Elder Jaxon J. Reiley: 06/06/2016

Dear Family,

Another transfer week has come and gone. Recently the First Presidency made a change in the rules to where there are no more transfer meetings, so transfer day was just a normal day for us.

Robert seemed to be in better spirits. His daughter came up from Arizona so they have been staying in a hotel. His situation hasn't changed much, but he seems to be doing better. He might just end up going back to Arizona with his daughter, but we will see.

Stake conference will be on Sunday. We will be getting a new stake president, Elder L. Whitney Clayton will be the presiding authority so that will be cool. As you can imagine, everybody is buzzing about it. We hear about it all the time. There will be at least seven people from the Sunnyside ward being interviewed, including our ward mission leader (he was a branch president over the Spanish branch and a high councilor before that), so the rumors and speculations are flying. HaHa.

We met with the Redings this week. It went okay. We will probably have to focus more on the mom, the less active member. She clearly knows something is missing in her life, but she doesn't know it is the gospel, so we will try to help her with that.

We don't have a lot of nonmembers we are teaching, but we have a handful of less-actives we are teaching. One of them is Toni. I worked with her the first time I was here. She always gives us so much food and she takes care of us. She is trying to quit smoking and be a more regular attender, so keep her in your prayers.

Elder Livingston came back up to visit last week and he took us out to lunch. It was weird to see him without a missionary tag, but it was still good to see him.

One cool thing I wanted to mention is that the Peterson family fed us foil dinners! It was awesome! They are getting ready to move so they don't have furniture, but they fed us anyway.

President and Sister Taylor's homecoming is July 17th at 11:00. I think it would be cool to go if we can, but if not it is not the end of the world. Also, Fred made Tshirts that you can get on the Facebook page. They have the names of every missionary that served in the WVM. I'm not sure what they cost, but I guess that this is the last p-day to order them.

We had a cool p-day today. There is a couple in the Gresham stake that served a senior mission in Elder Labis' home ward so they know each other really well. They took us to some cool places in the Gorge. I will send some pictures later.

Thanks for the updates from home! School is out! I love it. Another school year is in the books. I have heard that the Cavs aren't looking too good. Hopefully they can turn it around in Cleveland. Thanks for your thoughts on missionary work.

I was asked to talk to the priests yesterday by Brother Zornes, the young men's president (he is good friends with Rex Fullmer). He asked me to talk about what my mission has meant to me and how to best prepare for a mission. I talked about the value of reading the Book of Mormon every day. I also talked about obedience and the reward for being obedient. Most of the time it won't be in what you get, but in who you become.

Thank you again for another email! I love hearing from you. I hope everybody has a great first week of summer!

Love: Jaxon