Well. I got transferred. I'm going to back to Yakima to be a Zone
Leader. I am terribly excited. Not necessarily about the Zone Leader
part. But I get to go back to Yakima!!! Two Halloweens, Thanksgivings
and Christmases in Yakima. I am so so so excited. I will be serving with
Elder Lylles. Im pretty sure that's how you spell it. He goes home in
either December or January so I may "kill" him. Elder Crowther trained
Elder Lylles. I have met him before and he seems great. I'm sure any
Zone Leader is a good companion though. It should be a great transfer. I
leave for Yakima on Wednesday. Hopefully I can go back and visit Betty
:)
Ironically, Elder Packham will be taking my place here in Pasco. For
the first 3 months of my mission President Greer had the hardest time
remembering my name because of Elder Packham. He would always call me
Elder Packham. And one time in our monthly newsletter my name was
mistakenly put down instead of Elder Packham's for a baptism that he had
in Vancouver. I'm sure Elder Burgess will have a lot of success with
him. Elder Packham is a hard worker and he is walking into a very
successful area. He and Elder Burgess might have a hard time getting
along though... Elder Burgess and I didn't usually see eye to eye on
most topics but we made it work. I just have a feeling that Elder
Burgess is going to struggle with some companions in his future... But
he really is a great guy and a great missionary. I'm excited for the
future of the Pasco 2nd and 4th area.
Speaking of the future of this area, when President Greer called me
last night, I asked him about splitting our area so that each ward is
it's own area. I have always thought that this area would do just fine
if it were split. President then asked if they should find housing in
4th ward. I said yes. The area will probably be split in a few
transfers.
Another thing he told us is that we will be going from 190
missionaries in our mission up to 250 missionaries in the next 6 months.
Every time I think about that I think about mason coming to this
mission and me training him hahaha. How cool would that be! Oh my
goodness that would be splendid. Pray for that hahaha. Just kidding. But
seriously. Maybe Conner will punch one of his AP's in the face and get
megatransferred to Yakima. Don't pray for that.
As for the work this week it was superb. Michael Votaw is back on
date and this time to stay. Sister Votaw cried and called us the best
missionaries in the world. She has been married to him for years and he
has never been ready to be baptized but we happened to be here for it.
She also was telling us that Sister Mathews is her visiting teacher and
they were comparing notes because we have been teaching Sister Mathew's
Brother, Sister and Nephew and they are all getting baptized soon too.
Sister Mathew's sister is Marilynn and she is getting baptized on
November 10th. So, Sister Votaw and Sister Mathews really like Elder
Burgess and I. I'm kinda a fan of them too. It's going to be hard to say
goodbye.
As for Brother Votaw's date we went over there on Thursday and
discussed it a little bit. We came to the conclusion that November 17th
would be the day for baptism. Then Sister Votaw said "neither of you get
transferred now"... I told them I would probably be leaving on the 31st
and to make a long story short, Brother Votaw was considering getting
baptized tomorrow night so that I could be there. We told them not to
get baptized for me but to do it for himself. They decided they would
pray about it and give us a call the next day. We got the call and after
thinking about it they decided upon the 17th. I think that was the
right choice. I thought I might be able to come back for the baptism but
Yakima is too far to travel just for a baptism.
Sandra will be baptized this Saturday if all goes well
Roni will be baptized on the 13th (we had to push it back a week)
Anthony is scheduled for the 17th
Shirley (73 years old) is scheduled for the 24th
Zack
and Olivia are super super close to baptism. We could have put them on
date last night but I wanted to leave the lesson up to Elder Burgess and
he didn't want to do it. That's totally fine though. They can set a
date next time!
I think the toughest one to say goodbye to will be the Nelson family. I
really love them all a lot... It makes me sad to think about.
So
that is what I will be leaving... It's hard to say goodbye. But kinda a
relief to be done training hahaha. I do love Elder Burgess, I hope you
all know that. I am kinda stressing about being a Zone Leader though. It
will be hard. I hope I can do a good job. Elder Lylles will be a huge
help I'm sure.
Ummmm. That's all I got.
I love you Kristen. Sorry you receive no letter recently...
You too mom! I'm sorry...
Love,
Elder Paxman
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Update on Investigators
Yesterday was a great day. We only had one lesson but it was a
delightful one. It was with Roni Gardner. We found her as we were
sorting through our unorganized phone (it is now all organized) 3 months
ago. It was in the phone as 'roni' and I didn't recognized the name so
we gave her a call. She didn't know how we had her number but she knew
some LDS people and invited us over. As we started teaching she was very
closed to the idea of becoming LDS or taking the lessons. The only
reason she invited us back is because she has a few LDS coworkers at the
post office in Richland and she doesn't like how they treat her. She
gets teased by them and there is a very negative attitude in her office.
She wanted us to help her forgive and dispel the resentful feelings she
had towards these people. She thought that we could give her some
perspective and teach her how to forgive. We were able to accomplish
that for her in 2 or 3 visits and then we had a good relationship with
her. At that point she had opened up to us sharing more of our beliefs.
We started the first lesson with her and she agreed with what we had to
share. It ended up taking the next 2 months just to teach the first
lesson because she had so many questions and comments.
But we finished up last night by watching the 20 minute Restoration
DVD. After the movie was done we asked a few follow up questions and she
expressed that she believed it all wholeheartedly but she still had a
few concerns. We asked what those were and she told us it was mostly
Polygamy and questions to do with the Temple. She was sure they could be
answered but it seemed to me like she was afraid to ask the questions
because she didn't want to offend us. We assured her that we would love
to answer those questions for her. When we were done with our
explanation we invited her to be baptized and she said yes! November
7th. Only 2 weeks away! She has already been to church once and we have 2
more Sundays before her baptism. It is truly amazing to see the change
that has come in her life in such a short amount of time. She went from
one end of the spectrum to the other. A lot of it just had to do with
getting her the correct information. But the main part was the Holy
Ghost. I'm really excited for this baptism, although I have a feeling I
will be leaving in about a week.
Transfers are on Halloween. I'm probably leaving. I really am going to miss Pasco. There aren't very many areas that are this consistently successful. I just hope I can bring that with me to my next area wherever that may be. Due to the change, send mail to the mission office until I get my new address:
Elder Chase Paxman
8202 W Quinault Ave. Ste. D
Kennewick WA, 99336
We have 3 other people on date too. Sandra, Anthony Diaz, and Marilynn Scott. We should put Michael Votaw on date on Thursday too, he agreed to do that. Brother Votaw's wife is an active member and he has come to church the past 2 weeks. I think I mentioned last week that he bought clothes for the occasion of coming to church. He is in it for the long haul. He'll get baptized soon. He is ready to go.
Sandra smoked on Saturday morning after going 1 1/2 weeks without doing so but she has recommitted and is trying again. She should be ready to be baptized on November 3rd. Maybe the 6th though because that's her birthday. She wants to be baptized she just needs to go two weeks without smoking! She'll get there
Anthony Diaz is 15 and has been coming to Young Men for the past month. He came to General Conference and has the desire to come to church consistently too. We just need to be able to coordinate with him a little better for rides there. He wants to be baptized but his parents aren't interested. His mom and grandma are fine with him being baptized but they aren't very helpful in making it happen. Oh well, we don't expect them to be.
Marilynn Scott is Sister Mathews' sister. I mentioned that a few emails ago that she was a referral from Sister Mathews. It's Marilynn Brian and Jonathan Scott. Marilynn, Sister Mathews, and Brian are all siblings and Jonathan is Brian's son. Marilynn is ready to be baptized! Brian and Jonathan will get there. Just a little bit slower. November 10th is Marilynn's date.
Unfortunately I will probably be absent from all of these baptisms. But that's missionary work. Oh well. As long as they get baptized it's okay.
We also went to the funeral for Angie Garcia. I don't know if I mentioned her last week. She was 37 years old. Her mom is a member and we were teaching her and her daughter. She got in a car wreck a couple weeks ago when the driver of her car decided to pass illegally on the freeway. She was in a coma for awhile. They decided to pull the plug and we went to her viewing on Saturday. That was sad.
Well...
No se que mas decir
I love you all. I hope this email was sufficient. Oppan Gangnam Style.
Love,
Elder Paxman
Transfers are on Halloween. I'm probably leaving. I really am going to miss Pasco. There aren't very many areas that are this consistently successful. I just hope I can bring that with me to my next area wherever that may be. Due to the change, send mail to the mission office until I get my new address:
Elder Chase Paxman
8202 W Quinault Ave. Ste. D
Kennewick WA, 99336
We have 3 other people on date too. Sandra, Anthony Diaz, and Marilynn Scott. We should put Michael Votaw on date on Thursday too, he agreed to do that. Brother Votaw's wife is an active member and he has come to church the past 2 weeks. I think I mentioned last week that he bought clothes for the occasion of coming to church. He is in it for the long haul. He'll get baptized soon. He is ready to go.
Sandra smoked on Saturday morning after going 1 1/2 weeks without doing so but she has recommitted and is trying again. She should be ready to be baptized on November 3rd. Maybe the 6th though because that's her birthday. She wants to be baptized she just needs to go two weeks without smoking! She'll get there
Anthony Diaz is 15 and has been coming to Young Men for the past month. He came to General Conference and has the desire to come to church consistently too. We just need to be able to coordinate with him a little better for rides there. He wants to be baptized but his parents aren't interested. His mom and grandma are fine with him being baptized but they aren't very helpful in making it happen. Oh well, we don't expect them to be.
Marilynn Scott is Sister Mathews' sister. I mentioned that a few emails ago that she was a referral from Sister Mathews. It's Marilynn Brian and Jonathan Scott. Marilynn, Sister Mathews, and Brian are all siblings and Jonathan is Brian's son. Marilynn is ready to be baptized! Brian and Jonathan will get there. Just a little bit slower. November 10th is Marilynn's date.
Unfortunately I will probably be absent from all of these baptisms. But that's missionary work. Oh well. As long as they get baptized it's okay.
We also went to the funeral for Angie Garcia. I don't know if I mentioned her last week. She was 37 years old. Her mom is a member and we were teaching her and her daughter. She got in a car wreck a couple weeks ago when the driver of her car decided to pass illegally on the freeway. She was in a coma for awhile. They decided to pull the plug and we went to her viewing on Saturday. That was sad.
Well...
No se que mas decir
I love you all. I hope this email was sufficient. Oppan Gangnam Style.
Love,
Elder Paxman
 |
| Chase had dinner with a family in Pasco and the woman's parents were visiting. He found out that her parents are moving to Rolla, Missouri. Such a small world. |
Monday, October 15, 2012
Update
We had some big changes in the leadership in 2nd ward this week. We've
had a lot of move outs and ins recently including our YM President and
2nd counselor in the Bishopric. The other night I had a dream. It was
about the Hales in our ward. Brother and Sister Hale are an active
family but in the dream Brother Hale was Bishop but he wasn't a member.
Sister hale told me he wasn't a member but it was a secret and I
couldn't tell anyone. The reason he was Bishop is because it was a cover
up for not being a member. So we had dinner with them the other night
and I told them about this dream. Then 2 days later at church, Brother
Hale was sustained as our new 2nd counselor in the Bishopric ha ha ha. I
went up to Sister Hale after sacrament meeting and said "this just
proves he isn't a member". It was pretty funny. They told me never to
have dreams about them again ha ha ha. Funny family.
Our new YM President has only been in our ward for 2 weeks so I don't know him at all. Crazy that he moved in two weeks ago and is already the YM President. They got him quick.
It was a really really bad week for numbers all throughout the zone... We struggled to teach lessons. And Elder Burgess and I are back to 0 on date again for the first time in a long time. We are kinda starting over. But we do have a lot of potential coming up. We had 6 people at church on Sunday which was great.
Michael Kelly came to church. It is an interesting story as to how he got interested in the church. We tracted into him and he told us about how he has been meeting with a couple sisters in Richland at the Family History center there. He has a desire to find out where he came from and who he is. I think it all stems from the fact that he has a poor relationship with his father. He is trying to find a different path than the one set out by his father. So finding through family history actually works! That was crazy. We told him we had a smaller family history center at our chapel that he could use if he came to church on Sunday, so he came. During the second hour of church he spent time in there on the computer organizing some of the information that he has gathered. He is so excited about his family history! It's really cool to see.
Sandra and Catrina also came to church as usual. I don't think they have missed a week in about 3 months. Sandra quit smoking. She has been off cigarettes for 5 days now. She also moved to Kennewick but is going to continue attending Pasco 2nd ward. I think moving helped with her desire to quit smoking. If she can continue to stay smoke free for 1 more week then we will baptize her! She really wants to get baptized because she wants the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She knows it will help. We are almost there with her.
Michael Votaw came to church as well. He bought a white shirt and tie on Saturday for the occasion! That shows me that he is in it for the long haul. I love seeing that. He is a good friend of Bishop Pierce. They go fishing together often. He is most definitely going to be baptized. It's just a matter of when. His wife is an active member in our ward. He just doesn't quite feel completely comfortable with everything quite yet. He is getting there though. He's doing everything right.
The other two investigators that came to church were Olivia (11) and Zack (9). Their mom is a recently reactivated member. They were all actively attending New Hope Baptist church for years until about 3 weeks ago. Tonia, the mother, made the decision to go back to the LDS church because of her boyfriend, Danny Groce. Brother Groce is a convert of 6 years and actively attends 4th ward. Tonia and him have been dating for over a year now and she had no intentions of coming back but because of brother Groce's patience and persistence she has found her testimony again. She made the decision to come back on her own and her and Danny will probably be married soon. Her kids aren't members but it is tough for them to make this transition so quickly. It is especially tough for Zack. He really misses his old church and doesn't understand why they made the switch. But they are great kids and Tonia is a great mother and they obediently follow her to church each week. We have a lesson with them tonight over at our WML's home (Brother Thorn).
That was everyone that came to church. Hope to get more next week. We've done a lot of dropping recently. We went from 50 investigators to 30 investigators in the past couple of weeks. It is much better this way. The pool that we have now is much more focused.
With the recent change in missionaries' age requirements President is thinking that we will get more missionaries. And due to that change he and other leaders have been talking about splitting our area. I thought that might happen before they changed the age because of how busy we have been but now it just makes it more likely for me. It may happen this transfer but I'm not sure. I doubt I will be here to see the split. I expect to leave Pasco on Halloween which is the next transfer day.
We also had a Zone Conference this week. It was great as usual. I wont bore you with details.
That's all I got. Sorry if it didn't answer questions you may have had...
Love,
Elder Paxman
Our new YM President has only been in our ward for 2 weeks so I don't know him at all. Crazy that he moved in two weeks ago and is already the YM President. They got him quick.
It was a really really bad week for numbers all throughout the zone... We struggled to teach lessons. And Elder Burgess and I are back to 0 on date again for the first time in a long time. We are kinda starting over. But we do have a lot of potential coming up. We had 6 people at church on Sunday which was great.
Michael Kelly came to church. It is an interesting story as to how he got interested in the church. We tracted into him and he told us about how he has been meeting with a couple sisters in Richland at the Family History center there. He has a desire to find out where he came from and who he is. I think it all stems from the fact that he has a poor relationship with his father. He is trying to find a different path than the one set out by his father. So finding through family history actually works! That was crazy. We told him we had a smaller family history center at our chapel that he could use if he came to church on Sunday, so he came. During the second hour of church he spent time in there on the computer organizing some of the information that he has gathered. He is so excited about his family history! It's really cool to see.
Sandra and Catrina also came to church as usual. I don't think they have missed a week in about 3 months. Sandra quit smoking. She has been off cigarettes for 5 days now. She also moved to Kennewick but is going to continue attending Pasco 2nd ward. I think moving helped with her desire to quit smoking. If she can continue to stay smoke free for 1 more week then we will baptize her! She really wants to get baptized because she wants the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She knows it will help. We are almost there with her.
Michael Votaw came to church as well. He bought a white shirt and tie on Saturday for the occasion! That shows me that he is in it for the long haul. I love seeing that. He is a good friend of Bishop Pierce. They go fishing together often. He is most definitely going to be baptized. It's just a matter of when. His wife is an active member in our ward. He just doesn't quite feel completely comfortable with everything quite yet. He is getting there though. He's doing everything right.
The other two investigators that came to church were Olivia (11) and Zack (9). Their mom is a recently reactivated member. They were all actively attending New Hope Baptist church for years until about 3 weeks ago. Tonia, the mother, made the decision to go back to the LDS church because of her boyfriend, Danny Groce. Brother Groce is a convert of 6 years and actively attends 4th ward. Tonia and him have been dating for over a year now and she had no intentions of coming back but because of brother Groce's patience and persistence she has found her testimony again. She made the decision to come back on her own and her and Danny will probably be married soon. Her kids aren't members but it is tough for them to make this transition so quickly. It is especially tough for Zack. He really misses his old church and doesn't understand why they made the switch. But they are great kids and Tonia is a great mother and they obediently follow her to church each week. We have a lesson with them tonight over at our WML's home (Brother Thorn).
That was everyone that came to church. Hope to get more next week. We've done a lot of dropping recently. We went from 50 investigators to 30 investigators in the past couple of weeks. It is much better this way. The pool that we have now is much more focused.
With the recent change in missionaries' age requirements President is thinking that we will get more missionaries. And due to that change he and other leaders have been talking about splitting our area. I thought that might happen before they changed the age because of how busy we have been but now it just makes it more likely for me. It may happen this transfer but I'm not sure. I doubt I will be here to see the split. I expect to leave Pasco on Halloween which is the next transfer day.
We also had a Zone Conference this week. It was great as usual. I wont bore you with details.
That's all I got. Sorry if it didn't answer questions you may have had...
Love,
Elder Paxman
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Spiritually Jam-Packed Week
Family,
We have a spiritually jam-packed week. It started with General Conference this weekend. Then we had a Zone Meeting on Monday. We went to the Temple today. And on Friday we have a Zone Conference. That means we have to wear our suits a lot... (and now that conference has happened it is again a rule to wear suits every night from dinner on... Not excited for that)
Conference was great. I was very much looking forward to it and it did not fail to exceed my expectations. I took upwards of 10 pages of notes. I hope they were useful... I feel like I will get much more out of it when I get to read the talks in the Ensign in a month. With the announcement on the age of missionaries my first reaction was that I wish it came out earlier so I could have gone straight out of high school! But after that initial selfish thought I realized that the age change wasn't meant for me it was meant for other 18 year old crumb crunchers.
The Zone meeting that we had yesterday was great. We are implementing a new way to set monthly baptismal goals. When Elder Maynes came a couple weeks ago he suggested an idea of a "rolling 3" where you set goals and make plans 3 months at a time for baptisms. So instead of just setting a goal at the beginning of October for October baptisms. We set a goal for October, November, and December and then we reevaluate each month. We have names to back up the numbers in most cases but for some of the November/December baptisms we realize that we will probably find them within the coming weeks. So that is what we will be using from now on. Also, we received news that we will be getting new mission vehicles. Subaru Legacys and Toyota Tacomas instead of Chevy Colorados. That will be fun. I love what we drive now though (2012 Ford Fusion).
The temple today was wonderful as usual. I spent time in the Celestial room with Elder Barton. He is one of my Zone Leaders and he knows a whole lot more about doctrine than I do so I decided to have a quiet conversation with him there while we could speak about pretty much anything. It was very insightful... He told me a few things that I hadn't heard before and got me thinking about things that I hadn't thought about before. Ha ha ha. Deep doctrine... I could spend a lot of time talking about that with him. It's interesting to find out what is and isn't doctrine in Christ's church but in the end I do know that we have all we need in the beautifully simple Doctrine of Christ and the rest is just add on to that.
I'm sure Zone Conference will be wonderful.
Gotta send.
Love,
Elder Paxman
We have a spiritually jam-packed week. It started with General Conference this weekend. Then we had a Zone Meeting on Monday. We went to the Temple today. And on Friday we have a Zone Conference. That means we have to wear our suits a lot... (and now that conference has happened it is again a rule to wear suits every night from dinner on... Not excited for that)
Conference was great. I was very much looking forward to it and it did not fail to exceed my expectations. I took upwards of 10 pages of notes. I hope they were useful... I feel like I will get much more out of it when I get to read the talks in the Ensign in a month. With the announcement on the age of missionaries my first reaction was that I wish it came out earlier so I could have gone straight out of high school! But after that initial selfish thought I realized that the age change wasn't meant for me it was meant for other 18 year old crumb crunchers.
The Zone meeting that we had yesterday was great. We are implementing a new way to set monthly baptismal goals. When Elder Maynes came a couple weeks ago he suggested an idea of a "rolling 3" where you set goals and make plans 3 months at a time for baptisms. So instead of just setting a goal at the beginning of October for October baptisms. We set a goal for October, November, and December and then we reevaluate each month. We have names to back up the numbers in most cases but for some of the November/December baptisms we realize that we will probably find them within the coming weeks. So that is what we will be using from now on. Also, we received news that we will be getting new mission vehicles. Subaru Legacys and Toyota Tacomas instead of Chevy Colorados. That will be fun. I love what we drive now though (2012 Ford Fusion).
The temple today was wonderful as usual. I spent time in the Celestial room with Elder Barton. He is one of my Zone Leaders and he knows a whole lot more about doctrine than I do so I decided to have a quiet conversation with him there while we could speak about pretty much anything. It was very insightful... He told me a few things that I hadn't heard before and got me thinking about things that I hadn't thought about before. Ha ha ha. Deep doctrine... I could spend a lot of time talking about that with him. It's interesting to find out what is and isn't doctrine in Christ's church but in the end I do know that we have all we need in the beautifully simple Doctrine of Christ and the rest is just add on to that.
I'm sure Zone Conference will be wonderful.
Gotta send.
Love,
Elder Paxman
Monday, October 1, 2012
A Crazy Weekend
It was a crazy weekend. We tried with all we had to get Alex baptized
this Saturday like everyone had planned. We were planning the interview
on Tuesday. But he rescheduled for Wednesday and then didn't show up so
we got it done on Thursday. We were hopeful because we didn't see him
all week until Thursday but we got the interview done. We scheduled to
see him the next day a 1 too. We were planning on finalizing things at
that appointment and then seeing him the next night for the baptism. But
he didn't show on Friday either... So we were again nervous. We devoted
a lot of our Saturday to tracking him down. We ended up finding him at
6:15. The baptism was scheduled for 7. He needed to be at the church at
6:30 to get ready and take pictures. He told us at 6:15 the he forgot
about his nephew's birthday party. It was that day at 6:30. Ridiculous.
So we postponed an hour. We made the phone calls to postpone. If we
didn't have other people participating in the program and people already
at the church I probably would have called it off with him right then
because he wasn't taking it seriously. But I knew our WML really wanted
to see it happen that night. So we postponed to 8 (but we told Alex
7:30). He texted us at 7:40 and said he was on his way but got pulled
over. Then 5 minutes later we got another text from his phone saying
they were taking him in because he had warrants on unpaid fines. So he
got arrested. Ridiculous again. So we had to call the baptism off.
Fortunately at this point only about 8 people were able to make it and
we told them all the situation. It was so disappointing that it was
comical. Our WML, Brother Hodge, didn't know what to do haha. We all
just sat there and laughed pretty much. Alex is just the most eccentric
and flakey person in the world sometimes. I really dont know what to do
next... I am glad it turned out this way though. He was not ready to get
baptized. He will need to be interviewed by President Greer next. I
hope I described that whole situation well.
That was a disappointing but not too surprising part of our week. It would have been worse if we didn't have other things to focus on. We have a lot of good things going on so it's not too hard.
On the other hand we have Shane and Marina and Mikey's baptism tomorrow night. They are good to go. They came to church yesterday and they are all excited and everything. We finally finished up the whole family. They will all be baptized after tomorrow. It just took awhile. It is wonderful to see the change that has been made in Marina and Shane's life. Their whole countenance has changed. Everything about their home is different. It feels a lot better in there. I hope they can keep it up.
Here is something I learned over the past month. In Leadership Training early in September, President Greer was answering questions to close our meeting. One of the questions sparked a discussion that led me to ask "If you go to the Celestial Kingdom can you go down a level or two to visit those in other kingdoms?" I always thought the answer was yes of course. But President said that he wasn't sure. There is not official church doctrine on that. And then last week when Elder Richard J. Maynes was here another Elder asked that same question to him and we got the same answer. So that blew my mind. I had lived for 20 years thinking the answer to that question was yes but now I am not so sure. I sure the real answer to that question is much too complicated for us to understand and that's why we haven't received and answer but it was surprising to me to find out that we might not be able to descend down a kingdom to visit others. It would make sense either way...
I thought I would share that with whoever reads this email. Just for fun.
We got 8 new investigators last week and achieved the dirty 30 again in pasco zone! We have so many investigators it's not funny... I think we're still up near 50. I don't know how to handle it. We will have three less as of tomorrow with our baptism and we are in the midst of dropping many others. But we just seem to be finding too quickly to get down to a reasonable number. I would gladly drop half of our teaching pool because I don't feel like they are going to get baptized but Elder Burgess is more hesitant. It's hard when you're a new missionary to drop people... BUT IF THEY AREN'T READY THEY AREN'T READY!! Harsh, but true.
I miss you all. I can't believe it has been 13 months... It's going fast.
Love,
Elder Paxman
That was a disappointing but not too surprising part of our week. It would have been worse if we didn't have other things to focus on. We have a lot of good things going on so it's not too hard.
On the other hand we have Shane and Marina and Mikey's baptism tomorrow night. They are good to go. They came to church yesterday and they are all excited and everything. We finally finished up the whole family. They will all be baptized after tomorrow. It just took awhile. It is wonderful to see the change that has been made in Marina and Shane's life. Their whole countenance has changed. Everything about their home is different. It feels a lot better in there. I hope they can keep it up.
Here is something I learned over the past month. In Leadership Training early in September, President Greer was answering questions to close our meeting. One of the questions sparked a discussion that led me to ask "If you go to the Celestial Kingdom can you go down a level or two to visit those in other kingdoms?" I always thought the answer was yes of course. But President said that he wasn't sure. There is not official church doctrine on that. And then last week when Elder Richard J. Maynes was here another Elder asked that same question to him and we got the same answer. So that blew my mind. I had lived for 20 years thinking the answer to that question was yes but now I am not so sure. I sure the real answer to that question is much too complicated for us to understand and that's why we haven't received and answer but it was surprising to me to find out that we might not be able to descend down a kingdom to visit others. It would make sense either way...
I thought I would share that with whoever reads this email. Just for fun.
We got 8 new investigators last week and achieved the dirty 30 again in pasco zone! We have so many investigators it's not funny... I think we're still up near 50. I don't know how to handle it. We will have three less as of tomorrow with our baptism and we are in the midst of dropping many others. But we just seem to be finding too quickly to get down to a reasonable number. I would gladly drop half of our teaching pool because I don't feel like they are going to get baptized but Elder Burgess is more hesitant. It's hard when you're a new missionary to drop people... BUT IF THEY AREN'T READY THEY AREN'T READY!! Harsh, but true.
I miss you all. I can't believe it has been 13 months... It's going fast.
Love,
Elder Paxman
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