33 New Investigators

This is going to be short because im going to talk to you tomorrow.

We watched brave for christmas zone conference. it was a good movie. a lot of people didn't like it... I did.

We had some crazy stuff happen in the mission this week. we had 28 baptisms this week which is the most since 2006. and we have 67 this month so far and we still have a week left in december. I could see us getting over 30 as a mission next week too. We probably wont hit our goal of 624 as a mission this year but we will get a lot closer than expected. its going to be a big month.

I think I mentioned last week that we got 38 new investigators as a zone. well we got 33 this week! Really good stuff.

Things are booming in our area. We had a baptism yesterday and we have 4 on date. Richard Morrow got baptized. it was kinda a surprise baptism. he was taught everything in the terrace heights ward in the other stake and we caught wind that he lived in our area and wanted to get baptized. So we had to make the transition. The sisters weren't aware that he couldn't be baptized in the terrace heights ward... So we made it work. He is in our ward now and he is awesome. His aunt and uncle and girlfriend are all members of the church. He's a great guy.

Laura will be baptized into 6th ward. We sorted all of that out. She is good to go. We had an appointment with her for Saturday and she texted us right before to ask if we could bring our service clothes. So we did. We expected it to be a small job, but she wanted us to help her slaughter her turkeys... 2 of them. So it took longer than expected and we had appointments to be to! So we left for a few minutes and went and taught a lesson then came back and finished killing the turkeys. It was bloody... I got blood all over my jeans. We helped her pluck one of them but we didn't have time to do the other. After it was all done the big turkey yielded 41 pounds of meat. Thats a big turkey. And Laura wants to serve that after her baptism because she has nothing else to do with it. So we are trying to coordinate that. I'll let you know what happens next week.

James didn't come to church but still wants to be baptized. We'll see... He has quit smoking which we thought was the biggest thing, but now his church attendance (or the lack thereof) is the problem.

Trina Mears, and Craig Hancox are on date for January 19th. Trina is doing well. We were starting from square one with her. She knew nothing about Christ or the Bible or anything when we started. Which is good and bad. But she is excited to be learning more. She texted us this morning and asked what else she should read in the Book of Mormon before we see her next because she already finished her other reading assignment. She's pretty cool. And she's our age, which makes it fun to teach her.

Craig is one that is really exciting. He was no where near being baptized a few months ago. His wife got baptized in august or sometime around there and he was talking about getting a divorce because of it. But his heart has softened a lot since then and he is thinking about getting baptized himself. We are hoping for January. He says he wants to read the whole Book of Mormon before he gets baptized, but he also said he could read it in about a week if he wanted to. So we gave him a month to read and prepare for baptism and he thought that was a good goal. It's really cool to see how far he has come. He really sees that our church is different and he wants to be a part of it.

This didn't turn out to be short. Oh well. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Love,

Elder Paxman

A Foot of Snow

This was a good week.

It snowed a foot last night and we had a snowball fight with Matthew and Joshua. They are the two Finch kids. Matthew is 15 and Joshua is 18. When we got home last night we went truck sledding. We grabbed on to the back of brother Finch's truck and we slipped through the snow behind him. We would grab on the underside of the bumper or on the tailgate. It was tons of fun. Brother Finch said "a few people die from doing this every year but we're conservative" hahaha. Don't worry. We were safe. There was a foot of snow as padding for when we fell. It was fun.

 

After that is when we had the snowball fight. It was tons of fun. Yakima is always good for a foot of snow. Yesterday is pretty much the first time I have driven in snow. We drove on the freeway up to Selah while it was coming down pretty hard. All of the snow is melting today though. The sun is back out in the Palm Springs of Washington.

We had a Stake Correlation again this week. And this time President Greer and President Stapleton were there. Normally President Greer isn't able to come and it's even more rare that both of them come. But for both of the ones that I've been involved with its been President Greer. Lucky me.

 

Anyways. There's lots of drama with boundaries going on right now. We're teaching Laura Larsen and she wants to get baptized at this point but has been attending 6th ward even though she lives in 1st ward. It's getting closer to her baptism date so we had to discuss it. We were able to set up a meeting with Stake President Button Bishop Miller (of 1st ward) and Laura. We met in President Button's office and had a discussion about which ward she would be baptized in. She was very adamant that it would be in 6th ward. But President Button and President Greer wanted her to be baptized in the ward that she lived in. She made it such a big deal and was stubborn enough to get her way... Which isn't what the church wants to do, but we made the exception.

 

One stake over, in Selah Stake, the sisters in Terrace Heights were teaching a brother, Richard Morrow, who lives in Yakima 1st ward boundaries. We didn't hear about this until Saturday when they showed up at our stake center to do the baptismal interview. We asked why they were doing it there and they said because he lived closer to that church than any other one. The reason he was going to Terrace Heights for church was because he has an Aunt that lives in that ward. So when we heard that we had to teach the sisters that you cant just baptize people wherever you want. You have to talk to the Bishop/ Stake President/ Mission President and if it is a special circumstance then they can get a boundary exception. We sorted through all of that in our Stake Correlation meeting and Richard Morrow will be baptized in Yakima 1st ward this Saturday. So now the baptism will count for our stake/zone's numbers instead of Selah hahaha. I feel bad, but it's not about numbers. But it's definitely about numbers (not really).

SO. We might get a training on how important it is to teach people within their ward boundaries. President Greer seemed mildly annoyed at all of the issues that we have come up with recently. Not a huge deal, but something that needs to be fixed.

We found 38 new investigators as a zone this week. That is insane. The past transfer we averaged 9 a week over 6 weeks and this week we go over 4x as many as that. And it was a transfer week! Transfers can be a big distraction to the work but not this week! 38 is probably the most Yakima Zone has every found in one week. We were very pleased with those numbers and we're looking forward to the progress that every area is going to make because of all the people that have been found. Finding more people means more baptisms in the end. Exciting stuff.

Laura is golden for baptism at this point. We sorted out what ward it will be in and we're moving forward. James is struggling a little bit... He was supposed to quit smoking Saturday and he was doing good for that day but didn't show up to church so we weren't able to make any contact with him yesterday. We're hoping for the best...

 

Trina is doing well. That is Josh Statler's girlfriend. She is asking all the right questions and is following through with the assignments we leave with her. It's starting to feel more and more like a baptism in the making. We hope to put her on date this Tuesday. We'll let you know what happens!

We chipped in with a few new investigators to help get 38 and we are excited for them. We found Kaysie Slack, she is 22 years old with two kids and is engaged. She was really cool and is looking for a church. She and her fiance have moved a lot in the past and are planning on staying awhile in Yakima so want to settle down and find a church to attend regularly. We can help with that.

 

We also found Mariann. She is a Filipino lady and is a very active Seventh-Day Adventist. But she was the nicest lady in the world. And she lives in the nicer part of town. We decided to knock a few doors before dinner because we had about 10 minutes and she was the first door we knocked on. She let us right in and unfortunately we couldn't stay long because we had a dinner to get to. She told us to come back after the holidays.

The work is going well.

Today is also my 16th mission birthday. I'm getting old... I only have 8 months left! What is going on...

I will tell you more in a week over skype! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Paxman

p.s. Conner, if you get copies of my emails then here is a response. I do get copies of your emails through my mother. and I loved the "greatest comeback since Lazarus" plug. I laughed out loud. hahahaha lol.

 

 

Quick Updates

Short on time today again. I was busy reading/replying to other emails.

quick updates:

Elder Lyells is gone :( He left for Tri-cities this morning and I am with Elder Evans for the next few days. But my new companion will be Elder Manning. I am so incredibly excited! I couldn't be happier about this. He was my District Leader when I served here in Yakima last time and now he will be my companion. I'm sure I've said some things about him in past emails. He is wonderful and I am very excited.

We put Laura Larsen on date for December 29th. It was such an intense lesson. She has a lot of hold ups because her family is so against the LDS church. We told her in the previous lesson that we wanted to set a date with her and she said she would think about it. We went back on Thursday and we told her we wanted to set a date. She thought about it and we came to the conclusion that the 22nd would be a good day. So I clarified that she would be baptized on the 22nd and confirmed on the 23rd if she was able to receive her answer by then. But she stopped me and said that she thought we were setting a date for her to receive and answer, not a date to be baptized. Poor communication on our part. But Elder Lyells said "if you've received an answer then what would be stopping you from getting baptized?" She said "Nothing" without hesitation. So we let her think about it and we probably sat there for 5 minutes without saying a word. Then she said "the weekend after Christmas". So there you have it! She is working towards that date and she decided all on her own. We are very excited for her.

It's almost Christmas! I'm excited!

I'm just excited about everything!

I'm pretty sure I'm out of time...

I am loving it here in Yakima. The family we live with (the Finch family) is the greatest family every and I am working in the best part of our misison and I have had the best companions here. Life couldn't be better.

I am so excited for Mason. He will be so so so warm there. Unlike freezing Yakima. Our car was caked in ice this morning...

I'm glad dad is safe at home now. I'm sure it was a good trip.

I hope I didn't leave anything good out.

 

I got a letter from Conner this week. He's so good. I miss him Ryan Christopher and James...

Love,

Elder Paxman

Zone Leader Conference

Good good week. There is nothing to complain about in life. Except for cold weather.

So. I'll start off with some weird news. We had ZLC this week and President Greer let us know of some transfer date changes. The next two transfers are going to be normal 6 week transfers. But the following one will only be 5 weeks dues to the huge influx of missionaries. Then everything else after that will be normal 6 week transfers. But due to that one 5 week transfer all subsequent transfer dates move up a week. So I'm coming home a week early. It's kinda bitter-sweet. But mostly sweet. I know that that is what needed to happen and that will give me an extra week to prepare for school. I was supposed to come home to Missouri on August 20th, and school starts in SLC on August 26th. But now I will be home on the 13th. I definitely appreciate those extra 7 days to get ready for school. Also, President told us that in some missions they lost as many as 9 weeks because of the amount of missionaries coming in. So I am grateful that ours was only a week.

We had ZLC this Friday. That is such a wonderful meeting. I love meetings in the first place but ZLC takes the cake for all meetings. I learn so much in a few short hours. President just lets us know what's on his mind and what we need to focus on as a mission and then we take that back to the members of our Zone in a Zone Meeting. Yay! More meetings :).

It was an interesting week working with just two of us. We were still able to get a lot done but it was definitely different. It's a little bit easier when you have 4 people haha. But I love working with Elder Lyells. He is so great.

As for the people we teach:

James Draven

His date had to be pushed back a week because we weren't able to make much contact with him at all last week. We stopped by about 6 times and never caught him home. We were trying to call him all week but we learned yesterday that his phone isn't in working order. BUT. We did get to see him yesterday after church. He was playing the new Call of Duty of course. He has already beat Halo 4. He likes video games. But that was a side note... He is still on track for baptism. Still excited. I still love him. He is such a cool guy. It was great to talk to him yesterday after stressing all week about how he was doing spiritually. He's still doing alright. And he will be baptized on the 15th.

We have FHE tonight and James will be coming to that. We're making gingerbread houses tonight for FHE! We also have visit nights for the YSA on Tuesdays. We go to the church at 7 and anyone who wants to visit someone in the branch comes too. Then we divide and conquer. Then meet up at DQ at 830. That little activity has been quite effective at finding us new investigators in the YSA. We found Trina this week through that. She is dating Josh Statler who is a returned missionary in the YSA. A couple weeks ago that is how we found Hannah and her roommates. She is roommates with Jaimi Cox who is an active member of the branch too. I LOVE the YSA. The Branch President is great too. President Hendrix.

We found another new investigator in the YSA. Juaquin Horta. He knows Cameron Mugleston, who is also in the branch. We will be having a lesson over there on Wednesday with Cameron right before institute and Juaquin wanted to go to institute as well. I'm super excited for him. He seems pretty cool.

That same night we have an appointment with Trina. And Clair Schend, a less-active member of YSA.

But we do work outside the YSA too. I just don't want to talk about it. Because I would rather  talk about YSA. I love teaching people near my age.

It has been a good week. I hope I was able to convey that.

Love,

Elder Paxman

 

This is a picture of Marilynn and Jonathan's baptism. They got baptized Sunday . The missionaries are Elder Snow (left) and Elder Packham (right)