Welcoming Parties and Tucker the Tacoma

"So Mary is the mother of Jesus, right?

And Jesus is the Lamb of God, right?

So did Mary have a little lamb?" -Sister Thayer

I'll be here every Monday, folks. 

MAY 1, 2017

This week was cool.

Last Monday, we spent the evening hours at the mission home with the 11 missionaries who are now home. RIP. Not going to lie, it was super sad seeing them leave, because they were all really good at what they did AND they were the sister missionaries that came out with me. I always said that I would feel old when the sisters I came out with go home, so yeah. The arthritis and back pains are on their way.

Even though we lost 11 sisters on Monday, we welcomed 4 new sisters straight

Giving the mission home tour, Ft. Hermana Young

from the MTC on Tuesday morning. We spent the day pretending to know everything about the Washington Yakima Mission, and had a great time hyping up everything -- from the beauty of the orchards and vineyards in central Washington, to the enormous bathroom attached to President and Sister Lewis's room. That was pretty much our whole day; welcoming the new missionaries and learning more about them. It was super fun, even though we ran out of time to play spike ball. 

Wednesday was transfer day! We spent most of the day driving from Yakima to Quincy and then back again. After driving back, we helped with a trainer/trainee meeting for all the new missionaries. We have also welcomed a "new" missionary to the Yakima 3rd ward crew, since their are 4 missionaries serving including us. His name is Elder Hamblin, he's been out for 9 months, and we love him. He is a lacrosse player, and fits right in with our shenanigans. We can't wait for him to have the full 3rd ward experience!

Aight, time for some updates. Evelyn is a rock. She is soo converted. We committed her to pray with her mom every night, and she has been doing it! She also surprised us in one of our lessons last week when she told us that she want's to serve a mission and be the next "Jerald," our recent convert that comes out with us sometimes. Too cool. Her mom still hasn't been coming to church, but as soon as she does, she will be baptized. We are all praying for May!

We picked up a new investigator named Tanisha last week, a 12 year old girl that came to church with her neighbors on Easter. Her home situation is pretty bad, but we are teaching her at the park and she has a ton of good questions. She's a lot like Evelyn in the fact that she's pretty mature for 12 years old. She has also been collecting a stack of religious books for the past few months because her family is into a lot of gang related stuff but she doesn't want that. She is on date for may 13th, and we honestly think she will be baptized!

Matt Palmer and his family are all still coming to church every week. We love them. Last week, we made each of them a prayer rock and put up some signs in their house reminding them to pray, since Matt is the only one who has been reading. It's been incredible to see the amount of progress they have made! When we went to their house on Sunday morning to wake them up with our pan-flute dance, they were up and running! They have a wedding date for August, but we are still praying that it can be moved closer. 

The mission is on fire right now. We beat our mission goal for baptisms for the second time this year in April, and the excitement is felt everywhere!

Some other cool things: Elder King and I are driving a brand new 2017 Tacoma named Tucker for a few weeks while ours is in the shop. Also, we have been upping our apartment game one week at a time. This past week, we put 280 glow in the dark stars in our bedroom and it is honestly the smartest purchase we have ever made. 

That's life, everybody. I love it here. I have seen people's lives change like you wouldn't believe. I honestly can't wait to be best friends with everybody I've met when I get home! 

Meeting their new companions.

Would you believe me if I told you that this was just our ceiling? Yeah, most people wouldn't.

While Pres Lewis finished the interviews, we talked about the mission and what the areas are like. 

This afternoon after a few hours out being missionaries, these Sisters returned to us and we met and talked about their experiences and what they learned.