Hermiston

Well I'm here.

Hermiston is a small town. There isn't too much going on here. Just a lot of crime apparently. We don't ever see it but for a small town people say there is a lot of crime.

 

There are about 15,000 people in Hermiston. And all the outskirts are farm country. That makes for good people :).

We cover the Sandstone Ward, Buttercreek YSA, Willow Creek Branch, and The Monument Branch. The Willow Creek and Monument Branches are small branches in the southern area of our mission. They cover a huge area but have very small attendance. We don't usually make it down to the Monument Branch because it's just too far. But every Thursday we drive to Heppner, which is the main city in the Willow Creek Branch. They meet in a small church building much like the one in Cathlamet. And the Monument Branch meets in a double wide trailer... Not very big.

 

We went to Heppner on Thursday and I got to meet everyone there. We had some extra time and ended up getting two new investigators while tracting. We also saw an investigator named Linda Tefft who is on date for baptism but has some work to do before she can get baptized. It's tough to work with her because we can only go down there once a week and we don't get to go to their sacrament meeting. She has some issues with LDS doctrine but has read through Alma in only a month of meeting with us. Another big thing is that she smokes. A lot. And drinks coffee. So. She is supposed to get baptized on February 23rd. It would be quite the miracle if that actually happened... She has a lot of work to do.

We set a baptismal date with a 96 year old woman. Her name is Lilly She's getting baptized on February 9th. She is really old. But sweet. She has come to church the past 4 weeks with her caregiver, Sister Pearson. Sister Pearson moved from New Mexico to take care of her and has introduced her to the gospel. Lilly has a lot of family and friends who are LDS. I don't quite know what took her so long to find the gospel but she seems excited now! But the rest of her family is more excited than she is. She is very sharp for a 96 year old. Has good hearing. Doesn't talk much. Sort of answers our questions when we teach her... Everyone needs baptism! We're just getting Lilly before the missionaries in the Spirit World do hahaha. That's mean. I'm sorry.

We found 6 new investigators this week in our area. But only 9 in the zone... Things have kinda been dead in Hermiston for awhile. Things were really booming in 2011, but 2012 was a down year. We are trying to take things back to where they were in 2011.

 

We just got Sister Missionaries in Hermiston for the first time in a very very long time. They got doubled in because we had so many Sisters come out this past transfer. It's the first time Sisters have served anywhere in Oregon in awhile. It's exciting to have them here and it means we have one more companionship to work with.

 

Actually. Sister Smith is being trained by Sister Hovorka there and Sister Smith is best friends with David Robertson's fiance. I think... Trisha is her name? I dunno how accurate all of that is. And it probably doesn't mean much to most of you. Maybe Kristen can confirm that for me sometime.

Oh by the way. We are living in "the plex". A famed apartment in the WKM. It's a pretty nice place. Just an apartment though. There are four of us living there. Us and the sisters. Kidding. Its us, Elder Babbitt and Elder Nance.

Out of time.

Love love

Elder Paxman

Hermiston, Oregon Here I Come

Hey family. IM GETTING TRANSFERRED. I didn't see that coming... This is probably the hardest part of being a missionary. And it's not about the new area or the new companion. I am just sad to leave all the people here. The area was really starting to get going. We have 9 people on date for baptism and a few more that are close. I'm sad to leave the wards and Elder Manning too. But that's enough lamenting.

I'm going to Hermiston Oregon. It's about an hour south east of tri-cities and about 2 1/2 hours from Yakima. I'll be serving with Elder Butler. I was his district leader in Pasco. We both got called to be a Zone Leader at the same time. This is his last transfer. I will be killing him. And this transfer is a week shorter than all other transfers. It will just be 5 weeks. Elder Butler is a great guy. It was fun to work with him in Pasco. I'm excited to go to Hermiston with him. The area will be a lot different than where I am now. We will cover 1 ward, a YSA branch and two family branches in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it will be a little like Cathlamet in that sense. We will live in an apartment with plenty of space in it. It usually houses 4 missionaries but right now there are just two of us there so we will have plenty of space. At least for this transfer. Next transfer we will be getting near 30 missionaries so there will be a few areas opening up. Its going to be crazy.

Anyways. Transfers... psh.

Trina didn't get baptized. She smoked! She doesn't even smoke, but she decided to smoke. She took two puffs of a cigarette then felt bad and threw it away. THAT'S IT! But that disqualifies her from baptism for a couple of weeks... So. Hopefully she will get baptized on February 2nd. But I wont be there... That is sad. I really like Trina. It was tons of fun to teach her.

 

I'll also miss Brandon, Gage, and Chace's baptism on the 9th... and Jimmie and Kaysie's on the 16th... and Jonothan Pearson's on the 2nd... and Angela Coombs on the 9th... DANGIT! Oh well. I guess thats how you're supposed to leave an area anyways... The only baptisms I got to be here for were Richard's and Laura's and they are both pretty dang awesome.

 

When all is said and done, this area has been good to me. I just wish I could have stayed longer to finish some things. I guess Elder Manning will finish them with Elder Larue instead. The important thing is that they get baptized and stay active. It's not about me.

Yesterday was a pretty crazy day. We were in church from 7:30 am to 8:00 pm. In order: we had ward council in 6th ward, 6th ward sacrament meeting and gospel principles, 1st ward sacrament meeting/YSA branch council (we split up), YSA sacrament meeting (Elder Manning and I both spoke), YSA gospel principles, then at 4 we had a two hour meeting for Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders in the Yakima and Selah Stakes, the AP's were there and they invited us too, Elder Risenmay spoke and so did President Greer. It was a really really good meeting, after that we went to a fireside for youth that Elder Manning and I both spoke at, It was to get the youth pumped for a mission. We had to speak there because Sister Thomas was sick and she was supposed to speak but we filled in for her. We finally got out at 8 then went to an appointment with Angela Coombs. It was a ridiculous day full of meetings and speaking.

The meeting with Elder Risenmay (an area seventy) was amazing. I think one of my favorite things that he said was "President Monson has turned priesthood keys in lowering the age for missionary work". What a cool thing to say huh? We know that Priesthood leaders hold keys but I've never really heard it put that way "Keys have been turned". He also talked about how this church is the only true and living church on the earth. D&C 1:30. we're living because of continued revelation. We shouldn't forget or disregard the word "living" when speaking of the only true and living church. In essence, Elder Risenmay and President Greer pumped everyone up to do missionary work. The Lord is "hastening the work" I think it says that in D&C 88:73. That is what Elder Risenmay was focused on. That is what the Prophet, and thus, the Lord, is focused on. Sustain your priesthood leaders! Emulate them and you will be emulating the Savior.

The meeting with Angela last night went phenomenally. We got there and she was crying because her dad didn't want anything to do with her and her mom was angry because she is getting baptized. She still wants to get baptized though because it is what is right. And at the end of the lesson she filled a whole garbage bag with alcohol, tea, coffee and cigarets. She had an inordinate amount of tea. And she dumped her wine and liquor down the sink. Alcohol smells bad. It reminded me of a baseball game ha ha. She probably ended up throwing away like $400 worth of sin ha ha. We took out her garbage for her after it was all done. I've never had an experience quite like that. I've seen people give up substances, but never to that level. That was quite impressive. And it seemed really empowering for Angela. She struggles with depression, and I think she really helped herself last night by shedding the chains that were binding her down in the form of alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco. WOO!

Hermiston, here I come! I'm pumped to share the gospel!!!!

You should all be pumped too.

Love,

Elder Paxman

New Investigors and Updates

We got 5 new people to teach this week. They're all really cool too.

Two are in the YSA, one in 6th ward and two in 1st ward.

About a month ago, Elder Lyells and I were tracting out in the middle of nowhere. We picked a random street with about 5 houses on it and decided to knock doors. It was late at night and the first lady we talked to told us, first, that she wasn't interested, and second, that there were a lot of mean dogs in the area. But we kept knocking anyways. The next door we knocked was Branan Rains. He said we could come back another night and that evenings were best for him. So we wrote his address down and that was that. Then we went down an even darker street and started walking up a driveway and almost got eaten alive by a huge german shepherd. Elder Lyells stood his ground and I started to run away haha. Thankfully Elder Lyells' instincts are much better than mine because if we both would have backed off as I did then the dog would have probably chased after us. But Elder Lyells backed up slowly and the dog went back home. But the best part of the story is the first part. With Branan.

 

We weren't able to get back there until the other night. We knocked and Branan told us he was busy. We pushed a little more and told him we would only be a few minutes and he invited us in. We met his wife and brother and two kids that live with him. He and his brother, David, told us that they were members, but Branan's wife, Katie, is not a member. So David and Branan have been less-active for years and Katie let us know that she wants to get back to church. Branan made the comment that if he goes back to any church it will be the LDS church. Katie said she was fine with that. We kept the visit short like we said we would and set up a return appointment for this evening at 7. We're really excited for that one! They all seem to have a lot of potential.

 

Side note: we checked the ward roster for their name and address and it wasn't on there. We wouldn't have been able to find them any other way than by tracting that random street late at night in the cold with killer dogs. The Lord knows all of his children.

Brandon Chase and Gage are all on date. February 2nd. That date might change for the sake of scheduling purposes, but he wants to be baptized and so do the kids. The didn't come to church this Sunday though... I'm not really sure why. We'll find out tomorrow. I think it was mostly because Candice was out of town so she wasn't there to push them out of bed. Oh well. They're great. They're getting baptized.

Craig Hancox is back on date too. Turns out he doesn't like our Ward Mission Leader... Drama. I don't like it. Our WML thinks they like him but they don't. But he wants to come to all the lessons and they just get annoyed and cancel appointments because they know he's coming then they get really put off and don't keep commitments. It's dumb. And we don't really know how to tell our WML that they don't like him and we can't go over there with him... We'll probably have to skirt around that one. Bishop Kimzey knows that our WML rubs some people the wrong way sometimes and we will try to work through him. Our WML is the best WML I've ever had. He is great. He works really hard and is always trying to help us. He is just kinda inappropriate/annoying sometimes and that bugs people. BUT, Craig wants to get baptized nonetheless. And he's excited too. We just have to get him to church. And his Recent Convert wife too... She just got a new job. She works 7 days a week. She is trying to get Sundays off but is having a hard time. It should all work out though. Craig's a good guy.

Trina should be baptized this Saturday. We hope. She's brought up some concerns over the past few days. I'm not terribly worried, but it could result in pushing back her baptism. This is going to be a rough week for her. We'll see what we can do... Pray that she gets baptized!

Kaysie and Jimmy are still funny. Jimmy swears so so so much. It's ridiculous. But he is so funny. He loves what we're teaching him and is convinced that all other churches are liars haha. We are trying to tell him that they aren't lying. They just don't know any better. I think he understands that but everything we are teaching him makes so much sense to him that he is convinced that all other churches are lying. And he has a lot of experiences in the past that have confused him on what is and isn't truth. He kinda believes everything we tell him though which is nice. He really likes us. And we really like him. He's the best. We just want him to come to church!!! He and Kaysie missed again this week because he got off work late. As in 8:30 in the morning... He goes in to work at 7pm so it's understandable that he doesn't make it to church but we still want him there. And he says he can. There's still a lot of work to do.

That's pretty much everyone I think... There was a really fun YSA party on Friday night. We went to the first 30 minutes of it because we had a few investigators there. But we had to go because it was our bedtime :( It made me want to be in YSA. That was a hoppin' party.

The Seahawks lost. So everyone in Washington is sad. But that was the best thing that could ever happen to us because now people will come to church!

The Broncos lost. I don't want to talk about it...

I don't even know what else happened this week. Probably a lot of stuff that I'm forgetting.

It seems like we ran into a lot of Anti-Mormon literature this week. And a lot of people wanted to Bible Bash with us. We tried not to... But everyone was in an arguing mood this week ha ha. Soooo, we tried not to argue. But some people just insisted.

That's all I got.

Love,

Elder Paxman

Busy Busy Busy

I dunno what happened this week. It was too long ago.

We went to the temple today! I learned stuff. It's good to go there. That is why I didn't email yesterday you see. I keep forgetting to warn you of when that happens. You can expect me to forget again in 12 weeks.

We had a happy new years holiday. We went to bed at 10:30.

Trina is doing awesome. She feels like she has her answer and is ready to get baptized. Two more weeks and she will be a member. Whenever she mentions to people in the branch that she isn't a member they're shocked. She looks like she's been a member her whole life. But then you talk to her and realize she isn't. Nothing against her. She just doesn't know. Very much. But she's learning! And excited. That's nice.

It's also nice to know that she isn't just doing this because her boyfriend Josh wants her to. I can tell that she is doing it for herself. We taught her a few different times this week and it went well. We finished up the commandments with her. We were worried about the word of wisdom but she had no problems with that at all. We had some problems with the Law of Chastity but those were small and we sorted them out. She was willing to pay her tithing and she comes to church every week that she doesn't work. She has been asking for more Sundays off and it seems to be getting better. I'm happy for her.

James has disappeared. He never answers the door. I hope he's doing okay. He might be smoking a lot and because of that he is embarrassed and hiding from us. We hope to be able to patch things up with him soon. We pray that he will make it to church this week but first we just have to meet with him.

Candice and Brandon are doing amazing. They weren't phased by the crazy sacrament meeting last week, and this week's fast and testimony meeting was wonderful. It was probably the best one I've ever been in. They seemed to enjoy it. Chase and Gage came in with their Kindle Fire's and we thought they were going to be playing games the whole time. But they brought them because they don't have the internet at their house and wanted to use the church's internet so they could download the scriptures. They spent the whole sacrament meeting reading the Book of Mormon. Then they hooked up with all their friends for primary. It all went really smooth. They don't have a baptismal date yet but we hope that this week they will. Sometime in early February we are hoping. They are all great people.

This week was a long week. We had a lot of stuff going on. I didn't realized that until I reviewed what happened while sitting at this computer. We had one district meeting on Tuesday. ZLC on Wednesday. an exchange with the AP's on Friday, specialized training and interviews on Saturday, and then a temple trip today. It kinda throws you off when you have that much stuff going on. We are also exchanging in a few hours. I'll be going down to Toppenish tonight. Busy busy busy. I guess that's a good thing though.

I got to bear my testimony in 3 different sacrament meetings on Sunday. I figured that would be the only time that I would have that opportunity so I decided to stand up in all three and bear my testimony. It was fun. And different every time.

Jimmy and Kaysie are still on date. They're doing okay. But they didn't come to church. They are still loving it. They have a long way to go. Get married. Quit smoking and drinking and hooka and who knows what else. And they have to come to church! But they seem to recognize the spirit and want to change. We will see them soon and try to get them back on track. We just need to go over with them all that they need to do before they're baptized. We hope that they want it enough. I guess our job is to bring the Spirit into their lives so that they will have the strength to make that decision.

That's a lot of who we're working with. There are others but they aren't as far along.

Love you all. I'm doing well. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now. That's the truth. I love doing this.

Love,

Elder Paxman

Snow

It just keeps snowing here. It's not that bad anymore though. Christmas day was the best! It snowed so much. A lot of you got to see that over skype. We ended up getting about 8 inches where we live that day.

Talking over skype was great. I loved it. Only one more to go...

The baptism for Laura Larsen went really well. We had about 70 people there and there was a really good linger longer afterwards. There was a dinner prepared for after the baptism and almost everyone stayed and visited. We were able to talk to a lot of the non-members that came, especially Laura's brother and sister-in-law. Those were the only family members that came to her baptism. The rest of her family pretty much disowned her. She told her aunt on Saturday that she was attending the LDS church and before she could say anything else her aunt stood up and said "that's the church of satan" and stormed out of the room. Laura wasn't even able to tell her that she was getting baptized. All she told her is that she was attending that church. That reaction was a little worse than she expected. She was expecting sadness and tears but she got anger and door slamming. She was a little disheartened but went through with her baptism nonetheless. It was a great experience. She feels a lot better too.

I don't know what else to say because I said it all on our phone call. But I will probably end up writing plenty more somehow...

Candice and Brandon came to church. I didn't go to 6th ward this week, but apparently the talk that was given in sacrament meeting was one of the worst talks ever. An old lady got up there and talked all about birth control and how it is evil and the prophet told us not to use it. then she went on about credit cards and if you have a credit card then you're not following the commandments of God. Soooo. It was a little extreme to say the least haha. Elder Manning was really upset. He thought that Brandon (investigator) was going to be offended and not want to come back. He talked to him a little after church was over and tried to set the record straight. They seemed okay. Then in the third hour the whole class was on the new curriculum for youth. and it didn't apply to them. So they looked kinda bored. At 7 o clock that night they called and left us a voicemail and said "we have questions, call us back". So Elder Manning was worried. But it ended up being really good. When we called back they were in the middle of watching Prophet of the Restoration. And their question was about Ether 12:26-28. So we answered that for them and then we asked how they liked sacrament meeting. Candice said that she appreciated what that lady had to say even though it was super sketchy. She likes that everyone has the chance to go up there and share their testimony. So it totally worked out. And she also said that she like the third hour because it will help her know how to teach her kids better.

 

Maybe that didn't make sense... Point: Candice and Brandon and their kids are awesome and I really hope they get baptized! Candice is already a member but the other three aren't. And the kids names are Gage and Chase. So I could get to baptize someone with my same name!

Trina also came to church. I was in the YSA this week so I was with her and Josh most of the day. I talked with Trina a little about the Law of Chastity and staying the night at Josh's place. Hopefully we will be able to work that out. She seems to understand it, it's just a matter of getting her to live it. She fulfills all of her assignments though. She always reads and she is doing a better job of praying. Things are going really well right now.

Yeah... This email didn't really make sense.

I dunno.

 

We had 34 new investigators this week in the zone. Another great week!

 

Also, we had 81 baptisms this month in the mission! That is an all-time record for this mission. Super good.

Thats all

Love,

Elder Paxman