Elder & Sister Knowles

                   Week 9   March 1—7

            I didn’t say all the things I said

Sunday:  It started off with a cancelled appointment in the morning.  Our keyboard did arrive yesterday and we were able to pick it up this morning. Mary went to church with us so you can imagine how our day went. It was also Fast Sunday so we told her on the way to church what would happen.  Of course she wanted to bear her testimony. She got a little inpatient because people took so much time and were getting to go ahead of her.  Finally, Joyce took her up to the front and the Bishop got her a mic.  It went pretty well for the most part.  We told her she could only take 2 min. so it was short. R.S. didn’t go as well.  There are a lot of less active members, new converts and a few investigators there that don’t know her so we get a few question about her, but for the most part everyone is nice to her.  That’s why she likes to come to church. There are a lot of virtues we will learn working with her like charity, patience, brotherly kindness, diligence, obedience, tolerance, (did we mention patience) and love, plus a few more.

Monday: We spent most of the morning sitting in a waiting room after we took Nola Fakialoatonga (we hope that’s how to spell her last name) to the dentist.  She takes some kind of medication and could barely walk when we picked her up, but by the time we took her home she was much better.  Art has to carry her wheelchair up and down her steps and load and unload it into the pick-up.  He does this while Joyce helps her up and down the steps.  We found a few more broken steps that we need to fix. It’s just one of the jobs of the member support missionaries.  At 5 P.M., we fed the Elders.  We had five of them and they can put the food away.  Elder Maxwell went home today so they had an odd #. 

We had to hurry because we had F.H.E. at 6:30 and we needed to pick up Debra Driggs and Art had to teach the lesson.  Sister Driggs lives around the corner from us and she has no car, so she has been riding the bus.  It will be much easier for her if we pick her up.  Another job for member support missionaries.  The lesson went well and Art is glad to have it over with.  The lady in charge doesn’t like him, he thinks.

  We found out that our ward used to be an International Ward with Sunday school classes in different languages for different nationalities and when it was changed to a Seattle ward 5 years ago they stopped doing the different classes. That is when most of the different nationalities stopped coming to church.   We are trying to find them and invite them back to church. Another job for the member support missionaries.  We love it.  No day is the same and we are getting to know some really nice people.

Tuesday P-Day:  Because of transfers, today is P-day, (play day as Joyce calls it) instead of Monday.  We had the apartment mostly cleaned yesterday and our shopping done, because of feeding the Elders.  It was such a nice day we decided to drive closer to Mt. Rainier.  The Park is mostly closed until spring. On the way, we stopped at the super mall in Auburn and Joyce had her ears pierced. 

We found that the closer you get to Mount Rainier, the less you can see because of all the trees and the other mountains around it.  Guess we will see it better when it opens. This time of year you have to have chains or they won’t let you in and most of the roads are closed anyway. It was nice to see some farms and open space after all the time we have spent in Seattle.  We did find a small state park (Flaming Geyser) that has some nice hiking trails that we will come back and try on the next sunny p-day we have.  In the evening we had an appointment to visit a family so we walked to their house and left them some cookies.  Art was betting they wouldn’t be home, but they were.  Our simplified hymn books arrived so practice time now.

Wednesday:  Started off our day with district meeting for 1.5 hrs.  More role playing, but we got to be the investigators since we are the odd couple.  We spent a lot of time discussing ways to use the Book of Mormon in our teaching.  Joyce also got to play the piano for our meeting.  We drove the senior sisters, from our ward, to Kent for a meeting with Pres. McKinney 1^st Councilor in the mission presidency. We have this meeting the first Wednesday of the month with all the senior missionaries.  He is over all the senior missionaries. 

After the meeting we all went out to lunch/dinner and over to the apartment of the other senior sisters (Sister Henderson and Sister Peterson).  They are going home in 6 weeks and if they don’t find two more to replace them, they will close their apartment. White wash the area as the Elders say.  President McKinney has been calling Salt Lake for replacements, but nothing yet.  They wanted us to come and see if we wanted any of their furnishings so the mission won’t have to store it if they close the apartment.  Joyce did take all of their Christmas decorations, much to Elder Knowles chagrin…  The Skyway A Elders called to see if we could help teach at 5 so we hurried home and met them at the Acosta’s and taught Joshua’s two younger sisters, Rudy and Ruth.   They have been coming to church since Joshua was baptized.  We got home and settled in for the night when the Skyway B Elders called to see where we were.  We had a 7 o’clock appointment to teach a member with them that we forgot about.  We hurried there to find that the member was having a party because she also had forgotten.  Oh well, that’s missionary life. 

Thursday: Went to W.W. first thing in the morning and then met the senior sisters (Sister Chamberlain and Sister Harrison) at the museum and gave them a tour so we could practice.  The first Thursday of each month is free admission. 

 After our tour, we worked in one of the areas close to the museum.  We found one not interested and one wrong address and the rest weren’t at home. We had a little time left so we worked the area by the lake only to find all the addresses were wrong.  We even ended up out of the mission boundary and into Seattle, but we found a cool trail that goes along I-90 that we are going to check out on a p-day.  We will be able to walk across Lake Washington on I-90 to Mercer Island or at least as far as the mission boundary goes. I-90 is the top of our mission so we will be legal.

Bellvue across Lake Washington

In the evening we had our meeting with all the Elders and Sisters and the Ward Mission Leader.  If you have a hard time keeping all the sisters straight don’t worry, we do too.

Friday:  Another busy day.  We started with the Institute Class then had to run to the mall so we could return a pair of shoes that didn’t fit.  We went from the mall to the museum where we had our final training as docents.  We are now official and already have a tour lined up.  We met the Skyway B Elders at 6 o’clock and helped teach a lesson.  We brought a DVD player that we couldn’t get to work on their TV, so we watched it on the little screen.

I-90

Didn’t matter much to us since we played it in Tagalog.  Most of the lesson was taught in Tagalog by the Filipino Elder (Elder Paulo) serving in our ward, so the rest of us just sat there.  It was pretty cool because we could still feel the spirt even though we didn’t understand what was said.  We would read in English (Joyce, Art and Elder Lopalinin) and Elder Palo, Pedro and Fely would read in Tagalog.  We also were asked to bear our testimonies, (in English) so it was a special night.

Saturday:  The Renton Stake had a Women’s Conference from 9:30 until 1:00 and Joyce attended it.  We invited several to go but no luck.  One lady that said she would go cancelled on Friday night.  After the Conference we hurried to a meeting on Family History at the museum.  It was packed and we were able to meet the President of the Black Genealogy Research Group.  He wants a list of all the sites in the area that we have F.H. centers and to be informed of any workshops that we might have.  After the meeting we tried to find a couple of addresses but no luck there.  Here is our preaching for the week, President Eaton sends out a letter before each Zone Conference and we liked this quote from President Eyring:   “My experience has taught me this about how people and organizations improve: the best place to look is for small changes we could make in things we do often. There is power in steadiness and repetition. And if we can be led by inspiration to choose the right small things to change, consistent obedience will bring great improvement.”  Thanks for all the notes and letters that you send.  We love hearing from you.  We are doing great here.   Read the Book of Mormon every day!!!!!

  Love Elder and Sister Knowles