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.