Elder & Sister Knowles

                Week 28     July 12-18

           Our purpose is to invite others……

Sunday:  All but one of our members and investigators we were going to take to church backed out.  We did have a few more to take home since we had some room.  There were several other investigators there so the Elders were happy.  We invited Karen Vargis over for dinner and a lesson.  It was a spur of the moment thing so we just had leftovers.  She had some questions from a bible study class she has to attend.  It gave us a chance to do some studying to answer her questions.  Sunday evening we like to keep open so the kids can call us, which Josh and Jared did, so we got to talk to their families as we walked Karen home. 

Monday P-day:  Joyce had a Drs. Appointment with the chiropractor first thing in the morning for her knee.   We made our usual trip to Wal-Mart.  The Zone Leaders sent us a text asking if we were going by the mission office.  They like us to go so they can have more time for basketball and also, they save miles on their car.  We like to help them out so we made the trip. We invited the Elder Sisters to go with us.  Sister Harrison had her Garmin stolen from her car last night so we stopped at Sam’s Club on the way home so she could buy a new one.  After lunch we did some laundry and worked on a few things.  In the evening we went and taught a lesson with the Skyway B elders to Eleazar Acosta.  We like him a lot and pray he will be baptized.  There was such a wonderful spirit in the lesson. 

Tuesday:   Our zone meeting was today for three hours.  Elder Jones and Tavo and Sister Hill and Jeffery did the training.  It was on helping people keep commitments, which is a big problem here, so there was lots of role playing.  After the meeting we ran to the store, picked up some fried chicken, got Ruth and Rubi, and took them with us to our English lesson at the Acostas.  We taught how to talk about your family.  We also made a family tree with her.  Sister Acosta does well in our class, but they still speak Tagalog in the home so we’re not sure how much practice she gets.  After the lesson we all went to the lake so the kids could swim and we could eat.  That’s what the fried chicken was for.  Ruth, Rubi, Reymark, Richel, Princess Joy and Eldrix swam.  Sunshine, Joshua, and Estrella Acosta and Elder Knowles and Sister Knowles all sat on the bank and watched.  Eldrix (4 or 5 years old) has something wrong with his legs, so he can’t walk.  He had a great time in the water and his family is so good to him. We found out that the lesson with Ruth and Rubi’s mom, Jennifer, didn’t go well (still too pushy with her), so we will start over again.  We will go to the lake with them again and hopefully, if we plan around her work schedule when she is off, she will come with us.   At this point all we can do is fellowship her.  After the lake we went to our ARP class and we did have someone show up. We thought about cancelling for the summer since no one was attending, but we’re glad we didn’t. We had to choose between helping serve dinner at the Salvation Army or having our class.  Nice to know we made the right choice.  One of the sisters that was going to attend with us had some trouble, so we sent text messages back and forth to give her some encouragement.  The home she is in wouldn’t let her leave and we can’t visit there, so all we could do was send text messages. Renee was home from the hospital and wanted us to visit her, so Joyce got her birthday present together and we went to her apartment.  One of her friends, Candace, was there so we invited all of them to come to dinner.  We have been wanting to have Renee’s friend over to see if she may have some interest in the church.  We found out that her grandparents are members.  We will try and do a little preaching after dinner with them.  It was a late night when we finally got to bed, but we had a fun day.

Wednesday:  We went to Northwest Harvest with the elders in the morning. It was kind of a strange day. They split us into two groups.  Everyone packed frozen carrots and they took all the missionaries and had us unpack frozen corn and peppers and repack them into bigger boxes.  They said the company needed their boxes back and they didn’t have the right amount in each box to send to the food banks.  They really want us to help at the Mariners game so we are trying to get permission for the 25^th of July.   The elders had an appointment to teach Jerimiah at 7:00 so we came home and cleaned the apartment to get ready for that.  We had to do some juggling to get Tesloach to YM at 6:30, then back to our appointment to teach Jeremiah (because the elders wanted him to be taught  in our home,) then back to the church to our meeting with the Bishop at 8:30, and then get Tesloach home.  It all worked out, we just had to leave the Bishops meeting a little bit early.  The lesson with Jerimiah went well.  He is an awesome young man and wants to do what is right.  He is scheduled for August 1^st for baptism. We did talk to the Bishop about the wards YM leaders coming to the activities on Wednesday night, or their lack of it, and he is going to take care of it.

Thursday:  We had a very interesting day.  If you would have told us we would have a day like today, six months ago, we would have considered you crazy.  Our first stop was at the Northwest African American Museum to give a tour to a group of Jewish senior citizens.  They were very nice and talked very highly about Mormons.  Mormons had been so helpful to them in Salt Lake when going through surgery there.  We just thought it strange for two Mormons from Idaho, to be giving a tour to a Jewish group, at the African Museum.  Several wanted to visit after the tour, but we had to leave and pick up Joyce Johnson and take her to the doctor, in downtown Seattle.  She and her husband are from Ghana and her husband is working in South Dakota.  She is not too happy with him right now.  She has a new baby and he isn’t sending the money home that he promised. We called him so we could get his side of what is going on. We told us he is doing what he can with money for Joyce’s rent and to visit with the Bishop on Sunday so we can pass the problem onto him.  Her appointment took most of the afternoon.  She has not been feeling well ever since her husband left, so that’s why the visit to the doctor.   At 5:00 we had our missionary meeting with the Ward Mission Leader. He is leaving so it may have been our last meeting with him.  After the meeting we picked up Ruth, Rubi and Joshua Acosta and took them to the church for a lesson.  The lesson went very well, but Rubi doesn’t want to be baptized yet.  We think this was the lesson where if she wouldn’t commit, the elders are going to stop working with her.  We will wait and see. 

Friday:

The Nowlins have finished their mission and are leaving today so they invited us to come to their apartment and take whatever we wanted.  The mission is closing their place so whatever we didn’t take will have to be stored.  Most of what we got were things that they had bought and didn’t want to take with them.  Since we were close to Beehive Books, we made a quick stop there for some temple books that Joyce needed for VT that afternoon.  We also checked out the scout shirt situation there.  We came home and started unloading the pick-up and some neighbors came to help; so we now have a good excuse to invite them over for dinner.  All day we kept running into the girl and the boy that helped us, so when Joyce was walking to go visiting teaching, she told them we would make cookies, which we did. When we left the apartment in the late afternoon, the young man was with his little nephew, so we gave them the cookies and got to talk for a few minutes.  We think maybe this is a family we met when we first got here and didn’t know what we were doing, so maybe we are getting a second chance. We rode the train to Beacon Hill and made a visit.  The member wasn’t home, but the man who answered the door said not to bother coming back.  They are definitely not interested.  We planned on walking home but we ran into Susan, a Pilipino lady that we knew, and talked too long to her, so we had to catch a bus home for our next appointment.  Our plan was to help Sister Vargis with her bible study class, but the Skyway B elders wanted us to teach with them at the same time.  Since Sister Vargis was our original plan we gave her options.  We could help her with her class, or the three of us could go with the elders to teach a lesson.  She wanted to go with the elders and teach.  They were teaching Eleazar and it went very well.   Sister Vargis even bore a powerful testimony of the Holy Ghost.  We were surprised because she is very quiet and she told us on the way home that she really enjoyed going with us.  On the way to our apartment we ran into Renee, Candace, and Renee’s cousin out front, so we stopped to talk to them which made for an even later night.

Saturday:  We took Tesloach to “Beehive Books and More” in Edgewood, by Federal Way, to get a scout shirt.  The owner has a scout bank there for used shirts that they give away every Saturday to scouts.  The D.I. and all the Thrift stores in the Seattle area give their shirts to him and then he gives them to any scout that comes in.  It’s kind of a nice service.  We did some shopping on the way home and took Tesloach to lunch.  Joyce sewed the patches on the shirt so we can take it to church tomorrow and give it to Tesloach.  The Museum has a new exhibit opening this week so we attended the introduction by the artist (Iris Vasquez) so we could learn what to say when we do tours.  It was very interesting to learn about working and sculpting in bronze.  Iris wanted her statues to talk to each other (there are three “girls”) and it is just delightful to listen as they interact with each other.  We then hit the streets.  We got to the apartment buildings that we were looking for and were perplexed as to the numbering.  We were walking very slowly and looking around when a nice friend from the Buddhist Temple recognized us.  He speaks very limited English, but he had the women that were with him show us to our addresses.  They even knocked on the door for us at the first apartment.  We weren’t expecting that much help so we were a little unprepared when the door was answered.   It is nice to have friends where ever we go.  The member no longer lives at the first address and at the next address, the couple we checked on have both passed away, we think.  It is hard to understand the Cambodian/English conversation.  The whole complex was Cambodian and very friendly.  On the way to our next stop we ran into a member (Sister Nardia) that was eating at a restaurant, so we called it a day and went in and ate with her and then caught the train home before it got too dark.  (Another late night.)  We don’t like being out on the streets after dark. 

Now for the preaching:

This is the story that Sister Chamberlain told at the baptism and then we had her tell it again at Addiction Recovery for closing remarks:  In Arabia, prized Arabian Horses are trained.  They are treated very well, even eating their hay and oats, at times, at the master’s table.  They are trained, brushed, talked to, and adored.  The master uses a bell or a whistle and as they are trained and fed, the master rings his bell or whistles and the horses come to the master each time he calls them.  This training goes on until the horses are ready to be chosen.  When the training is complete, the horses are put in pens and not given water or food for many days.  It is very hot in the Arabian sun.  Finally, the day of the testing comes.  The horses are let out of the pen with food and water in sight.  When the hoses are running toward this nourishment, the master rings the bell.  The horses all hear the call, they hesitate, and each must decide to follow their master and go to him, or not to follow their master.  The Arabian horses that go to the master, become the chosen horses and are valued and well cared for as they work with the master.  These are the elect. 

We are prized sons and daughters of God.  It is how we respond to the call, to see is we are the chosen ones, the elect.  In Doctrine and Covenants 121:34-36, we learn that many are called but few are chosen and that the way to be chosen is only upon the principles of righteousness.  In John 10:27 we learn “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”  Now is truly the time to prepare to know and meet Heavenly Father and our Savior.  May we all decide to follow our Master, Jesus Christ.

We love you!

“Elder and Sister Knowles” 

The "Girls"  Max, Joyce and Ann