Week 12 March 22-28

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”   The Lorax

Sunday: We picked up Bro. Q. Baker for church and then stopped to pick up Mary but she wasn’t feeling well so she didn’t go.  Church was good with lots of less active members there and a few investigators, also.  We have a new lady in the ward now that we take home after church now, so we end up with a car load.  We usually have a walker or a wheelchair in the back of the pick-up. In the evening we had dinner at the Meldrums with Skyway B Elders and the Kolars.  Just to let everyone know how the Chinese Book of Mormon turned out, we had the correct one, but found out that he can read English better than Chinese.  His mother wants to read the Book of Mormon and she does read Simplified Chinese so it worked out ok.

Monday:  We walked to the Buddhist Temple to work on Soveth’s computer assignment.  They were very friendly to us.   They really make you feel special.  Joyce and Soveth worked on the power point while Art searched for the info on the iphone, then Art would pass the info to Joyce and Soveth so they could put the power point together. It was a slow process, but we got it done.  While we were working on the project Art thought he heard them talking in the next room and he heard the word Mormons several times.  We’re not sure if they were talking about us, but they did come and close the door so we couldn’t hear them. It’s hard to tell because when they speak Cambodian it all sounds the same. They also had us look over the letters they are sending to the city council inviting them to the New Year Celebration in April.  We made a few changes in the grammar and changed a few words. We are pretty excited to help with it and it sounds very entertaining.  They invited us to stay for lunch, but we know they are on a limited budget so we thanked them for the invitation, but didn’t stay.

Soveth Moun

 It rained all the way home, but we had our umbrella this time. Since it was p-day we spent the rest of the day cleaning.  There is a big push in the mission for the missionaries to spring clean their apartments. We needed to go shopping, but ran out of time.

Easter package from Rachel

FHE

Meldrums

In the evening we went to F.H.E.  We pick up a couple of sisters from the ward and give them a ride.

Tuesday: We had our district meeting in the morning, as we do every Tuesday. We were asked to set two goals. 1. better companion study time  2. act on the promptings we get, are the ones we decided on, and we were also asked to come with a question, so we asked how do you help members rediscover the faith and desire they had when they joined the church. Any thoughts or scriptures you have would be helpful and no Sunday School answers. Shonshata is struggling with that.  Since we cleaned yesterday we ran to the store and did some shopping.  Mary H. asked us to bring soup because she was supposed to have her teeth pulled yesterday so we bought her some soup and dropped it by, but she was gone and she didn’t get her teeth pulled.  We had to hurry home and prepare a lesson (Joyce did), and treats, so we could teach the Galbraith family a F.H.E lesson.  We are never sure if they will let us in but they did and our Easter lesson went well.  Our next appointment was with the Acosta family just down the street from where we were at so we knocked on a few doors on our way there. 

its pop in the mugs

The Acostas are fun to teach even though we can’t understand much of what is going on. We have a few appointments tomorrow so we got our assignments from the Elders so we can do our companion study on that topic. Nothing like a little motivation to help meet your goals. (Goal #1).

Wednesday:  We did service at Northwest Harvest for 2 hrs. in the morning.  The new policy for the mission is no projects with elders and sister combined. Our zone sent elders and the Kent zone sent sisters so we have to get it worked out for next week. The Z.L.s want to make sure President Eaton doesn’t find out since they are the ones in charge.  Doesn’t matter to us since we go both weeks.  We did box 15,120 lbs. of oranges.  We made a quick trip to Beehive Books in Puyallup to pick up some teaching supplies, then hurried home for an appointment that canceled.  We had another appointment an hour later with Skyway A to teach Ruth and Rubi Acosta.  The cancelled appointment gave Joyce time to prepare a lesson for them on the Word of Wisdom.   The Elders were very impressed with her lesson, now they ask whenever we teach there for her help.  Art just holds up the pictures.  We are trying to start the A.R.P. in Skyway so we skipped the Wednesday meetings we had and went to Renton to attend there and get familiar with the program.  It was a good meeting.  All we need now is to contact LDS Social Service and we should be able to start the program in Skyway next week. 

Thursday:  We did our first real tour at the Museum today.  It was a group of 60, 6^th graders, plus teachers and some parents.  We divided them into two groups and Joyce took one and Art took one.  They got a 40 min. tour and then an activity.  It must have been ok because they asked us to do two more in April, or maybe they are just short of docents.  All the kids went outside to eat lunch since it was such a nice day.  It would have been nice to join them but we had to hurry to the Buddhist Temple to help Soveth with his computer assignment.  We hope we did it right.  He will find out tonight.  They are getting ready for the New Year celebration and want up to come back and help later this week if it doesn’t rain.  We hurried from there to an appointment with Skyway B and Nola, but she forgot and wasn’t home.  That gave us time to hurry back home so Joyce could make dinner for the Johnsons.  Joyce Johnson had her baby on Monday and was coming home from the hospital today.  The trip to the Jonhsons made for an eventful end to the day.  We parked and were getting out of the pick-up when this lady started yelling for Art to come and talk to her.  She thought he was with the apartment complex and wanted to complain about somebody.  He told her who we were and that we were here to see the Johnsons and their new baby and bring then supper.  As we were talking to her the security guard came up and ordered us off the property yelling at us “right now.”  He thought we were going tracting. We explained that we were here to visit somebody, then the lady started yelling at him for bothering us.  We left them yelling at each other and went and visited the Johnsons.  Their new baby is so cute, but we think that because Brother Johnson has stayed home to help his wife (she had a C-section) he may have lost his job. He said he wanted to find a new job anyway.  Sister Johnson wanted a blessing so Art took care of that and we talked about them coming to church so they can have the baby blessed.  Brother Johnson walked out to the parking lot with us. He wanted us to know about the rest of his family and the problems he has with them. He has a daughter in Ghana that he raised, but he is not the physical father so they wouldn’t let her come to the U.S. with him. He is trying to find some way to get her to America.  The security guard was also out there, but he just wanted to apologize this time. 

The Johnson's new baby boy

Friday:  It has been a long week or we are getting old.  Lots of errands first thing this morning.  We needed to check with Family Services so we can start the ARP next week.  After wandering around a bit we found it only to find the director not there.  He did call us later so we got the info we needed.  From there we made a trip the Employment Office to see what help they could offer. 

Debra Driggs

At noon we had an appointment to help a lady weed her flower bed.  After we finished we had to hurry home and change then hurry to the far end of the ward.  Our plan was to take Brother Johnson to the employment office, but he was stuck in traffic on the freeway.  He went to get a prescription for his wife.  Last week, because of an accident on the freeway, some people were 6 hrs. getting home.  He was very sorry, but we did get to check on his wife while we were there and take more food. We wanted to take him to the Employment office because his English is fair when he speaks, but he has a hard time with reading and writing. Plus we really like them and wanted to help them out. Another quick trip across Skyway for our appointment with Ruth and Rubi.  Joyce taught most of the lesson and it went very well.  The pick-up was very dirty so we stopped on the way home and washed it, then came home to relax a bit.  Tomorrow looks like more of the same. 

Saturday:  We ran to W.W. first thing in the morning.  We had a few minutes before the meeting started so Art went and bought a new hat.  He needed something to keep the sun off his bald head. The afternoon was empty so we took to the streets.  Joyce doesn’t mind it and Art hates it.  He thinks it a waste of time and that we should be doing service instead.  The ward asked us to do it so it has got to be done.  We didn’t have a lot of luck, but we did talk to a nice group of young adults that were moving somebody into a house so we left cookies with them.  Joyce was going to go to the Womens Broadcast, but Art messed up on the schedule and booked us to volunteer at the museum.  Since Joyce couldn’t go there we went with Skyway B elders to visit a lady Joyce wanted to meet.  She wasn’t home (we did have an appointment), so we visited another lady that lives in the same complex and showed her the new church video, “Because He Lives.”  It is very good so take time to watch it.  We next went to the museum to do our volunteering job there.  The program was about black cartoon artists.  We directed people on where to go.  Some important lady from Hollywood that was on the panel read Joyce’s name tag and wanted to know why she volunteered at the museum (we were about the only white people at the program.) Joyce explained to her that our church had put in the genealogy library there at the museum and that she and Elder Knowles had come to volunteer there, but while at the museum they were asked to train as docents and take tours through the museum.  She read her name tag again out loud and walked off.  That has been our week.  We thought it was going to be a slow week but it seems to fill-up in a hurry.    Here is our preaching:  Watch the clip of President Monson’s “Dare to Stand Alone”.  It is on Mormon Momments.  Watch it and think about if you are willing to stand alone, then watch the new clip “Because He Lives” and see what you think then.

FHE

Love you all Elder and Sister Knowles

P.S We loved the pictures you have sent us!!!

Sunday dinner

The light rail

Northwest Harvest

Packing oranges

new hat

museum

museum

                                  Week 11   March 15-21

Lift where you stand…….Grow where you are planted

Joyce went to a womens conference and for lunch sat by 4 cute ladies.  They reminded me of my cute daughters and daughter in laws.  I would have expected them to all have been born and raised in the gospel with few problems.  Boy, was I wrong.  The cute mom sitting next to me had 3 boys ages 8, 10, and 12.  I commented on how fun to have someone passing the sacrament and just baptized.  She explained that her boys were not baptized nor passing the sacrament.  She had just been through a messy divorce and was just coming back to church, because of her dear bishop that was in tune with her needs.  The one diagonally across the table was going through deep, dark depression and was trying to work through it.  The one across from me was a tiny little thing that was suffering from diabetes and couldn’t seem to get it under control, and the one on the end had just moved here, has a family of small children, and the first Sunday at church was yelled at by some women that told her to control her children.  She had cried, and she and her husband had decided to just take a vacation from church while their children were so small, so as to not disrupt the ward.  Thankfully, some sweet people in the ward were able to change their minds.  We never know what people are going through that we meet randomly.  Each has their own problems and challenges and I know that is why we are here.  So thus: Lift where you stand, and grow where you are planted.  Memorize Ether 12:27.  It’s a favorite!   

Sunday:  We woke up to pouring rain and cold.  Mary didn’t feel well so she didn’t come to church, but we had pulled some pictures out of a Gospel Principles manual that she wanted so we dropped those off.  

Joyce is going to start teaching primary to 3 new investigator that want to stay together so they are going to have a class just for them.  A new sister in the ward needed a ride home so we took care of that.  Skyway A Elders had their dinner appointment cancel at the last minute so we had them over for supper and then picked up Brother Nguyen and went to the mission devotional in Renton.  It has rained hard all day.  We heard it had only rained twice all week, once for three days and once for four days.

Monday:  Joyce needed a haircut so we went to the mission office with the sisters to take care of that. Sister Nowlin told Joyce she would do it for her.  Art likes to go there because they always have a bowl filled with chocolate in the office.  The sisters wanted to stop at Costco on the way home so we went there for lunch and bought Mary some chicken, so on the way home we dropped that off at her place.  We needed to go to Wal-Mart and while we were there the sisters called to tell us that Sister Chamberlain was cutting the Elders hair and Joyce wanted to learn how, so we ran back to their place.  Since we were in our p-day cloths we walked to the Balukas and took them some granola bars.  Sister Fely Baluka is flying to SLC on Wednesday and Joyce thought it would be nice if she had something to eat on while in the airport.

On the way home we stopped and weeded Sonia’s (the burglay lady) flower bed.  She sat on the step and talked to us while we did it.  She is pretty entertaining, but she does come to church now.  Some of the ward members are picking her up and taking her home.   Because of the weeding it was too late to go to FHE so we missed it.

Tuesday: We had District training in the morning that lasted a couple of hours.  The nice thing now is we are the odd couple, (in lots of ways) so we split up and the missionaries do the role playing with us as the investigators.  Our tax info came in the mail – thanks Jacob and Lara!  We worked on those and Joyce made a card that we can leave on doors when nobody answers.  It rained so we didn’t go knock on doors as planned, and we needed to be at the Salvation Army to serve food at 5.  That was an interesting experience with lots of interesting people we met.  We had to hurry home so we could meet at the Acostas with the Elders (Skyway B) for another lesson.  They are trying to teach the new members, plus teach two of the family that haven’t been baptized yet.  They taught them how to have a FHE and taught the restoration as a lesson, so we covered both bases.  As per our teaching, we find out what they want us to do before we go in the house.  It works a lot better than just winging it.  We really enjoy going there.  We have learned how to say good evening and good morning in Tagalog.   Next we want them to teach us how to pray in Tagalog.

Wednesday:   In the morning we finally got the taxes done and sent off, now we just wait for the bad news to see how much we will owe.  After emailing the taxes, we hit the streets and had a pretty good day.  We found more at home than not and only one was rude.  We also found a few more churches that we can stop at to see if we can do any service there (when we are feeling brave). The Skyway A Elders wanted us to help teach so we hurried there and waited for them.  They never showed up so we checked the phone and found that they had sent a text about 5 minutes before the appointment telling us that it was changed to Friday. Art puts the phone on vibrate when we are in a meeting and he forgets to take it off so we miss calls and texts until he checks it.   The county library was close so we stopped there and checked out a couple of books on teaching English.  We have ordered Daily Dose from the church but we need something for Friday.  Thanks to all who told us about Daily Dose.  It will really help. In the evening we walked over to the care center to read the Book of Mormon with Sister Waters and the Skyway B Elders.  She always has an excuse why she hasn’t read more, so we just keep trying.  Also, had our meeting with the Bishop and got a few more assignments from him.

Thursday:  We made it to W.W. in the morning which was good since we haven’t been for two weeks.  Getting there was good, not the results.  We needed to go to Bellevue to Dessert Book and pick up a picture that we had ordered weeks ago and we needed some manuals for the 12 step program we are going to start in the Skyway building. 

The Interstate 405 access is close to W.W. so we headed north.  We picked up what we needed and wanted to go to lunch at this famous Chinese place but it wasn’t opened yet so we ran to the Temple and walked around for a while.  The trees and flowers, especially the tulips, are all blooming now and it looks great.  While we were eating we got a text from Skyway B asking if we had a Cantonese Book of Mormon.  We ordered one for Skyway A in simplified Chinese and they needed one now.  We checked at Desert Book but they didn’t have one so we left.  As we were pulling out the clerk ran out and said she had found two in the back so we got those.  We’re not even sure if they will work for what the Elders need.  We have the Schwieders checking for us to see what is available. On the way home we stopped at the Johnsons to check on them.  No baby yet.  We needed to take some material on family history to the museum and check on a member up north that the Bishop assigned us, so we rode the train there as far as we could, then hit the streets.  We meet a lot more people when we walk and get to know the streets better so we don’t get lost as much.  Art was going to take a Chinese Book of Mormon in case we ran into the Elders but decided it was too much to carry and it was a slim chance of running into them.  Guess who we ran into when we got off the train. That’s the way it goes sometimes.   The member we needed to see wasn’t at home, but we did find another that we were looking for.  We finally tracked down the one we were looking for and reported to the Bishop.  Sounds like we will be back there on Saturday to help him out.  It was raining off and on most of the time so we walked back to the train station and called it a day, plus we were tired.  Going to be an Advil night, but we did get 3 letters in the mail so that helps.

Friday: We walked to the Filipino Cultural Center for a service project first thing in the morning.  They act as a U.S consulate, for three days every three months so people won’t have to travel to San Francisco to get documents.  Art took photos and Joyce worked in the copy room.  We had to leave at 1 for another appointment just as it was getting very busy so they asked if we would come back later, so we did.

Our appointment at 1 was with the Buddhist Monk, Soveth Moun.  We thought we were going to teach English, but we ended up helping him with a computer class that he is taking.  Joyce did most of the helping, Art ran the calculator when needed.  We did help him with correct English for a few letters he is writing so his father can come visit him from Cambodia.  After our visit there we ran back to the Cultural Center, then onto an appointment to teach with the Skyway A Elders.  They are teaching a set of 9 year old twins, Ruth and Rubi.  There brother, Joshua, was baptized a month ago.  Tonight their mom sat in for part of the lesson.  Thanks to Elder Schwieder for explaining how the Chinese Book of Mormon works.  We think we have that worked out now.  We will find out for sure on Sunday if we have the right one.  In the evening we worked on trying to get our area book straightened out.

Saturday:  The Cultural Center wanted us to come back this morning to help.  We left at 8 with blue skies, but not 200 yards from our apartment it started to rain, sideways and cold.  We had to walk about 2 miles so by the time we got there we were soaked, even with rain ponchos on. (Thank goodness Joyce carries the ones from Lara in her bag!)  We should have taken the umbrellas, but not too sure if they would have helped anyway.  

Joyce had to start “Singing in the Rain” which didn’t help Arts attitude much.  Of course it stopped raining when we got there.  After 2 hours we had to leave and sure enough, it started to rain again.  After a quick change of clothes we drove to the church to meet the bishop and get a food order from him, (not for us, for a member), then headed to Kent to fill the order before the store house closed.  By now the sun was shining and it turned out to be a pretty nice day.  At 1 we picked up our D.L. (Elder Jones) so he could split with us.  We had to drop his companion off at the Z.L.s (Skyway A Elders).  This gave us an extra hand to help deliver the food order we had.   Elder Jones went with us to meet a less active member (Q. Baker) and we taught him a lesson on the restoration.  He said he would come to church so we will pick him up tomorrow. Elder Jones is a very good teacher and very spiritual, so we were glad he was with us.  Next we took Elder Jones to the museum and gave him a practice tour.  We have to do a real one next week so we wanted to brush up a little.

 We also took him to an overlook of I-90 so he could see the top edge of the mission and a nice view of downtown Seattle.  Not many Elders get this far north.  We made a quick stop to check on a member and then picked up his companion and took them back to their area. The evening was spent in the lounge in our complex using the computer so we are ready for our next lesson with Soveth Moun, our new friend, who is a nice monk... 

Here is our preaching:  CPR for the spirit………church, prayer, and reading the scriptures

         Hope you all had a good week, we did.  Keep those cards and letter coming.

                Week 10   March 8-14             

What we know in this church will always trump what we don’t know…..  Jeffery R. Holland

Sunday:  Thank heavens we get to pick up Mary so she can go to church. The burglar lady (Sonia) wanted a ride so the senior sisters picked her up.  She lives just a few blocks from us, but they thought it would be too much with her and Mary.  Church went well.  We did have to tell Mary to sit still in Sacrament Meeting.  She love kids and wanted to go play with them.  We told her that families like to sit together and they are trying to listen to the meeting.  She understood and did better after that.  She is still very loud in Sunday school, but she enjoys it.  She did want to go out and eat after church so we had to explain Sunday worship to her again.  We gave her some Girl Scout cookies we had and that was good enough for her.  Art wanted to eat them, but it was worth the sacrifice to make her happy.  Life is good in Seattle now because you can buy cookies in front of every store.  We came home in the evening and studied our assignment for zone training this week.  Also, our kids and grandkids face time us or call on Sunday so we wanted to be home.  Thanks to all who did and the rest should understand why they were left out of our Will.  Missionaries do love notes and letters and phone calls, no matter how old they are (the missionaries not the letters). Thanks again to all who do write. It isn’t against the rules for us to get a phone call either.

Monday…P-Day   It was such a nice day we drove to Mt. Rainier National Park with the senior sisters.  They have had a mild winter so most of the roads that would normally be closed now are all open.  We drove to the visitor center at Sunshine which is the highest point you can drive to.  The roads are narrow and winding. 

We had to cut the trip short so we could be back for F.H.E.  We had two members that needed a ride.  After the meeting we took the leftover food to the homeless camp that is close to where one of the members, Binh Nguyen, lives. It is a temporary tent city and we also took leftover food to a trailer in his trailer park where there are children and they are hungry.   It was Lara’s??th birthday so we were able to face time with Jake, Lara and Mariah.

Tuesday:  We thought the day was going to be routine, but things are always changing.  We started with zone training in the morning for three hours. It went very well.   Skyway B wanted us to teach with them in the evening so we were working out a conflict we had, when the conflict cancelled on us.  With that resolved we made new plans, and then Debra called us to say that she did need a ride after all.  We made new plans and then had Skyway B Elders call to tell us that the teaching appointment for the evening had cancelled.  There was a baby shower in the evening for one of the members that we had been working with (Joyce and Thomas Johnson) and Joyce (Sister Knowles) was doing the table decorations for it and bringing the fruit. That was one of the things we were trying to work around.

Thomas and Joyce Johnson

  With everything worked out we went to the shower and just after it started we got a call from the Mission President’s wife asking if we could run to Auburn and pick up a set of sister missionaries that had been in a wreck and they needed a ride home.  The sister driving had made a wrong turn and panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake and ran into a building.  No one was hurt but the car will be out of service for a while.  Her companion loved telling us all about what happened with the police and even a fire truck showing up. All that sister that was driving told us was that it was an old building anyway. We hope the shower went ok.  Plus we got 3 letters in the mail.  You know how much mail means to you when you get excited over a credit card application. Thank you much!!!!!!!

Wednesday:   All the zone went to Northwest Harvest, for a service project, in the morning and we sacked and boxed dried beans.  7,500 pounds of them.  We go here every other week.  Joyce needed some material to make a blanket for another baby shower and while we were getting that the Spanish Sisters called to see if we could give them a ride to pick up a car. These are the ones that wrecked their car yesterday.  A set of Elders in our zone are giving up their car so the sisters can have it.  They were not really happy about it, but they do what they are told.  We found out that before she hit the building yesterday she had already hit a step in front of their house and while backing up she had hit her companion.  She said it just wasn’t her day.^rd Nephi so we talked about the Saviors visit to America with her.  We had our meeting with the Bishop to report to him and get assignments from him.  He always has lots of candy so it is a good meeting. We are sure we will be hitting the Advil in the morning because of the service project.

  The Elders live close by this famous fish and chips place on Lake Washington (Ivers) so we went there for lunch, (around 3:00) and walked around the shore line until it started to rain. We worked on our taxes for a while then went to teach with the Elders to Sister Waters.  We go there and read the Book of Mormon with her.

Thursday:  Started off the day with 3.5 hours at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center in Columbia City, cleaning and painting.  This is an old church that was built in 1921 that is now used as a cultural center.  The whole zone was there and we could have used a lot more.  It is not for profit so not a lot of money to keep up the building.  We could have spent the whole day there and not finished what needs to be done, but they only had so much paint.  We did get all the cleaning done and it looked pretty nice when we left.  We heard that they are having some big event this weekend so they were happy with the results.  The senior sisters wanted to go out for lunch so we had to go, since they were giving us a ride home.  We had walked there. We had to hurry home and change and be to a 4:00 teaching appointment with the Elders with Nola Fakialoatonga.  We took the hammer and nails so we could fix the step we have been trying to get done for the past week.  Elder Palo used to build houses and he wanted to pound the nails, so we let him do it.  In the evening we went to our meeting with all the missionaries in the ward.  We didn’t have much to report since we been doing service instead of knocking on doors this week.  We thought with the time change we could get more done in our area, but we are always needed somewhere else.  Art is ok with not knocking on doors.  He says it’s too much like tracting and his has already done enough of that.  Joyce enjoys it, plus we are committed to get our area done before next transfer. Usually, the best time we catch people at home is on Saturday and Sunday and we are always busy with other activities.

Friday:  We had an interview with President and Sister Eaton in the morning.  Because of the car accident this week we had to pick up two sets of Elders and take then to their interviews, so we spent all morning at the church.  Art is such a big spender he offered to take the Elders to lunch before taking them home, so we stopped at Sam’s Club and they had hot dogs and pizza.  After lunch we walked to the Buddhist temple that we had offered to help them set up for their New Year celebration, (in April) to see if they still wanted us. A really old monk answered the door and we didn’t think he was going to let us in, but we think he didn’t understand English. Another monk came and he invited us in and we talked for a while. The monk we had talked to before (Prinze) was there, but he is going to be gone in April so he had us talk to the monk that is in charge of the temple.  Ven. Soveth Moun, (the monk in charge) doesn’t speak real good English so he was hard to understand.  President Eaton had told us to use whatever approach we could to do service, so we offered to help teach some English lessons. They have to approve us helping on their New Year with some committee they have.  When we left we thought they were cold to the idea of us helping with New Years, but Soveth came back out as we were putting on our shoes and said he would like some help in learning better English and he invited us to come back next Friday, so we were pretty excited. Maybe then we will find out about helping with their New Year celebration. We’ll be going to the library to find some how to books on English.  If anyone has any ideas, we are open to any help. The Acosta family’s grandfather died this week, so we made dinner for them.   We taught a lesson with the missionaries to Mary Ann.  When we say we taught we mean we sat there while Elder Palo taught in Tagalog.  Marie Ann is very Catholic and doesn’t want to leave it, so it started off with a little conflict, but ended well.  Elder Palo is very humble and he told her that it had taken him 9 years of investigation before he joined the church so there was no hurry for her to decide.  We think she was feeling some pressure from her family and the last set of Elders, so this helped to ease the tension.  Elder Palo is 27 years old so it took him some time to decide to serve a mission and he understands patience.  He is great to go with.  He is from the Philippines and can speak 3 different languages. 

Saturday:  There was a baby shower for a ward member, so Joyce went to it and Art stayed home and cleaned the apartment.  In the afternoon we attended a baptism in Federal way for Jerimiah Foalima.  He is the young man we met at Wal-Mart.

Jerimiah Foalima

  It was held in the Tongan Branch, along with two other young ladies that were also baptized.  He told us that 6 months ago he swore that he would never read the Book of Mormon or step foot inside an LDS church.  There was a big crowd there.  We think that all Tongans are related, because there were cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces there and if they weren’t related they were friends to someone who was related.  One of the problems of being a missionary is getting tired of wearing the same things day after day.  There is a Beehive Book close to Federal Way so we made a stop there so Joyce could get a few new clothes.  We had an appointment in the evening, but it cancelled, so we took our time getting home.  We did get a text message from Soveth asking how soon we could start to teach him better English.   Looking back we would have to say it has been an interesting couple of months.  We are enjoying it here very much.  Where else can you give a tour at an African American Museum, teach English to a Cambodian Buddhist Monk, read a chapter in the Book of Morman with a member, help a man from Ghana with a job application, teach a man from Viet Nam about the priesthood and finish the day with a lesson on the Book of Mormon taught in Tagalog and somewhere along the way take Mary out for fried chicken. 

Preaching for the week:  “ Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness.“  Joseph Smith

        We hope you all have a great week and ask Heavenly Father to bless and keep you safe.

                                                                          LOVE ELDER AND SISTER KNOWLES

Mount Rainier

Zone Training