Loving Kennewick

So. I am absolutely loving it right now here in Kennewick. I am serving with one of my favorite companions. Elder Metz is the best. And Kennewick is amazing. The only sad thing is that this transfer is a short transfer because of the new mission president coming in. So I will only get to be with Elder Metz for 3 more weeks. Sad. But that's pretty much the only thing getting me down right now. The only sad part about this is that it has to end.

Here's what happened this week.

There were two baptisms in Hermiston on Saturday. I got to go back and see one of them. It was for Chuck Hall. We were teaching Chuck a few weeks ago and asking him if he believed the Book of Mormon to be true. He was already solid for his baptism so we weren't worried but his answer was a little bit surprising. He said that he has known the Book of Mormon was true for years. He has known that the Prophet Joseph Smith was a prophet for years. He has believed that for awhile. Elder Hutchens and I were just blessed to walk into that. We were there at the right time in the right place and Sister Pearson (his fiancee) wasn't afraid to make the invitation. It was the epitome of Alma 13:24. Angels declared it to Chuck before we showed up. We just need to follow the Spirit so we know who's being prepared like that. And we cant be afraid to invite! Otherwise we miss out on helping many of Heavenly Father's children.

Just think of it. Who knows how many people are out there that believe all these things and all they need is an invitation. How sad would it be if they went through their whole life and never was invited to act on the things they believe. They don't know how to act. That's why we're here. Not just missionaries. Everyone who knows! Cool story. We gotta find the prepared people.

As for the work in our area... It's relatively nonexistent. There wasn't a lot going on here at all. They had a total of 4 investigators left for us in the area book and none of them were good. It's a good thing Elder Metz has served in this area before. We are going back to a lot of the people he used to teach. It's so cool to see the people that remember him. They're all so excited to see him. I sure hope it would be the same in any of the areas I've served in.

Because of the lack of things to do here right now we have been doing a lot of finding. Mostly finding people that Metz used to teach. So we got a few new investigators in the few days I've been here. It's also been tiring to try and get the Zone going. It's tough to step into this position and know what to do. We've kinda switched up the Zone vision a little bit. We have four districts and 3 new district leaders. Elder Dutson is our fourth district leader and he helped out a lot on letting us know what was going on last transfer. We've switched things up a lot and trained our new DL's and had a DLC and a few other meetings. There are 28 missionaries in our zone which is the biggest out of any in the mission. It just takes a little bit to catch up on everything. We're getting there though. It will be good to see all the missionaries together today for p-day. We also had a cereal party on saturday to get together and meet everyone.

What else... Ha. We put someone on date I guess... Her name is Carol Eddy. She is definitely not solid. June 22 was her date. We had to invite her 5 times before she would give us a straight answer. And even then it wasn't very straight haha. We'll see if she comes to church!

I'm sure lots of this email didn't make sense and lots was repeated. I've just been trying to collect my thoughts and organize everything here. The main thing: We are trying to find new investigators. All throughout the zone. We are shooting for 85 in these next 3 weeks. Ocho Cinco. That's what we're calling it. It's gonna be big.

I love this Kennewick Zone.

Love love

Elder Paxman