New Investigors and Updates

We got 5 new people to teach this week. They're all really cool too.

Two are in the YSA, one in 6th ward and two in 1st ward.

About a month ago, Elder Lyells and I were tracting out in the middle of nowhere. We picked a random street with about 5 houses on it and decided to knock doors. It was late at night and the first lady we talked to told us, first, that she wasn't interested, and second, that there were a lot of mean dogs in the area. But we kept knocking anyways. The next door we knocked was Branan Rains. He said we could come back another night and that evenings were best for him. So we wrote his address down and that was that. Then we went down an even darker street and started walking up a driveway and almost got eaten alive by a huge german shepherd. Elder Lyells stood his ground and I started to run away haha. Thankfully Elder Lyells' instincts are much better than mine because if we both would have backed off as I did then the dog would have probably chased after us. But Elder Lyells backed up slowly and the dog went back home. But the best part of the story is the first part. With Branan.

 

We weren't able to get back there until the other night. We knocked and Branan told us he was busy. We pushed a little more and told him we would only be a few minutes and he invited us in. We met his wife and brother and two kids that live with him. He and his brother, David, told us that they were members, but Branan's wife, Katie, is not a member. So David and Branan have been less-active for years and Katie let us know that she wants to get back to church. Branan made the comment that if he goes back to any church it will be the LDS church. Katie said she was fine with that. We kept the visit short like we said we would and set up a return appointment for this evening at 7. We're really excited for that one! They all seem to have a lot of potential.

 

Side note: we checked the ward roster for their name and address and it wasn't on there. We wouldn't have been able to find them any other way than by tracting that random street late at night in the cold with killer dogs. The Lord knows all of his children.

Brandon Chase and Gage are all on date. February 2nd. That date might change for the sake of scheduling purposes, but he wants to be baptized and so do the kids. The didn't come to church this Sunday though... I'm not really sure why. We'll find out tomorrow. I think it was mostly because Candice was out of town so she wasn't there to push them out of bed. Oh well. They're great. They're getting baptized.

Craig Hancox is back on date too. Turns out he doesn't like our Ward Mission Leader... Drama. I don't like it. Our WML thinks they like him but they don't. But he wants to come to all the lessons and they just get annoyed and cancel appointments because they know he's coming then they get really put off and don't keep commitments. It's dumb. And we don't really know how to tell our WML that they don't like him and we can't go over there with him... We'll probably have to skirt around that one. Bishop Kimzey knows that our WML rubs some people the wrong way sometimes and we will try to work through him. Our WML is the best WML I've ever had. He is great. He works really hard and is always trying to help us. He is just kinda inappropriate/annoying sometimes and that bugs people. BUT, Craig wants to get baptized nonetheless. And he's excited too. We just have to get him to church. And his Recent Convert wife too... She just got a new job. She works 7 days a week. She is trying to get Sundays off but is having a hard time. It should all work out though. Craig's a good guy.

Trina should be baptized this Saturday. We hope. She's brought up some concerns over the past few days. I'm not terribly worried, but it could result in pushing back her baptism. This is going to be a rough week for her. We'll see what we can do... Pray that she gets baptized!

Kaysie and Jimmy are still funny. Jimmy swears so so so much. It's ridiculous. But he is so funny. He loves what we're teaching him and is convinced that all other churches are liars haha. We are trying to tell him that they aren't lying. They just don't know any better. I think he understands that but everything we are teaching him makes so much sense to him that he is convinced that all other churches are lying. And he has a lot of experiences in the past that have confused him on what is and isn't truth. He kinda believes everything we tell him though which is nice. He really likes us. And we really like him. He's the best. We just want him to come to church!!! He and Kaysie missed again this week because he got off work late. As in 8:30 in the morning... He goes in to work at 7pm so it's understandable that he doesn't make it to church but we still want him there. And he says he can. There's still a lot of work to do.

That's pretty much everyone I think... There was a really fun YSA party on Friday night. We went to the first 30 minutes of it because we had a few investigators there. But we had to go because it was our bedtime :( It made me want to be in YSA. That was a hoppin' party.

The Seahawks lost. So everyone in Washington is sad. But that was the best thing that could ever happen to us because now people will come to church!

The Broncos lost. I don't want to talk about it...

I don't even know what else happened this week. Probably a lot of stuff that I'm forgetting.

It seems like we ran into a lot of Anti-Mormon literature this week. And a lot of people wanted to Bible Bash with us. We tried not to... But everyone was in an arguing mood this week ha ha. Soooo, we tried not to argue. But some people just insisted.

That's all I got.

Love,

Elder Paxman

Busy Busy Busy

I dunno what happened this week. It was too long ago.

We went to the temple today! I learned stuff. It's good to go there. That is why I didn't email yesterday you see. I keep forgetting to warn you of when that happens. You can expect me to forget again in 12 weeks.

We had a happy new years holiday. We went to bed at 10:30.

Trina is doing awesome. She feels like she has her answer and is ready to get baptized. Two more weeks and she will be a member. Whenever she mentions to people in the branch that she isn't a member they're shocked. She looks like she's been a member her whole life. But then you talk to her and realize she isn't. Nothing against her. She just doesn't know. Very much. But she's learning! And excited. That's nice.

It's also nice to know that she isn't just doing this because her boyfriend Josh wants her to. I can tell that she is doing it for herself. We taught her a few different times this week and it went well. We finished up the commandments with her. We were worried about the word of wisdom but she had no problems with that at all. We had some problems with the Law of Chastity but those were small and we sorted them out. She was willing to pay her tithing and she comes to church every week that she doesn't work. She has been asking for more Sundays off and it seems to be getting better. I'm happy for her.

James has disappeared. He never answers the door. I hope he's doing okay. He might be smoking a lot and because of that he is embarrassed and hiding from us. We hope to be able to patch things up with him soon. We pray that he will make it to church this week but first we just have to meet with him.

Candice and Brandon are doing amazing. They weren't phased by the crazy sacrament meeting last week, and this week's fast and testimony meeting was wonderful. It was probably the best one I've ever been in. They seemed to enjoy it. Chase and Gage came in with their Kindle Fire's and we thought they were going to be playing games the whole time. But they brought them because they don't have the internet at their house and wanted to use the church's internet so they could download the scriptures. They spent the whole sacrament meeting reading the Book of Mormon. Then they hooked up with all their friends for primary. It all went really smooth. They don't have a baptismal date yet but we hope that this week they will. Sometime in early February we are hoping. They are all great people.

This week was a long week. We had a lot of stuff going on. I didn't realized that until I reviewed what happened while sitting at this computer. We had one district meeting on Tuesday. ZLC on Wednesday. an exchange with the AP's on Friday, specialized training and interviews on Saturday, and then a temple trip today. It kinda throws you off when you have that much stuff going on. We are also exchanging in a few hours. I'll be going down to Toppenish tonight. Busy busy busy. I guess that's a good thing though.

I got to bear my testimony in 3 different sacrament meetings on Sunday. I figured that would be the only time that I would have that opportunity so I decided to stand up in all three and bear my testimony. It was fun. And different every time.

Jimmy and Kaysie are still on date. They're doing okay. But they didn't come to church. They are still loving it. They have a long way to go. Get married. Quit smoking and drinking and hooka and who knows what else. And they have to come to church! But they seem to recognize the spirit and want to change. We will see them soon and try to get them back on track. We just need to go over with them all that they need to do before they're baptized. We hope that they want it enough. I guess our job is to bring the Spirit into their lives so that they will have the strength to make that decision.

That's a lot of who we're working with. There are others but they aren't as far along.

Love you all. I'm doing well. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now. That's the truth. I love doing this.

Love,

Elder Paxman

Snow

It just keeps snowing here. It's not that bad anymore though. Christmas day was the best! It snowed so much. A lot of you got to see that over skype. We ended up getting about 8 inches where we live that day.

Talking over skype was great. I loved it. Only one more to go...

The baptism for Laura Larsen went really well. We had about 70 people there and there was a really good linger longer afterwards. There was a dinner prepared for after the baptism and almost everyone stayed and visited. We were able to talk to a lot of the non-members that came, especially Laura's brother and sister-in-law. Those were the only family members that came to her baptism. The rest of her family pretty much disowned her. She told her aunt on Saturday that she was attending the LDS church and before she could say anything else her aunt stood up and said "that's the church of satan" and stormed out of the room. Laura wasn't even able to tell her that she was getting baptized. All she told her is that she was attending that church. That reaction was a little worse than she expected. She was expecting sadness and tears but she got anger and door slamming. She was a little disheartened but went through with her baptism nonetheless. It was a great experience. She feels a lot better too.

I don't know what else to say because I said it all on our phone call. But I will probably end up writing plenty more somehow...

Candice and Brandon came to church. I didn't go to 6th ward this week, but apparently the talk that was given in sacrament meeting was one of the worst talks ever. An old lady got up there and talked all about birth control and how it is evil and the prophet told us not to use it. then she went on about credit cards and if you have a credit card then you're not following the commandments of God. Soooo. It was a little extreme to say the least haha. Elder Manning was really upset. He thought that Brandon (investigator) was going to be offended and not want to come back. He talked to him a little after church was over and tried to set the record straight. They seemed okay. Then in the third hour the whole class was on the new curriculum for youth. and it didn't apply to them. So they looked kinda bored. At 7 o clock that night they called and left us a voicemail and said "we have questions, call us back". So Elder Manning was worried. But it ended up being really good. When we called back they were in the middle of watching Prophet of the Restoration. And their question was about Ether 12:26-28. So we answered that for them and then we asked how they liked sacrament meeting. Candice said that she appreciated what that lady had to say even though it was super sketchy. She likes that everyone has the chance to go up there and share their testimony. So it totally worked out. And she also said that she like the third hour because it will help her know how to teach her kids better.

 

Maybe that didn't make sense... Point: Candice and Brandon and their kids are awesome and I really hope they get baptized! Candice is already a member but the other three aren't. And the kids names are Gage and Chase. So I could get to baptize someone with my same name!

Trina also came to church. I was in the YSA this week so I was with her and Josh most of the day. I talked with Trina a little about the Law of Chastity and staying the night at Josh's place. Hopefully we will be able to work that out. She seems to understand it, it's just a matter of getting her to live it. She fulfills all of her assignments though. She always reads and she is doing a better job of praying. Things are going really well right now.

Yeah... This email didn't really make sense.

I dunno.

 

We had 34 new investigators this week in the zone. Another great week!

 

Also, we had 81 baptisms this month in the mission! That is an all-time record for this mission. Super good.

Thats all

Love,

Elder Paxman

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)