Elder & Sister Knowles

                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