Third Companion

I'm moving slow today... I had lots of emails to read.

This week was crazy. We got a call on Thursday that we would be receiving a third companion, Elder Camba. He came in the next day. He was in Arizona. He started in the WKM but had to go home for health reasons. He was home for 4 weeks then he went back out into the mission field in his home mission in Gilbert Arizona. He served there for three months and then he was cleared to come back to Washington. So President decided to put him with us. I don't really know what's going to happen next transfer, but I do know that there will only be two of us, so someone is leaving. My best bet is that Elder Lee will be leaving and I will stay with Elder Camba. But both Elder Camba and Elder Lee could leave and I could get someone else. Who knows. I will tell you in a week.

Also, in one of the wards we cover, we are getting a new bishop next week. I will let you know about that too. It should be a good thing. Bishop Christensen served for about 5 1/2 years, so it was his time.

We had a baptism yesterday too. I fasted all day for that and for our new investigator goal as a zone. The baptism went well. I was worried the whole way that she wouldn't even show up for her baptism ha ha ha ha. Baby Ann is a very shy girl. But she made it! And she's glad it's over ha ha. Now she can just move on with the rest of her life in the church. She will be confirmed next week. I was able to baptize here. That was a good experience. The water was very warm. I think the baptism went well due to the fasting and prayers.

Going along with that, I fasted for our zone's new investigator goal. We went into Sunday (Father's Day) 9 short of our goal. And we never get 9 on any given day. But I got a text from Elder Pickett and Elder Ruettinger in my district saying that they just got 5 new investigators!!! So Elder Lee, Elder Camba and I had a renewed sense to work and we went out and got one more. Then we called the Zone leaders and they told us that they got three on the day!!!! SUCCESS! It was awesome. And just as a cherry on top, Elder Pickett and Elder Ruettinger got two more before the night was done. So we did it. That was an awesome experience. And the prayers worked! That was two weeks in a row where we hit our zone goal for new investigators.

I don't really have any more time... I'm sorry this is so short. I hope it all made sense... I will try and move faster next week. I'll definitely get you pictures of the baptism and other stuff like that. Love you all.

Elder Paxman



P.S. Here are some pictures from our P-Day lunch today.

Pictures

Busy Working

Family and friends,

 

It was another good week. Kinda stressful working out all the details of a baptism but it will work. Baby Ann's baptism will be on Sunday. She is 17 and their whole family just doesn't talk! They are all so shy. So when we were asking Baby Ann who she wanted to talk at her baptism/who she wanted to baptize her/what songs we should sing/when it should be, she gave little to zero input. So I volunteered myself to baptize her and we set up the rest of it all by ourselves... I just hope she shows up!! So we set it up for Saturday at 6. But then bishop said that wouldn't work for him and he really wants to be there. So we rescheduled for Friday at 8. But that didn't work for our WML or for Sister Bedoya who is going to speak at the baptism. So we moved it to Sunday after church. Which is fathers day... But it was the best we could do!

 

We got a referral on Tuesday morning from Brother Hale, who is the Ward Mission Leader of the YSA branch. He told us that there was a brother who had showed up to church a couple times but he is 33 so he is too old to go to the YSA. So he sent him to us. We went over there Tuesday night and after 10 minutes of knowing him, I put him on date for July 7th. As I was extending the invitation I didn't realize what I was saying. So I asked "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" He said yes. And I was going to stop there. But then the Spirit opened my mouth again and I said "We will be holding a baptismal service on July 7th, will you prepare yourself to be baptized on that date?" and he thought about it for a couple seconds and shrugged his shoulders and said "umm, yeah". It was awesome! His name is Isaac Verduzco. And he came to church! He looked awesome. Hopefully we can keep that up.

 

We taught 28 lessons again. We always have something to do. We received 4 referrals on Sunday. We are going to see Casandra and Gavin again this week! Im super excited for that. That will be on Thursday. She didn't come to church again this sunday but maybe next week... I hope she is still interested.

 

Elder Barton is doing well back home. Apparently the issues with his sinuses were worse than they thought so he probably wont be coming back which is a real shame. Darn.

 

We got a text from Natalia telling us she moved to California and she would be there for 6 weeks so she could be closer to her deported husband... So we texted her back the next day and she told us she actually hadn't left yet. So we went over and talked to her. At the end of the meeting I think we left her with an understanding that she needs to follow the law. Always. And we suggested that she should go through the process of getting her husband legal so that she doesn't have to worry about all the other things that are bothering them.

 

Linda is turning herself in to the police to get rid of a warrant that was out for her arrest. She had a DUI that she never served time for. She said that it should be about 30 days. Maybe less. So that's kinda a good thing I guess. She is trying to turn her life around.

 

Connie Acosta came to church with her family!! (The ramirez family). She is still planning on getting married on August 4th and baptized on the 11th. They just need to keep coming to church!!

 

Love you all!!!

 

Thank you for your prayers

 

Elder Paxman

Pasco is Awesome

It was another good week. Pasco is awesome. I think I'm in the best English area in the mission right now. We are having so much success. A woman named Casandra showed up to church this week. She isn't a member and she is looking for a church. She went to all three hours and her son did too. Her son Gavin is 5 and he loved church. I think she enjoyed it as well and she said we could come to her home and teach her more. She was a really cool lady. Just a little shy. I hope we don't mess it up...

The Bishop also gave us a referral a few weeks ago and they finally gave us the go ahead to go over there and see them. So we went yesterday and talked to them. They are really cool! I talked to Charles, the dad, about church and taking the lessons. He said that they don't go to church but they know they need to. We are going to give him a call today and set something up. Like Casandra, I hope we don't mess this up.

These two opportunities don't come along very often. Usually when we teach, we teach part-member families or families that are kinda unstable and usually are struggling financially. But these two families are well to do. They are doing just fine. But they are missing the gospel. That is a little intimidating to me... I don't really know why other than it's different. And these are the people whose lives will really change if they can accept the gospel. I guess there is just a lot more to gain from this. Not to say that all other people have less to gain. I don't know how to explain it. But I hope we don't mess it up. I guess we cant mess it up if we have the spirit with us though.

One of my Zone Leaders is going home... It's weird. He needs surgery on his sinuses I think. And he will be going back to Utah this week to get it done. He really really wants to come back out but it is tough for missionaries to come back out when they have less than 6 months left... Elder Barton is his name. He was my first District Leader in Yakima. And he is my current Zone Leader. But he will be going home in a couple days and it will be hard for him to come back out... It's weird to see him go. He only had about 3 months left but he needs the surgery. I don't know what they are going to do about the Zone Leader situation. Elder Hansen might have to go solo for the rest of the transfer. I don't know...

I don't know what else to say again. I feel like this every week. We had good numbers again this week...

Oh. Something that I forgot to mention last week is that we killed chickens. It was service for a member. Some Elders told us about it and we were like "Yeah! Lets kill chickens!!" But then we got there and it was a bit tougher than we had first thought hahaha. Turns out I don't like killing things. But I did anyway. Then we watched him skin them. I didn't want to do it because I was in missionary clothes and I didn't want it to get on me, but other people, who were in street clothes, assured me that it didn't get on them so I had nothing to worry about. So I went up and slit it's throat and he shook around and blood got all over my white shirt and tie. I sucked the blood out of my tie haha. But as for the blood on my shirt, I hope it comes out in the wash. We will see. After all the blood drained out of the chicken I cut the head off. Yay... It was nasty. But it would be easier to do it again now. The first time is the hardest.

I was on exchanges twice this week. On Wednesday with the Zone Leaders and on Saturday with Elder Pickett in my district. I'm really grateful for my area. I love love love it in Pasco and 2nd and 4th wards. (Especially 2nd ward). I'm already afraid of leaving and I've only been here 3 weeks! And Elder Lee is awesome. We get along really well. With him and I, we were able to get to be comfortable around each other quicker than any other companion I've had so far. I don't know if that is because I have learned how to get along with people better or for some other reason. But I like him a lot. We have fun.

We got 63 OYM's this week too. So we have a lot of potential investigators to contact this coming week. I'm excited for that. Hopefully we can get a lot of new investigators. That is what the mission is pushing for right now. For every 14 new investigators in our mission, 1 is baptized. So we are pushing to find a lot of new investigators. Although, I looked at our numbers in our district for the past year and the average for us is every 5 new investigators, 1 is baptized. So if we can find more we will baptize more. Duh.

We have four on date right now. Baby Ann for the 16th, Linda for the 23rd, Natalia for the 30th, and Connie for the 11th of August. All girls. Hopefully more in the near future! I will keep you posted. We have some very good opportunities coming up. I love it.

Thank you for all your support. I went two whole weeks without a letter, but then I got three in one day, so that made it mostly better :).

Love you.

Elder Paxman

Hey Folks

It sounds like it was a good week back home. Especially for Mason. That is so cool to hear that you made the all-star team. I really hope that he will be able to make it on the team at the U. At the very least he will make some friends on the team.

It was a really good week here too! We taught 28 lessons! And we had 2 baptisms. Jairee Young got baptized and so did Emily Waters. Jairee is 9 and his mom just got reactivated in the church. So it was just a process of teaching all the lessons and then baptizing him. Pretty easy.

Emily was harder. She is 17 and her parents were baptized in March and it was a matter of time before she was baptized too but she was nervous. She felt pressured and wanted to wait a couple months before she did it. She knows it's true so we tried to encourage her without pushing. And then after church last Sunday she texted and said she wanted to get baptized the next Saturday. I think I put that in my email last week. Well, the baptism happened. It was a very good one. She invited a lot of her non-member friends and her siblings, who aren't members, invited their friends too. So we had a lot of non-members there for the baptism. And then after the ordinance was done, Emily wanted to share her testimony. So she did and it was really cool. After she bore her testimony two of the young women in the ward also bore theirs. And her mom bought her a quad with her name engraved on it. It was a really good baptism. I like that family a lot.

A perk of working in the Tri-Cities is that President comes to baptisms. I sent Sister Greer a text about 30 minutes before Jairee's baptism and they were able to come. So they were there to meet all of Jairee's family. Jairee's family on his dad's side are all non-members. It was great to have President there for that.

Also, I got a text from AP Fenn telling me that Frances Woods got baptized and confirmed in Cathlamet this weekend. So everything happened that needed to. That was very good news as well. The work is still moving forward. We still have 3 people on date. Connie Ramirez for August 11th. Linda for June 23rd. and Baby Ann for June 23rd. Each of them wants to be baptized. Linda will be the toughest to get there. She and her fiance have a hard time following through with commitments. They know they need to come to church and read and pray but they don't always do it. However, with them we can be very straight forward and kinda boss them around ha ha. That is what we did in the last lesson at least.

We also had 4 new investigators last week. As a mission, the push that we are going for right now is finding new investigators. The trend has been in the past that we need to find about 13 new investigators before we get a baptism. That is the average. So we are putting in an effort to find as many as possible. That's what we're focusing on right now.

Well. That was our week. It was a good one. I didn't get any letters at all this week... Bummer. Keep praying for me.

Love,
Elder Paxman


Also... killed a chicken today. And blood got all over my white shirt... That was a bummer. But the chicken is dead!

Pasco

I'm in Pasco now. In the 2nd and 4th wards. They say this is the best area for English work in the mission. So far it has held true. We had a baptism this last Saturday and we have 2 more this Saturday. There are plenty of others who are close too! It's crazy really. I think it mostly has to do with the members in the area, they are always telling us to go see people. We received like 8 referrals in 4 days while I've been here. It has been really really good.

I'm still DL. Elder Lee has been out 16 months now. Elder Hoskin and Elder Williams are in my district and so are Elder Pickett and Elder Rudinger. Hoskin goes home in 5 weeks and Rudinger has 11 weeks left. So I feel young again. I've only been out 9 months so I have like 70 weeks left ha ha.

My new address is

1712 N. 24th Ave. #E2
Pasco, WA 99301

Write me letters.

At the baptism this Saturday we got there two hours early and at first we didn't have a key. Elder Lee forgot to get it from the Zone Leaders. But we fixed that problem and we still had time. Then, the water wasn't working for the font. It was only coming out a little bit. So we were messing with it for about 45 minutes and finally our Ward Mission Leader came and figured it out. At that point we had only about an hour to fill the font and they say you need about an hour and a half if you want it filled in time... So all we could do was wait. It turned out to be perfect timing. We got the font filled and then Dakota was baptized. She got really nervous though and didn't want to come out of the dressing room. It was kinda hectic. Dakota is 17.

Next week the baptisms are for Jairee who is 9 and Emily who is 17. Younger baptisms from part member families. The work is very very cool here. Emily has been close to baptism for awhile now but has been resisting and yesterday she texted us and said "Why do people fold their arms when they pray? I just put my hands together, is that okay? Oh, and by the way I want to be baptized this Saturday." It was so cool. I always have heard of people getting texts from investigators like that but it hasn't ever happened to me until now.

It's kinda hard walking in to all of this work because I feel like the new guy that walked into all of this. I want to develop a relationship with all of these people! Oh well, I guess it all just takes time. I just hope that I can do all the right things to keep the missionary work going in these wards. We teach a lot of people, but we could also be teaching a lot more. Always room for improvement everywhere.

Elder Lee is great. He is Samoan. From Salt Lake City. The rumors about his snoring are all true. It's ridiculous. The reason he snores so loud it because he has sleep apnea. So President has authorized that he can sleep in another room so that I'm not up all night haha. Even with the door closed and the fan on I can still hear him. It's not normal snoring either haha, it sounds like he is dying. Crazy kid.

With Elder Lee I have to remind myself that there are a variety of ways to do good missionary work. Over the past few days I have felt a little unorganized... I don't know the area well enough to take over but Elder Lee is always turning to me like I know something haha. A member will ask us a question and he turns to me to answer and I don't know because I've been here for three days. It makes me think that Elder Richey took the lead a lot in their companionship over the past 4.5 months. It is definitely giving me the opportunity to learn fast. Dad always said "Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance" and I hope I will be able to work on that with Elder Lee. He is a very good missionary and I love him a lot, but often times I have to take the lead on things that I have no clue about because he didn't think about it beforehand. It's a little frustrating. He will probably be leaving in 6 weeks... It's always hard to say goodbye to any companion and I just hope that I will be able to bring some organization to this area before I have to take it over in 6 weeks...

I hope that didn't sound like I was ripping on my companion, because I love him and there are about a million things he does well. There are just some things we could work on. Yeah... That's all.

Well. That's all I got for now. The weather here is perfect. High 70's low 80's usually. I love it! OH!! We drive a 2012 Ford Fusion. It is so so so nice. Its the best mission vehicle we have. And Elder Lee doesn't like driving so I get to drive every other day. I'm sure that will help me learn the area too. Elder Lee never drove when Elder Richey was here.

Write me. Be missionaries. Love one another. Do other good stuff like that. But mostly write me.

I love everyone. Especially Elder Hafen. He wrote me this week.

Love,
Elder Paxman

P.S.We're in an apartment. It is very nice. It's just Elder Lee and I. The Spanish Elders who cover the same area as us live in the same apartment complex as us. Lots of Mexicans. But a nice place. Not dangerous in the least amount. You should tell everyone about that as well.

Transferred to Pasco

I don't know if I have too much to say... I just talked to you. But I will try.

I'm going to Pasco to cover the 2nd and 4th wards there. It's a big area and I will have a car again. I'll be with Elder Lee. I have heard that he is very funny and a hard worker. He is a really big Polynesian and he snores loudly, people say he is the loudest snorer in the mission. He just served for three transfers with the same companion and they didn't really get along so hopefully I will be good for him...

Pasco is hot. And I will be there for the summer. It is very deserty. Elder Boswell just came from there so he told me a little of what I could expect. I'm excited to go. The hardest part is leaving the members of the branch and people like Frances and Stan and Mark. I'll get over that too though... I'm excited to get to know more people and work in the Tri-Cities for the first time. The area that I'm going to had 14 baptisms in 5 weeks just a few months ago. It has cooled down since but I'm sure it's a great ward to do missionary work in.

Things change fast in a mission... I wasn't prepared for this one but I have come to a better understanding over the past few days. I'm excited.

Frances came to church and to a baptism on Saturday. She was upset to hear I was going but she still seems strong and she wants to be a member of the branch. She loves the spirit there and loves how happy everyone is. She made the comment that no one seemed to feel like it was a chore to go to church. Everyone was happy to be there. And she wants to be a part of that. She will be on May 26th when she gets baptized.

I don't even know what else to say. I already said it all yesterday ha ha. Ummmm. I get to drive from Vancouver to Tri-Cities. That will be fun.

Pray for missionary experiences. They will happen if you look for them. That will bring you a lot of happiness. I promise. Don't be scared. FEAR - False Evidence Appearing Real. That is something I taught in my last district meeting.
 
I'm sorry this is so short. I know I will look back later today and realize that I could have said more about something... I love you all. I pray for you daily. Stay safe. Stay happy.

Love,

Elder Paxman