Elder Jaxon J. Reiley: 10/12/2015

Dear Family,

I will start with some of the highlights of this week. First of all, does anybody remember Elder Ewell? We lived together and served in the Blue Lake ward for three months. He is a district leader here so I get to go on exchanges with him and we stayed up way too late talking about our time in Gresham. We had a good day. Also, his birthday is the day after mine, so we are going out to eat next Tuesday. Next is that we had four investigators come to church in Ridgefield! And K wasn't one of them. One was the elders quorum president's wife. Hopefully we start teaching her more consistently. We have taught her once. There is also a member that is dating a nonmember. She is a minor and supposedly doesn't have parental consent, but she comes to church and mutual every week. We are also teaching two foster kids. Their foster parents are active, but they can't get baptized until they are adopted. They are also both minors. So it is frustrating sometimes with all of the different rules, but we will be patient and make it work. K and his family were not able to make it to church because they were out of town. We are meeting with them on Tuesday night and we are planning on setting a date for K.

So here is a cool connection. There is a recent convert couple that moved into the ward a few months ago from California. They totally know Tavner Wilson! He taught them shortly after they were baptized. Also, I'm so glad you got the picture of of me at the Krout's! They are such a cool family. I see nothing but Sister Bingham in Sister Krout. Not a shred of Brother Bingham! Haha. They reminded me of the talk after mine when the guy couldn't get his talk out of his pocket. hahahahaha. They are super nervous about moving to Rexburg. They have been in Vancouver for 21 years. It has been great having that connection with them, though. (Note from Marilyn: The Binghams were in our ward for a few years. Sister Krout is their daughter that lives where Jaxon is... obviously. The Binghams have since moved to Rigby.)

I didn't know that Jake is the head coach at Shelley and that Josh is helping him out... traitors! Haha. Just kidding. I guess you got to do what you got to do. Thanks for the sports updates. It looks like there are a lot of teams in the playoffs that don't usually make it so that is cool.

So I got a call on Friday night at 9:30 from Elder Martin (my last companion) and he told me that Phx was getting baptized the next day. So we arranged a ride and went! I guess Phx decided she wanted to get baptized, so they threw together a baptism for her. It was really good. It boosted my testimony of how far people can come. When we first met her, she didn't know if there was a God or not. My last lesson with her was pretty powerful. She said that she was going to take the Book of Mormon to be true until proven otherwise and that she was going to put forth more effort. It was a great experience to be back in Gresham for her baptism and to see everyone again.

I don't think I got a picture of Bradley. I can't believe he and Katelyn are already eight years old. I remember when Kathryn and Cheri were in a competition to see who could have their baby first!

So President Taylor has 25 scriptures for us to memorize. I memorized them right at the beginning of my mission and never looked at them again, so the ponderizing idea is a great way to get bacvk into them. Last week was Proverbs 3:5-6. This week will be D&C 1:31. I have it on the backdrop of my iPad so i see it all the time. I encourage everybody to pick one and go for it. It is a great idea.

Thanks for much for the email. I got my package today so thank you very much. I am so thankful for the love and support I receive from all of you. Keep doing your best and strive to do what's right. Have a great week and I love you all!

Love, Jaxon

Elder Reiley