Turkey Week

Hello Family.

It was a wonderful turkey week here in Yakima. Very very cold. No snow this week but lots of frost in the mornings.

We taught a wonderful lesson on Tuesday with Hannah. She has softened her heart a lot. She enjoys us coming and she has learned a lot. She mentioned that she would always hide from missionaries in the past because she didn't know what they had to say but now that she has been introduced to it she is a lot more comfortable and actually likes the gospel! Of course she does!!!

We are still pluggin along with James Draven. He is getting more and more comfortable with his baptism on the 8th. His concerns are disappearing one by one. We had an exchanges with the AP's this week and Elder Lim was able to go over there and teach James with us. I think he helped a lot in making him feel like he has met all qualifications necessary to be baptized. He also wanted to know why he needed to be baptized again and we were able to answer that for him. I'm praying hard that he will follow through with this.

We taught Laura Larsen a couple times this week. We had a very interesting lesson with her... She has attended West Side Baptist church for years and no one in her church or her family knows that she is investigating the LDS church except for one of her cousins. She was telling us the other day about some questions that she emailed her Pastor and we read a copy of it. She mentioned that her Pastors name was Rick. I asked the last name and she said Harpel. It was interesting to hear some of the things that Rick had said haha. And it was really weird to make that connection again with Rick. It makes me feel like I'm supposed to be in Yakima or something. I was here last winter and got to know Rick and his wife a little bit and see things from their point of view spiritually speaking and now I am here on the other side. Laura is troubled by a lot of things she has heard from those in her church. Especially when they explicitly bash on the LDS church in their sermons. But a lot of their doctrine isn't very sound and she is troubled by that.

We read the email that was sent to her and it was hard to understand completely what the West Side Baptist church believes. I've studied the answers to her questions and it is very confusing. It makes me grateful for the Doctrine of Christ and its simplicity.

That was an interesting connection that I made this week. If you dont remember the rest of the story, Rick Harpel is Dave's cousin and he lives here in Yakima. I was able to hook up with him last year and we had dinner and lunch together a few times. It was really cool to see him and visit. And now we have sort of crossed paths again. Fun fun fun.

I hope I explained that well... I feel like I didn't. I am kinda in a hurry.

Thanksgiving was wonderful! The Finches fed us. They are the family we live with. They're the greatest. Sister Finch came home this morning with a 6 foot Christmas tree strapped on to the roof of her Denali. We assumed it was for them but she said it was for us! It is so cool to have a real Christmas tree haha I love it. We'll get to decorate it tonight.

The best part of Thanksgiving was when Elder Smith the younger opened his mission call over skype with his family. He is going to the New Jersey Morristown Mission, Spanish speaking, on February 6th. That was way exciting to hear, it made me excited for Mason. So I called President Greer and asked if I could call my family to hear where Mason was going. At first he said he would call for me but then we got to interviews and he hadn't called yet so he let me call Mom for a few minutes to ask. It should be another week before the call is here but it was still great to get to talk to Mom for a few minutes over the phone. That was the day after Thanksgiving.

The Smith brothers went home this morning. They are traveling right now back to Utah. It is super crazy... Being with missionaries right before they go home is hard haha. It is so hard not to think of home yourself. Oh well, it's a good kind of hard. I think it was worse that I was with 3 missionaries at once that were all going home right around the same time. But Elder Lyells and I have 2 more weeks together and then he goes home too. Which will be good for him. He misses girls haha.

I think that's all I have to say. I hope I explained everything well...

I love you

Elder Paxman