K-Zone

Family. I'm loving it here in the Kennewick Zone. K-Zone. Get it?

Elder Metz goes home tomorrow. My new companion will be Elder Hansen. I'll be training him as a new zone leader. He's been out for 10 months. That's not very long at all for being a new zone leader. He'll definitely be good. I'm super excited to be with him. He will probably be my last companion. 16 total companions. That's a lot. More than usual. We only have 17 transfers as missionaries and I had 16 companions haha.

Story time!

Matt Lindberg got baptized in Hermsiton! He's the guy that got up and bore his testimony before he was even baptized. He talked about being a mormon before he officially was. He also wanted to do baptisms for the dead with the YSA branch before he was baptized for himself. He's a cool cat.

McKenzee Hendrickson got baptized too! That's good news. She's 11 years old and lives in Hermiston with her less-active parents. Her grandpa is a former Stake President and Temple President so she goes to church with him every Sunday. Hopefully she can stay active. It was good to hear news that a couple people I taught in Hermiston got baptized.

Next story:

We found 9 new investigators this week! Like I've said before, Elder Metz is the 4th missionary I have killed and this was another example of how cool a missionaries last week can be. When I was with Elder Butler for his last week we found 12 new investigators and had 102 OYM's. there were two families in those 12 investigators.

This week with Elder Metz we found two families and a few other people to teach. We also taught 21 lessons for the first time this transfer. It's amazing how quickly this area turned around. We taught 5 lessons the first week I was here. The area has really turned around. It's amazing what can happen with some hard work.

 

We also put 2 people on date for the day after my birthday. Elder Metz might come back for the baptism and to visit the mission. It's on July 6th for those of you who don't know when I was born. Austin and Maddy Stickely are the two that we put on date. They come to church every week and love the gospel and want to be baptized. They are 12 and 13 years old and their dad recently got baptized himself so it was just a matter of time for them to follow suit. They're cool kids.

One of the families we found is the Arroyo family.

 

One day we were just getting out of our truck and there were a few kids walking away from us. Elder Metz is number one at talking to everyone so we called out to them and they didn't hear us so we ran up to them and got their attention. Their names were Marisol (18) and Jesse (12). Marisol tried to blow us off and keep walking away but we persisted and eventually got their address and they said we could come back. We finally made it in their door a few days ago and taught Jackie (mom) and Hector (dad) and Jesse. We were only there for about 15-20 minutes but shared our unique message to the world with them. They want to get back to church and hopefully we can help them with that. It was a testimony builder to me of talking to everyone. We wouldn't have found them if we didn't flag the kids down on the street.

Next Story:

Elder Metz is my idol. I want to be exactly like him. We were lying in bed the other night talking and he asked me "when you started your mission what did you want to get out of it?" I thought about it and gave him some response about spreading the gospel or something like that but I really couldn't give him a good answer. I thought about it more and honestly a lot of the reasons I wanted to serve a mission were selfish. A lot of it was for me. I would get a testimony. I would learn how to work. I would learn how to study. I would meet a lot of good people and make new friends. But now I can say that the reasons for serving a mission have changed for me as I have served. Now it's all about other people. A mission has taught me the outline for sharing the gospel for the rest of my life. Not just for two years. The best way for me to feel the Spirit is in someone else's home and recognizing that they are feeling the Spirit too. It's nice to feel it on your own in a personal experience. But when you are teaching someone else and you feel the Spirit with them, that's powerful. That's what it's all about. It's great to have a companion that can ask questions like that to get you thinking in the right direction.

I love serving a mission. It's the best out here. Talking to everyone is the greatest thing. I'm excited to serve with Elder Hansen!

Love you all.

Elder Paxman