Coming Home

Last Day on the Mission

Going to the temple with President and Sister Ware before heading to the airport to go home.

Last E-mail

Oh man. It was a great week!

John and Kelly Morgan came to church again this week. We had a great lesson with them on Thursday. We took them on a church tour even though they have been to church many times now. The mission is focusing on the tours and there is a specific outline on how to do them. We took them from the foyer to the chapel to the font room (relief society room). And after showing them the font we set up some chairs and talked with them for awhile. It was a great tour. And the lesson that followed was perfect. As far as the Morgans go I guess. We actually set a baptismal date with them! Septermber 28th! It was so so good to be able to set that with them. It's a huge step for them to even set the goal. And it's almost 2 months away too! But they move really slowly. They can get there. It will give them a reason to find out it's true because their baptism is coming up! John needs motivation to find answers. Kelly needs the ability to recognize the answers that she is receiving. They both have made huge strides individually, as a couple and as a family. Really really excited for them.

We also saw Mike Foster this week. He's so close too he just has to get over anxieties that are holding him back. Mostly because he feels like it will be awkward when he goes to church. He doesn't feel like he knows what to do when he walks in the building. But he is committed to read the whole Book of Mormon and asks questions like "How can my family prepare to go to the temple?" and "Can I serve a mission with my wife?" He really really wants it all it's just hard to be a pioneer. No one in his family is LDS. Poor guy! It would make it so much easier. His wife (member) came to church again this week.

Our area got split. So Elder Hansen will be receiving Elder Hatch (lucky guy) and he will just serve in the Meadow Springs ward (lucky guy) and Elder Tays will serve in the Willowbrook ward with Elder Meyer. Pretty cool.

Well. I guess I'll see you tomorrow. So I'll just stop emailing now.

You probably wanted more feelings and emotion and all that stuff in this email... Sorry. Just ask me tomorrow :)

Love,

Elder Paxman

Looking for Investigators

This week was good. Like usual.

It was really tough as far as teaching people and getting into homes went. We only taught 12 lessons this week. No one seemed to want to let us in and we had tons of meetings.

We did get in with the Morgans though. They have kinda cooled off recently though. They have missed church 2 weeks in a row now. We met with them after church yesterday and they definitely felt bad about missing. Kelly was feeling overwhelmed with Sarah, her baby who wouldn't stop crying. So none of them came. Bummer. Despite slowing down with church they have been speeding up in their reading. They fulfill all the reading assignments we leave them and John even takes notes. He likes to write down what he feels are the main ideas of each chapter and then he usually writes down a few questions. The last question he had was on Alma 40:23 which talks about the resurrection "not a hair of the head shall be lost". He was confused because he didn't have an understanding of what the resurrection was. He thought it was a spiritual thing but we taught about the physical resurrection and it made more sense to him. Just one more thing that was lost in the Apostasy, the docrine of the physical resurrection.

 

Kelly has been looking at more anti material which is disheartening. She tells us she feels depressed after she reads it and we emphasize that those feelings are evidence enough that what she reads isn't of God. But she still allows her doubt to overtake her faith in many cases. Man they are so close. They just need to take a step of faith and commit to a date and things will start falling into place for them.

We need to find more new investigators. The area is probably going to be split next transfer so the missionaries who are here will have even more time on their hands. We need to find new investigators this week so that the split will go well. Elder Hansen needs stuff to do when I'm gone!

MLC was this week. It was a great meeting. I love learning new things. This week has just been a good faith building week all together. It's exciting to see where I can go because I know where I am and where I've been. That probably doesn't make very much sense. Another way of saying what I'm thinking is that God is good at answering questions effectively. And I know that he will keep doing that for me and anyone who really wants to know and puts in the effort. And that's whats exciting for me. I know that I will have more questions and that they will always be answered. Life is exciting.

We had a mini-missionary with us this week. He came in on Wednesday and he wasn't sure if he wanted to serve a mission. By the end of the day he was certain he was going to serve. By the end of Thursday he didn't want to leave. He was talking all day about how he wishes he could stay another day. And we had two bad days with him haha. We hardly got in any doors like I was saying earlier but he loved it! He's a good kid. We told him to write down his experience in a journal so he could remember it if he ever thought about not going again.

OH! We went to a baptism this week. And I looked at the program and saw the name Claire Schend as a speaker. I know her from Yakima and when I was there she was super Less-Active and would hardly show up to a baptism let alone speak at one. But she was there and she gave a great talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost. I went up and talked to her afterwards. She is 30 years old now but is still attending the YSA ward in Yakima. I asked her how she got back to church and she said that she felt like it was church was pulling her back. She felt a great need to go and receive answers to her many questions. I asked her if she had the answers yet and of course she said no :) but she's trying so she will get them one day. God will reward her effort. It was way good to see her there. I will have to tell Elder Lyells that she is active again for the time being (and hopefully for good). He will be so happy to hear that. She made a great recovery. Oh, and the reason she was at the baptism is because it turns out that her niece was the one getting baptized. Yeah yeah yeah.

I'm out of ideas

Last week here I come

Love

Elder Paxman

Kennewick Zone

Last week we got a call from Nanci Warner. She is an older lady in our ward and she needed help. Her dog got hit by a car and she needed to bury it. So we went over in our proselyting clothes  and dug a 3 foot deep hole in her front yard in 100+ degree weather. She loved that dog more than anything else in her life right now. It was sad to have to bury him, but it was also an odd experience. I never thought I would be doing that on my mission.

We made good progress with the Morgans this week too! We had a lesson on Tuesday and afterward played bocce with them and the Wesslings in our ward. The Wesslings are the coolest. It was good fellowship for John and Kelly and their 10 year old son Tyler. They missed church this week though... They had come three weeks in a row before this week. So we went over last night to check in and they're still doing great. She's been reading every day. He's been reading whenever we give him assignments. They've both made big strides in their progress in the gospel.

I ran into two former companions this week! We were at the church and we saw Elder Boswell in the parking lot. He's here visiting the mission. And then Saturday and Sunday we got to see Elder Metz who is doing the same things as Boswell. They're just coming back to visit before school starts. Elder Metz came to dinner last night with us too over at the Rose's house. It was pretty awesome to see both of them again and weird to see them not as missionaries.

We found a new investigator named Debra Halley-Hanson. She is super cool. She's met with missionaries in Pasco before and has attended church with a friend before. We "accidentally" found her when looking for someone else. SHe's coming on a church tour on Tuesday and then she's going to cook us dinner on Wednesday. Things are going well!

Speaking of church tours. We had zone conference this week and that was a big focus of it. In the Spokane Mission (which we just picked up a lot of) they were really big into church tours, and we have just adopted a lot of their ideas and tactics in our mission now. So there is a greater focus on getting non-members to the church to give them a quick tour of the building to help relieve any anxiety about coming to sacrament meeting. We're trying to get everyone through a tour! Including the active members to show them what we do when we take investigators on a tour. It was a great training, and my last zone conference. I learned a lot. President Ware and the Assistants trained us well.

A lot of other good things happened this week but I don't want to bore you with more details :). Just know that we're doing a lot of eating. Way too much eating. Take it easy on your missionaries, don't feed them so much that they pop. Even if they're skinny. No sense in making them fat like me haha.

This upcoming week will be one that is full of meetings. District Meeting, DoChrist training, MLC, then zone meeting next Tuesday It will be a good week.

Love you all.

Elder Paxman

Jackie Chan

Yolo,

Elder Paxman speaking.

This week was a pretty normal week I guess... We received Elder Tays on Tuesday. It's super fun to have him with us. I remember when he first started his mission in Sunnyside (Yakima Stake). He was struggling because everything was all so new to him. He has only been a member for 2 years now and it still shows sometimes but in other things it seems like he's been a member his whole life. This is the first time I've had a companion who is a convert and it's been super useful. He can really connect with people on a fundamental level. Hopefully Elder Hansen and I just fill in the blanks. It's been a fun week and I'm excited to keep it going with Elder Tays from Richmond Virginia.

 

Another thing that's fun is that my past three companions have all been from somewhere other than Utah and people love it! Members are always disappointed when you say you're from Utah, unless your companion isn't from Utah, then it's okay. And now I have two companions from California and Virginia! People love it. It's fun :). And Elder Tays has a little drawl too so that makes it even better. 

It was go go go all week. We had three district meetings to be at instead of two this week because of transfers. Transfers was on a Tuesday which made it impossible for some people to hold district meeting but others could, so we had D.M. on Tues Wed and Thurs... Lots of meetings.

 

On Saturday we actually got out at 10. It was the first time we were able to do that in awhile. Usually our mornings are filled up with meetings or planning time. This upcoming week will be no exception. We have stake correlation on Wednesday night. I love those meetings. It's so great to learn from all the men of the church in this area.

Cool story. We have been going through a potential investigators sheet lately to find new investigators. One of the names on the list was Jackie and it said that he was an 18 y/o male that still lived at home. We stopped by a few times and we caught his mom at home but that's all. His mom is Asian and we thought it was funny because this kid's name is Jackie. So we joked around all week calling him Jackie Chan. We stopped by again last night and caught him at home. We talked a little on his doorstep and then I asked him if people called him Jackie Chan in high school because his name is Jackie and he's Asian. he said "yeah, it started in the 3rd grade" I said "wow that started pretty early, no mercy from your friends" Then he said "yeah, the teachers would go down the roll and they would stop at my name and ask if it was a practical joke or something" Then I stopped and said "wait, what's your last name?" and He said "Chan". So his name really is Jackie Chan hahaha. So funny. He loves it too.

 

Another crazy thing about Jackie is that he is planning on majoring in business at central washington university and wants to go into fashion design. He is going to open up a clothing store in Richland with one of his buddies. And he has a huge collection of shoes. He loves shoes. At one point he had 200 pairs but he sold 150 pairs of shoes to a company in California for $30,000 to make a down payment on a Lexus. It's a nice Lexus. And he's 18 years old! He brought us upstairs to show us what's left of his collection. He has some really really nice shoes. My favorite pair were probably the Space Jams. They are the same kind of shoe that Michael Jordan wore in the movie Space Jam. He said they were worth $600 brand new. He goes to shoe conventions in Seattle every year to buy sell and trade shoes. Crazy stuff. It was pretty cool. He's my new best friend.

We also saw the Morgans this week. They came to church too! They are very open with us and have told us before that they think church is boring and that they are lazy and don't want to go. But they have been coming nonetheless and are seeming to enjoy themselves more and more each week. They have tons of friends in the church already so that's not a problem. We actually run into the problem of having too many fellowshippers haha. We don't know who to take with us on any given week and we don't want to hurt feelings of their fellowshippers by saying we don't need them. Everything is flowing really well. We are getting there with them. They just need to fully commit to it and get baptized. I think the biggest things is that they need to read the Book of Mormon more consistently. They read it but prefer to read other things like the ensign and other church books that have been given to them. We're trying to focus on the Book of Mormon though because they still aren't certain that it's true. Kelly Morgan has had a lot of problems with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in the past but hasn't put in the work to get past that yet. She has been coming to church which I'm sure helps, but there's more that she, and we, can do to help build a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

We went through a cleansing of our teaching pool again this week. We dropped a lot of people that weren't going anywhere. We really only have like 10 really good investigators who have real intent. The rest are on our radar but haven't shown much interest past letting us in the first time. Hopefully we will have a lot of time this week to refresh our pool with new investigators.

I've probably said it before but I saw it even more this week. One of my favorite things about missionary work is that it you're having a bad day you know exactly how to turn it around. You just go outside and talk to people! Talking to everyone is the perfect antidote to any missionaries' problems. It was 8:00 last night and we had taught a few lessons but hadn't recorded any OYM's yet and we were all feeling a little sluggish and down so we decided to park and find people to talk to. The first one we talked to was convinced that Joseph Smith was a drunk and a drug addict. So we dismissed him quickly. But even with that experience I felt so much better and excited to do the work again! It's amazing that even (perhaps especially) in the presence of rejection and opposition we still feel the joy of being a successful missionary. You just have to get out and talk to people! So that's what we did for the next 20 minutes and then to finish our night we stopped by Jackie Chan's house and that's when we met him for the first time. The Lord blesses us when we put forth an effort. We will always receive supernatural aid when we exert ourselves.

Well, I think that's all. This was a pretty dang good email compared to last week. So enjoy it :)

Love,

Elder Paxman

K-Zone

Crazy week.

I failed to mention that we got a new missionary on Monday. Elder Cramer came into the MTC a few weeks late. There were changez in transfer dates and apparently he missed the memo and showed up late. So he came in mid-transfer and he has been with Elder Hansen and I. BUT! We just had a mid-transfer transfer and he is being ripped from our loving arms to go up to Oroville Washington. I's sad. I thought he was going to help Elder Hansen kill me... I'm going to miss him. A mission is full of saying goodbye to people you come to love in a short amount of time.

We are receiving Elder Tays though as a replacement for Elder Cramer. He is coming from Pasco. I love Elder Tays! He is pretty awesome. He's been out about 8 months. He's a convert and is 24 years old. His girlfriend is a member and that's how he was introduced to the church. He got baptized and they were going to get married I think but then he got his patriarchal blessing and it said he would serve a mission so that is what he did. And now he's here with us in Kennewick. I'm super excited to serve with him.

This will make 18 companions. That is a ton of companions... I must be a trouble missionary. This will be the 5th tri-panionship I've been in.

Another crazy thing that happened this week is that we got kicked out of our house. It's in the midst of getting painted and carpets cleansed. We had to move everything out of it... 4 recliners a couch 4 tables 7 bunk beds. It was a lot of stuff that is now sitting in our garage. We were going to be sent to live with other missionaries in our zone that live way on the other side of town but we asked if we could live in the mission home with President and Sister Ware for the week and they said yes! So that is where we have been for the past few days and we'll be there all week. It's way fun. I never thought that I would be staying at the mission home... It's super cool to be around President so often. They cooked us dinner yesterday. Fun fun fun fun fun.

Part of training a new missionary includes letting the new missionary invite someone to be baptized in their first week. So we were looking for someone that Elder Cramer could invite. It wasn't too hard, we had an appointment with Claudia and Aiden Leon. He invited them and resolved their concern and badabing, they're on date for August 17th (my two year mark). YAY!

Kelly Morgan came to church all on her own this week! We invited her on Tuesday but weren't able to get a hold of her to follow up on that invite. But she showed up and it was a really awesome meeting.

I got to talk in church this Sunday, then I taught the mia maids/beehive class. then we all taught gospel principles. Lots of teaching yesterday.

Good things are happening. We really hope to see some baptisms soon. Especially for the Morgan family. They're so close!

I don't know what else to say. Kind of a lame email...

Elder Paxman