Pasco is Awesome

It was another good week. Pasco is awesome. I think I'm in the best English area in the mission right now. We are having so much success. A woman named Casandra showed up to church this week. She isn't a member and she is looking for a church. She went to all three hours and her son did too. Her son Gavin is 5 and he loved church. I think she enjoyed it as well and she said we could come to her home and teach her more. She was a really cool lady. Just a little shy. I hope we don't mess it up...

The Bishop also gave us a referral a few weeks ago and they finally gave us the go ahead to go over there and see them. So we went yesterday and talked to them. They are really cool! I talked to Charles, the dad, about church and taking the lessons. He said that they don't go to church but they know they need to. We are going to give him a call today and set something up. Like Casandra, I hope we don't mess this up.

These two opportunities don't come along very often. Usually when we teach, we teach part-member families or families that are kinda unstable and usually are struggling financially. But these two families are well to do. They are doing just fine. But they are missing the gospel. That is a little intimidating to me... I don't really know why other than it's different. And these are the people whose lives will really change if they can accept the gospel. I guess there is just a lot more to gain from this. Not to say that all other people have less to gain. I don't know how to explain it. But I hope we don't mess it up. I guess we cant mess it up if we have the spirit with us though.

One of my Zone Leaders is going home... It's weird. He needs surgery on his sinuses I think. And he will be going back to Utah this week to get it done. He really really wants to come back out but it is tough for missionaries to come back out when they have less than 6 months left... Elder Barton is his name. He was my first District Leader in Yakima. And he is my current Zone Leader. But he will be going home in a couple days and it will be hard for him to come back out... It's weird to see him go. He only had about 3 months left but he needs the surgery. I don't know what they are going to do about the Zone Leader situation. Elder Hansen might have to go solo for the rest of the transfer. I don't know...

I don't know what else to say again. I feel like this every week. We had good numbers again this week...

Oh. Something that I forgot to mention last week is that we killed chickens. It was service for a member. Some Elders told us about it and we were like "Yeah! Lets kill chickens!!" But then we got there and it was a bit tougher than we had first thought hahaha. Turns out I don't like killing things. But I did anyway. Then we watched him skin them. I didn't want to do it because I was in missionary clothes and I didn't want it to get on me, but other people, who were in street clothes, assured me that it didn't get on them so I had nothing to worry about. So I went up and slit it's throat and he shook around and blood got all over my white shirt and tie. I sucked the blood out of my tie haha. But as for the blood on my shirt, I hope it comes out in the wash. We will see. After all the blood drained out of the chicken I cut the head off. Yay... It was nasty. But it would be easier to do it again now. The first time is the hardest.

I was on exchanges twice this week. On Wednesday with the Zone Leaders and on Saturday with Elder Pickett in my district. I'm really grateful for my area. I love love love it in Pasco and 2nd and 4th wards. (Especially 2nd ward). I'm already afraid of leaving and I've only been here 3 weeks! And Elder Lee is awesome. We get along really well. With him and I, we were able to get to be comfortable around each other quicker than any other companion I've had so far. I don't know if that is because I have learned how to get along with people better or for some other reason. But I like him a lot. We have fun.

We got 63 OYM's this week too. So we have a lot of potential investigators to contact this coming week. I'm excited for that. Hopefully we can get a lot of new investigators. That is what the mission is pushing for right now. For every 14 new investigators in our mission, 1 is baptized. So we are pushing to find a lot of new investigators. Although, I looked at our numbers in our district for the past year and the average for us is every 5 new investigators, 1 is baptized. So if we can find more we will baptize more. Duh.

We have four on date right now. Baby Ann for the 16th, Linda for the 23rd, Natalia for the 30th, and Connie for the 11th of August. All girls. Hopefully more in the near future! I will keep you posted. We have some very good opportunities coming up. I love it.

Thank you for all your support. I went two whole weeks without a letter, but then I got three in one day, so that made it mostly better :).

Love you.

Elder Paxman