeat from last year. Go South Fremont! Wrestling also sounds
like it went well. That is really hard to that Rich is done. He is such a
good guy. Hahaha. I am laughing so hard over the sharing time story.
Tetonia... Celestial Kingdom... what's the difference? HaHa. It is
really funny when I meet some people out there. I want to tell them that
they would be a PERFECT fit for Tetonia.
Thank you for your examples at home. Thank you also for all of the love and support that you give to me while I am here.
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