03/07/2016

Dear Family,

Yes I got the package. I forgot to tell you that. Thank you so much.

this week was pretty crazy as expected. It was pretty sad to leave Astoria and Elder Stevens and all the people there. I made a lot of good memories there. But I am needed in Longview. So here are some details about my new area/companion.

So I am covering the Mint Valley ward and the Cathlamet branch. Most of our time is spent in the Mint Valley ward. So Longview is really dirty. There are a lot of humble people here. We cover the west end of Longview and some boonies. The Mint Valley ward was one of the highest baptizing wards in 2015 in the mission, but they have trailed off quite a bit. I really like both he bishop and the ward mission leader. There are a lot of good members here. Also, Longview is a stake and is about an hour away from Astoria and about 45 minutes from Vancouver.

Elder T is from Cedar City, Utah. He has been out about 4 months. He is an incredible missionary. President Taylor told me tat my job is to train him how to be a district leader. I don't need to do much training because he is way ahead of the game. I have never seen a missionary with as good of people skills as him. He is great at talking with people. He was a door to door salesman for a while before his mission. He also loves to work so that is nice. He is about as different from my last companion as somebody could get so I had to do some adjusting. He is really healthy, which is good for me. He doesn't know anything about sports, which is also good for me. He was home schooled and was super into cross country and track so it is good to get a different perspective. 

We live with the zone leaders in an apartment. The apartment is pretty tiny and ghetto and I love it. Elder Firkins and Elder Stroyan are the zone leaders. We also live right next door to the Spanish elders so we see them a lot.

We had one cool story that happened this week. We tracted into this guy named Ed.  He actually let us in and we read from the Book of Mormon with him. We invited him to church and he was super noncommittal. He pretty much told us no and we invited him to pray about it. Well Sunday morning here he comes into church. He stayed for the first two hours. It was a tender mercy. 

So I fasted yesterday for a few things and one of those was what I need to do after the mission. Here is where I am now. If there is any way we can handle it financially, it would be best to go to school in the fall. However, if we can't make it by then, then as a last resort I can work through November. I think it is important to get started with school soon. Nothing has told me anything different than Utah State. We will keep going with that plan.

Christian sent me an email with a picture of him proposing. It was a sweet picture. I do remember Kylie. She played basketball, right? She seems pretty cool. I am happy for Christian.

Hopefully baseball goes well this year. It is too bad that we lost some horses. Thanks for the update on the state tournament. That sounds pretty crazy all around.

Thank you for your thoughts on faith and relating it to Nephi. It is so true. I love his example. So many people are afraid of commitment. That is why so many people live together before getting married. Getting married means there is no going back and people are scared to do that. Thanks for your thoughts.

Thank you so much for the great email. I love hearing from you. I love you all and I hope you have a great week. 

Love: Jaxon

Here are my departing Astoria pictures 

1. The Harker family. They love the missionaries and they fed us all the time.

The Kaup family. Doug and Jake. We gave both of them a blessing a while ago and have been in contact since.

 The McLoughlin's and Joe (Jack is the little boy).

Emerald Heights is a former World War 2 housing complex. Now a bunch of humble, ready for the gospel people live there. 

Brother McMakin! One of my favorite members I have met on my mission. He is the ward clerk and he is the man. He came with us to a lot of Bekka's lessons.