Lots of New Investigators!

I didn't get transferred. Not surprising. I will be with Elder Boswell for another transfer. After that the likelihood is that he will be transferred out of here and I will stay. This next transfer goes right up to the end of November right after Thanksgiving. So I'll probably stay with Betty in Yakima for Christmas.

As for this transfer. Elder Boswell was made District Leader! It's way cool to see that. I'm excited for him. And I know he is excited for himself too ha ha. It will be good for me to be companions with a district leader. Maybe I'll learn something.

So. Frankie isn't going to be baptized. He is in jail. Not surprising. Just hilarious. Maybe a little sad. But not really, it's just funny. He stole his friends car while drunk and is now incarcerated. He kinda fell off date... Best of luck to Frankie! Crazy guy...

Alvina and Dolly are a little shaky... They had something going on a few nights ago and they cancelled an appointment with us. I called them and there was arguing going on in the background. That was on Thursday and we haven't been able to see them since. We went over last night to check up on them because they didn't come to church obviously. We got there and it was dark and kinda sketchy. We talked to their family and friends but they didn't want to see us so we left. They are off date because they have to come to church twice before they can be baptized and there is no way that can happen now before their date which was October 22. Next time we meet with them we will try to get them back on track! They are really good people. I just hope they are okay.

We have had a lot of people drop us recently. Eddie, Caleen, Juanita, Frankie is in the pokey ha ha. But we also have a few new investigators too. Our teaching pool has turned over in the past week.  There are so many new names on our board. We recently taught Sandro. He was interested and he asked us if he could come to church. We said yes and he didn't show up, but he seems nice and open lalala. That's how a lot of people are at first. We also taught Stacy. Same sort of thing. She is extremely nice and was excited to finally sit down with us. Petersen and Boswell contacted her in June. She was walking by her house and she was holding a duck. So they talked to her about it and apparently she owns two ducks as pets. I met them yesterday and they are pretty cool. But they first saw her in June and she told them to come back later in the week and they could talk. They were never able to get a hold of her again so they kinda gave up. Then last week the Spanish Elders in our area knocked her door and she said "You guys aren't my missionaries, where are my missionaries?" So they sent us back over there and we were finally able to teach her yesterday. She seems like she will actually follow up with the commitments to read and pray. She has genuine interest and really wants to know if the Book of Mormon is true.

We also got some referrals from the Zone Leaders. Sandro was one of those referrals. We also received Jennifer and Kris. I think they are both single mothers but I'm not sure... We haven't been able to teach either of them yet but they are both very nice and want to know more. We are just trying to catch them in their busy schedules. That is always the case.

We received another referral from elders in our zone. His name is Albert and he is probably in his early 20's. Apparently he read the Book of Mormon in a week and he wants to meet with us. That's all I really know about him, other than he is hard to get an appointment with of course.

Serena was another referral from someone in our ward. We're going over there tonight.

That is a bunch of new people! Its crazy to look back to when I got here six weeks ago and see the people that we were focusing on then. They have since faded or become less interested. Some have stayed the same. Or in Alvina's case, become more interested and made a lot of progress.

So there is a cool story behind Terry Kimbo. The black man who came to church with us last week. Peterson and Boswell helped him move from 2nd street to 11th ave. He appreciated it but didn't really want to become involved with church which was fine. They just helped him move. Then I came and a couple weeks into the transfer and we ran into this young man named Cheddar Bug (real name is Chester). He preached at us from his front porch. He was kinda nice, just trying to prove us wrong or something, but really he made no sense. That was the same day that I got bit by that small dog so we avoid that block haha. (By the way that dog bite was nothing ha ha, tiny dog, not a big deal). A few days later we were walking and we ran into Cheddar again on his bike. He told us it wasn't a coincidence we kept running into him. A day later we got a call from Terry and he said that Chester was his brother. We had no idea. Chester called Terry and told him that he ran into the missionaries and Terry told him about his experience too. Coincidence. Pretty cool though. But the next night we were at the women's shelter trying to get a hold of a young lady named Nichole. We got there and left a pamphlet for her to read at the front desk. The secretary at the desk was a large black woman and she was very nice. We talked for a little bit and she told us that her brothers had told us about the missionaries. So we ran into three of the Kimbo's. She told us that she had 6 brothers and most of them live in Yakima. We were just running into this family everywhere. Then Terry came to church and we learned more about him and how he has a twin named Jerry who lives in Seattle. Terry is a nice man. We didn't really know what to do next though. Cheddar isn't going to be taught. Terry is kinda out there... Melissa is really nice and we want to teach her but its hard because the only place we know where we can find her is at the women's shelter at night... So we kinda just gave up and did other work. But then yesterday we ran into another one of our African American friends. His name was Chris and he started preaching at us at the bus stop. Telling us that we are all brothers and sisters and we don't need to go to any specific church. God doesn't segregate, he loves everyone. We were agreeing with most of what he had to say but he kept talking anyway. He said to us "I bet you guys would go crazy if a black man came to your church" we told him that Terry came with us a week ago and we asked if he knew him. and of course he did. They are brothers as well. So we met Cheddar, Terry, Melissa, and now Chris. We haven't met Rodney, Moses, or Jerry. I don't really know what to do because I don't see any of them accepting the gospel, but its really cool how we run into a lot of the Kimbo's separately.

That is the work. We are working with Alvina and Dolly. And finding! We have a lot of new investigators, but we are trying hard to find more. I love the work. We get out and work hard every day and we get good numbers. I guess that's the reason Elder Boswell is District Leader now. I have a good companion.

I didn't get very many emails this week. That must mean life is either so busy you don't have time to email, or so dull that you have nothing to email about :). I hope it's because you're busy. I miss you all a lot. I love you guys. I love your letters so so much. Even if I don't reply keep sending them. I still love you.

Love,

Elder Paxman