09/10/2015

Dear Family,

Thank you for the email! Yes A. did get baptized! We had one more lesson to teach her and we had a lot of stuff to do for the baptism, so we asked her to be an hour early, and she showed up 15 minutes before her baptism! HaHa I was stressing out that's for sure. But she did come. The baptism was really good. A lot of people from the ward were there. Unfortunately, nobody from her family was there. Elder Aguirre baptized her. She got confirmed the next day in sacrament meeting by a member of the ward. There was a good spirit felt and I fell like she will stay active. I will send pictures.

A lot happened this week so here we go. We had interviews with President Taylor this week. He is the man. We mostly talked about where the mission is and how I can help. We talked a lot about the zone and the missionaries. There are a lot of big things coming. We had a zone meeting the next day. We have one every month and we are in charge of it. It was the best zone meeting I have been to. There was such a special spirit there.

We found out transfer news this week. I am getting transferred again. I am going to the Vancouver West stake. I will be covering the Salmon Creek and Ridgefield wards. I have never served in that stake before. My new companion is Elder Wilson!! My MTC companion! It will be so cool to see how much he has changed in 14 months. He has been a zone leader for a transfer so it will be interesting how that goes. I am super bummed about leaving Gresham. We are just starting to catch fire. Out of everywhere that I could serve, Vancouver West was the bottom of the list. My sports side is coming out of me. They have been at the top month after month on my mission and there was such an arrogance there. Now they are at the bottom compared to the rest of the zone and I have secretly enjoyed it. :-) It is basically like getting transferred to Madison county. That is just typical of how the Lord works. I am sure that it will grow to be one of my favorite areas. Right now it is just a bummer to leave, but more great things are in store elsewhere!

We had another good lesson with Px. She told us that she knew she wasn't putting enough effort into studying the scriptures. She said for now, she is going to believe the BOM is true until something proves otherwise. She was really touched by the last  four verses of 2 Nephi 33. It was really powerful. Then one of L.'s friends walked in with a  bunch of food (we meet at the church) and we snacked for 20 minutes and the spirit was gone. HaHa. It was good while it lasted though.

Unfortunately K. didn't come to church or keep any of his other commitments, so we will have to drop him. It is a bummer, but it is what's best for him. He has been one of my favorite people that I have taught so far.

Thanks for the update for this week! It sounded like it was a good week of football. We were tracting Saturday night during the Oregon Michigan State game. We knocked on one door and the guy was like, "Come on in!" And we were like, "Are you sure?" And he said yes so we walked right in! Haha. He was pretty surprised at who we were. He was nice and offered us a couple of beers and offered for us to watch the game with him, but he wasn't' interested in us other that that. It was pretty funny.

Nice missionary experience for Dad! HaHa you never know what could happen there. I almost guarantee he is from Sandy, Oregon. Everybody is from Sandy, Oregon. Update from Marilyn... Jeff helped Gary Robson pack in some dudes to a hunting camp on Saturday. They were from Gresham area. The one guy's horse was being a pain, so Jeff traded his nicer horse for the pain horse. He told the guy he would trade horses with him IF the missionaries showed up at his door sometime he had to promise to be nice. The guy asked if he had to listen to them, and Jeff told him no, but he had to be nice because it just might be his kid! The guy agreed, and no more horse problems all day!

Wow, Ruger got baptized? That is so cool! He has a point from his testimony; All you have to do is ask. You never know what a good invitation will do. Did he get married? To a member?

It sounds like everybody is doing well. I can't think of anything I need for a birthday package. I love you all and I hope you have a great week.

Love: Jaxon