The Work

Hey there,
The work this week wasn't as good as I expected. But, if my expectations aren't high then we wont get anywhere. We had a district meeting yesterday where we went over the importance of being bold with our baptismal invitations, we need to constantly be repenting, and we need to drop investigators/less actives if they are not progressing.

The reason why I am out here is to baptize people. that is the doctrine of Christ. So this week I plan on being more bold and introducing baptism with more importance and more directness. We need to start putting some people on date! Elder Boswell and I have some investigators that we could drop and we need to make more of an effort to get our investigators to progress if it is possible for them to do so. so pretty much we are going to be cutting the "dead weight" so to speak. We didn't get any investigators to church this week so that was depressing, but next week is General Conference of course so we will try really hard to get investigators to listen to what the prophet has to say.

We are having a lil get together at a members home with all the missionaries on Saturday for conference. A barbecue and General Conference watching party. Maybe we can get people there!

We never got to see Kimberly this week. She got caught up in the fair that is going on. The central Washington state fair is happening in Yakima right now and there was a parade on Saturday. Kimberly canceled on us on Saturday because she was at the parade and then she skipped out on church because she was too tired from the day before. We will try and meet up with her on Thursday. we have an appointment and we are going to baptize her! soon... she just needs to work out the W.O.W.  stuff... her daughter wants to be baptized though... 8 years old, julia, watches tangled every day. cute kid.

Joe is going no where. he needs to come to church

we met with Marcus and he rescheduled on us. he could be a really good find though.  we meet with him tonight.

Denim is M.I.A. we have not been able to contact him.

Steven and Bryar. I think we need to get more serious with them and tell them why we are here. TO BAPTIZE THEM! but seriously...

So, I got bit by a dog. and I got a Gatorade bottle thrown at me. pretty funny stuff hahaha.

Yesterday we ran into this girl who called us over and asked us what the difference was between a mormon and a christian. we told her that we are christian and we love Jesus. She proceeded to give us her address, phone number, name, she was pregnant and she told us she was having the baby in a couple weeks. she was very open with us, but she was nice. we are seeing her tonight after basketball... it could be fun. her name is Nichole and she is kinda on her own I believe. Her baby daddy isn't a great guy. I'll learn more tonight.

We met with this guy named Eddie on Saturday. He is in his 60's and he lives at an apartment downtown that is a rehab apartment. He is kinda in charge of making sure everyone stays off drugs and booze. He was a really nice guy and we taught him a first lesson. We invited him to read and pray and invited him to church. We should have asked him if he wanted to be baptized but we didn't. we had a member with us. Brother Delaney. and when we were describing the Holy Ghost to him we asked Brother Delaney to bear his testimony on the Book of Mormon. Brother Delaney is a real soft spoken person but he is way funny when he does talk. But he bore a really great testimony. In essence he said, "the feeling you get when you read the Book of Mormon is an overwhelming feeling of joy. You can be addicted to a lot of things like food or cigarettes (eddie smokes) but those only bring temporary joy. The Holy Ghost brings a lasting joy that you feel throughout your whole body and it just makes you happy." It was a great testimony and Eddie ate it up. He really appreciated what we had to say and I really appreciated what Brother Delaney had to say. It was an awesome visit. I hope we can see him again soon. He didn't come to church but I feel like he is progressing well.

Those were some of the experiences of the week... I cant think of any other ones.

The weather is getting colder. Everyone in Yakima has a dog. A lot of people smoke and its really hard to get them to stop. People in Yakima use sprinklers at all hours of the day, it makes no sense. The streets are really narrow here. the population of Yakima is about 120,000. I was surprised to hear it was that many. Its basically the size of St. George. A lot of people here still love the Seattle Super Sonics even though they don't exist anymore. Everyone is a seahawks fan and a mariners fan even though they both suck really bad. People cant pronounce my last name. Boswell can but he chooses not to. He calls me Pac-man, Paxamillion, Paxmaaaan, Paxton.

I hear Elder Boswell's mom is going to st george in november?

I love you all!
Love,
Elder Paxman