Week 34    Aug 23-29

               News from the ghetto

                 (A lady on the train told Art this was where we lived)

Sunday:  It was a good day but Karen was the only one that went to church with us. None of the Acosta stayed for primary so Joyce didn't have her class. Allison and Ryan drove to Seattle after Caden's last ball game, which they lost in extra innings. They were at our apartment by the time we got home from church. Webster's were also with them. We had dinner prepared and after eating and walking around on our roof, they decided to ride the train into Seattle, so we drove to Walmart and bought some air mattresses and sheets. Art was given a HT assignment by the HP group leader. His new companion, Brother Cabiao, is a Filipino member who just went to the temple with his family, and is a recent convert.  All of the families, five of them, are Filipino, and are either new members or have been less active and are working towards the temple.  Time to get out the Tagalog dictionary again.  Art was told that he needs to show Brother Cabiao how to H.T. and how it works, since he is such a new member.  He thinks that is pretty funny that they would ask him to teach someone how to be a good H.T.

Monday:   We were glad it was our preparation day, so we rode the train into Seattle with the Christensen's and the Webster's. We decided to get off at the ball diamond and walk around. After debating for a while it was decided that the men would go on a tour of Safeco Field and the women would go into Seattle to go to the aquarium. After the tour of Safeco Field we all met at the Crab Pot and ate dinner. After dinner, those who wanted went and rode on the Ferris wheel, then we got to experience riding the train home during rush hour traffic. We only made it as far as Safeco Field and stopped to watch a ballgame. Ryan and Nick got us very good tickets that were six rows up down the left-field line. Of course the Mariners lost as usual. We did get free T-shirts, because the starting pitcher had thrown a no-hitter his previous start. He didn't do so well tonight, only lasting three innings. The Christiansen’s and Webster's had planned on leaving Monday to go home so they had packed all of their luggage. When we got home from the ball game we had to unpack and make the beds up again. It was worth it since we've had such a fun day.

Tuesday: This is always one of our busy days. The Christiansen’s and Webster's left early in the morning, and we got ready for our district meeting at 11. More role-playing. We did have a very good meeting. We had to hurry home and walked down to the Acosta’s, to teach sister Acosta an English lesson. We have also started to teach Princess Joy a little bit of English so she will be ready to start kindergarten. Art was tired, so we came home and he took a nap and Joyce prepared for our English class at the church. At 6 o'clock we started our class with only one person showing up and then followed with our ARP class with three people showing up. The Elder sisters are so good to give people rides to both classes and take them home afterwards. We had taken Karen with us.
Wednesday: We started off our day at Northwest Harvest like we do most Wednesdays. Today we were working with the sister missionaries and we packaged rice. Most of the afternoon was spent running errands, Sam’s Club for gas and groceries, Edward Jones to sign some papers, the Acosta's (Green house) to fill out some forms and to the church to make copies for the English class.  Because of Rubi's interview tonight, Joshua couldn’t go to the activity, so the forms weren't needed.   When we went to pick up the other Acosta family (Holley St. house) all of them had backed out of going to the activity.  None of the Acostas wanted to go if Joshua wasn’t going to go to the YW/YM Activity.  They are very shy. Too bad, they were doing a boating activity on Lake Washington and it would have been fun. .  We were disappointed that none of the Acostas were going since we had worked so hard to invite them and fill out the forms, plus we wanted to go.  Since we didn’t need to be the taxi service, we went home and Joyce worked on her talk for Sunday, until our meeting with the Bishop.

Thursday:  We did make it to W.W. this morning with okay results.  We ran to Sam’s for a few things for dinner on Sunday (more people are coming over), then to the museum for our indexing class.  Again nobody showed, but we were able to set up a few things that needed to be taken care of on their computers and they want us to speak at a seminar they are having in Oct.  Next on the schedule was a stop at home for more work on Joyce’s talk and fixing dinner for a member who had surgery.  Karen wanted to walk so we stopped and picked her up, after the dinner run, and walked around Kabota Gardens until our missionary meeting at 7:45.  The meeting was short since we are still waiting for a Ward Mission Leader to be called.

Friday:  We walked to the Filipino Cultural Center and spent all morning and afternoon there, working in the photo room and the copy room.  The Center becomes a mini consulate/embassy every few months, so people can renew passports, take care of any legal papers (like marriage, death and birth certificates), and apply for dual citizenship. They would have to drive to San Francisco to do it.  Lots of people think we are from the consulate since we are dressed up.  They read are name badge and can’t put the church and consulate together.  At 4:00: we picked-up Michel and Richel and took them to lunch since they were working when we went with the rest of the Acostas. They wanted to go to the Vietnamese place we said that we wouldn’t go back to.  A little direction on what to order really helps and it was pretty good.  We can eat rice with chopsticks but haven’t figured out soup yet. At 7:30 we met the Skyway A elders and taught a lesson.  They are teaching the granddaughter of Brother and Sister Sale’ (Kenzie) plus helping them become more active.  After the lesson they wanted us to go help teach another investigator, but Joyce had a V.T. appointment.  (She has 10 ladies to go visiting teaching to.)  We should have went with the Elders because when we found where we needed to go, it was gated and we couldn’t get in.  Margarita had forgotten to give us the code.

  

Saturday:  We woke up to pouring rain.  It has been so nice here and the day the ward plans an outdoor activity, it rains.  They need it bad here so we can’t complain.  Most of the morning was spent at the cultural center again.  The walk there was nice, but the walk home was windy and rainy.  Good thing we took the umbrella, but the wind made it bad, kind of sideways rain.  At 2:00, after a stop at Safeway’s for a cake, we headed to the church for the baptism and to help set up for the ward party.  The baptism was a little miracle.  When the Elders got to the church there was no power because of the high winds.  Kind of made us home sick for Idaho.  There is a big tree across the street from us that has blown over.  Anyway, they said a prayer and the power came back on.  The baptism was great.  Having Eleazar, Raymark and Rubi being baptized today was a huge miracle!  We had a good turn out and lots of investigators, also.  Joyce played the piano and that was another big miracle. Keep practicing.  You don’t know when you are going to be needed…Lots of less actives and investigators were there, plus good food.

Some preaching:  One reason to live the Word of Wisdom….

A Cup of Tea for Grandpa

One day when my Grandma was gone for a while, my Grandpa was in charge of me. I was maybe 2 1/2 years old.  Someone had given me a little ‘tea set’ as a gift and it was one of my favorite toys.  Grandpa was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought him a little cup of ‘tea’ (which was just water).  After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Grandma came home.  Grandpa made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was ‘just the cutest thing!’  Grandma waited, and sure enough, I came down the hall with a cup of tea for Grandpa.  She watched him drink it up.  Then she said (as only a grandma would know), “Did it ever occur to you that the only place she can reach to get water is the toilet?” 

Love ya! Have a good week….

Sister and Elder Knowles

                Week 33 Aug 16-22 transfers

 The first shall be last and the last shall be first

Sunday:  A good day at church.  Several of the members we give rides to were sick or gone, but we seem to always have plenty to take home.  All of the Acostas, that were there, went to Joyce’s primary class after Sunday School, which is good.  She likes to do a science experiment with them and then relate it to a gospel message.  They all love it so they have been staying more.  The adults usually leave and take the younger ones with them after Sunday School because of the language problem, so it is nice when they all stay.  They all love Joyce and her lessons.  Also, several of the less actives that we work with were in Sacrament meeting. We fed all the missionaries after church and Sister Harrison brought her cousin who is visiting.  It was a quick meal since we had to leave to drive to Federal Way for the mission devotional.  The Spanish Elders came late so we sent them home with leftovers.  Eleazar was going with us to the devotional, but after waiting twenty minutes for him, he decided not to go.  So much for hurrying.  Because he didn’t go, the Skyway B elders couldn’t go.  They have to have an investigator there to be able to go.  It was very good as usual.  The mission choir is so fun to watch since we know so many of them.  It is like watching your own kids perform.  President Eaton made the comment that since they have started a choir that they are being sent more talented singers.   We always see the Bensons there and the employment sisters came and visited for a minute.  They never get to see other couples, so they asked if they could do something with us on a Saturday when the employment office is closed.  We have gotten to know them pretty well since we are there a lot. It will be a big sacrifice, (JK) but we need to do all we can to keep all the missionaries happy.

Monday: We talked to Skyway B elders this morning and found that Elder Synder is being transferred.  We try not to get too attached, but it still happens.  So glad now that we had the elders over for dinner last night, even thought we had to hurry to make the devotional. We took the elder sisters and drove to Puyallup and met the senior couple (the Hunts from American Falls.) They are serving in that area.  They came out in June and it is there second mission.  They are also MLS missionaries like us.  The Bensons met us there, also.  We usually get together the first Wednesday of each month with President McKinney but we haven’t done that all summer, so we did it on our own.  There is not a lot of older missionaries so it is nice to get together once in a while.   We got back just in time to go to FHE, after a quick stop at the Mall. Karen went to FHE with us and then after she wanted to walk around Seward Park.  We did that until it got dark.  It’s not the best place to be after dark unless you are trying to get robbed.  One of the very active members, Thelma, who is African American and she is our Compassionate Service Leader, announced at FHE that she is moving to Utah.  This ward just can’t hold onto active members.

Tuesday:   Another early morning so we could take Joyce Johnson to Kent.  She was getting her hair done.  We didn’t know until she got out of the pick-up that she was leaving the baby with us.  We are not supposed to baby sit, but what do you do?  Her two hour appointment ended up being five hours.  We had a few errands to run so we did that while waiting and babysitting.  As usual we needed to stop at Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart.  Mary had all her teeth pulled, so we stopped by to check on her, but she was at the doctors.  Karen had left her phone in the pick-up the night before, so we returned it. The shelter where she lives has very tight security, so they wouldn’t admit that she lived there.  They kept telling us to call her and let her know we had her phone and we kept telling them we couldn’t call her because we had her phone and we were trying to return it.  Finally one lady caught on and told us that they couldn’t tell us if she lived there for sure as she is shaking her head yes the whole time. They took the phone and had us leave our number just in case she didn’t live there.  In the end Karen got her phone back.   We’ve never had so much fun returning something; We are easily entertainedJ  

In the afternoon Josh came for a quick visit.  He had business in Yakima, so he flew into Seattle and spent the night with us.  Joyce is happy!  We didn’t have a lot of time to visit with our English class and ARP in the evening.  We did get to take him to dinner and he went to the church with us for the classes.  The classes went well with a new investigator in our English class and we had a very spiritual ARP meeting.  We think Josh enjoyed it, as well.  The ARP class is all about the atonement helping us overcome our bad habits so we love having it.

Wednesday: Josh left at 5:30 for his meeting in Yakima.   We had a zone meeting in the morning because on all the transfers yesterday, instead of district meetings.  It was a good meeting and lasted all morning.  We discussed what physical tools we have to work with, like members, activities (like ARP, English class, family history and ward activities), videos, the Bible and most important, the Book of Mormon.  We even took time for a zone picture, which we like because we have a lot of new Elders and Sisters.  Josh stopped by, after his meeting in Yakima, on his way to the airport so we met him at our apartment.  The elder sister had invited us for lunch so we all went over there and ate.  As we were leaving we noticed a helicopter in the sky, which usually means they are making an arrest somewhere and several police cars came down our street with their lights flashing, so we figured it was close by us.  It’s something we see all too often. We ate lunch, Josh left for the airport, and we drove home to find five police cars parked on our street. This confirmed that something was going on until we saw them all coming out of the restaurant that is in our building.  We were relived and had a good laugh. 

Joyce made cookies, then we went and made a few visits.  In the evening we had a lesson with both sets of Elders and the Acostas.  Rubi, Reymark and Eleazar are ready for baptism next Saturday. The Zone Leaders spent some time planning the service so we can line up the talks and the people they want to baptize them. Eleazar does need to attend church this Sunday.   We have to pick up Ruth, Rubi and Joshua.  Sunshine (the only one of the Acosta children who drives) brings the other family.  After the lesson we had our meeting with the Bishop.

Thursday: W.W. first thing in the morning, but Art wouldn’t weigh in since he was sure he had gained weight.  We went to the museum, indexed a couple of batches of African American records from the Freedmen Bureau that have been released, and then home.  The Bishop had asked us to help Karen, so Art took care of that while Joyce worked on supper for a member whose husband was having surgery. We walked over to Sonia to check on her since we haven’t seen her at church for a couple of weeks and we wanted to see how the garden was doing.  The beans and the peas were good, but that’s all that made it.  Sonia was pretty excited that she had gotten the peas and beans so it was worth planting it. 

Friday:  We bent the rules a bit today and drove to Centralia and watched Caden play a couple of games.  They did well except for a couple of innings and ended up losing both games.  We think we are bad luck since we were out of the mission, even though just by a little.  It was fun to see the family and that was the main reason for going.  Tyson wanted Gram Gram to stay and watch him jump off the diving board, but we needed to get back for a lesson.  It was a good thing we left when we did because we ran into bad traffic because of a fire on the side of the road. It was kind of a Rockwood experience…  We did make it home in time, barely, for the lesson.  We had a FHE with the Acostas where we all shared our favorite scripture and then they brought out the food, as they always do.  They fed the new Elder, Elder Bohne, balo’t.  He just ate it with no trouble, so not too exciting.   It was a very fun night.

Saturday:  It was clean the church day to start our morning.  Art worked on trying to get the Apple TV to work so we can watch a video when teaching a lesson at the church.  All the TV’s have locks on them so he couldn’t add any new devices and he couldn’t get the pass word to make the change.  He will try again this Sunday.  It would make it so much better when teaching to be able to watch a video on the TV instead of all crowding around Joyce’s I pad.  We found out that Caden pitched and they won the first game. Then, they lost the next one.  We spent most of the day working on the ward list to see who needed to be visited. Skyway B elders came over and we traded the info we have so we aren’t visiting the same members.  At 7:00 we walked over to Sister Fabons and taught a lesson with the elders.  The lesson went longer than we thought it would and it is getting dark earlier than we remembered, so we ended up walking home in the dark.  Not the best thing to do from the part of town she lives in, but we made it.  We appreciated all the street lights!

Here is the preaching for this week:   Brothers and sisters, as surely as the Lord has inspired more missionaries to serve, he is also awakening the minds and opening the hearts of more good and honest people to receive his missionaries.  You already know them or will know them.  They are in your family and live in your neighborhood.  They walk past you on the street, sit by you in school and connect with you online.  You too are an important part of this unfolding miracle.  If you’re not a full-time missionary with a missionary badge pinned on your coat, now is the time to paint one on your heart.  The Lord needs you now more than ever to be an instrument in his hands.  All of us have a contribution to make to this miracle…..  Elder Neil A. Anderson April 2013.  This is from an Apostle and we know it is true.  Love ya,  Sister and Elder Knowles

               Week 32      Aug. 9-15

Constant use can never wear out the fabric                                of friendship!

Sunday:  Mostly a normal day for a Sunday.  Joyce Johnson didn’t come to church because Eric was sick, so we just picked up Karen and Tesloach.  We did have three investigators at church, but not Ruth of Rubi, so Joyce didn’t have a class to teach.   They have called a new Gospel Principles teachers who will be very good.  She was the early morning seminary teacher.   Doug and Ann are driving here so we waited for them to arrive while taking calls from the kids.  It is always nice to hear from them.  The Rockwoods got caught in traffic because of a fire, so they were later getting here than planned.  (They went a whole 4 miles in one hour, at one point!)  We were pretty excited when they called to ask us where to park! 

Monday: 

 With the Rockwoods , we rode the Light Rail into Seattle and walked to Pikes Market.  Anj and Beau had told us how much fun the boat tour was, so we gave it a try.  We picked the one that took us through the Ballard Locks into Lake Union.  It went along the coast from Elliot Bay into Puget Sound, then to the lock, and into Lake Union.  A guide was giving an interesting narration of the history and what we were seeing as we went along.  We pulled into the locks at Ballard, the gate shut behind us, water filled up the lock where we were (11 feet) so the other gate could open in front, and we could exit into Lake Union.  So cool!   We also learned the difference between a house boat and a floating house. Doug and Ann were wishing they had more time so they could shop for a floating house.  If anyone is interested in buying a floating house, they start at $300,000.00 and go up from there.  It was pretty fun. 

After we got off the boat, we rode a bus back to the water front, where we ate lunch at the Crab Pot. It was a sandwich Monday, but we had more than a sandwich. You always have to ride the Big Wheel, when in Seattle, so that was our next stop.  We walked back to the Light Rail Station by way of the Gum Wall and rode back to the Apartment.  We got to experience rush hour on the Light Rail and a lady asking for money.  She only stayed on one stop because she wasn’t having much success in the car we were on. It was a full day and lots of fun to be with good friends.  Thank you,” Annie and Douglas” for driving all this way to spend our Preparation Day with us!  We needed to see you both to revitalize us! 

Tuesday:  After the Rockwoods left we got ready and hit the streets.  We had two areas we needed to finish to have our half of the ward covered.  (The elder sisters had theirs done months ago. They have more active members than we do).  The husband of a lady in our area that attends the Tongan Ward, passed away so we stopped and checked on her.  We have taken her to the doctor a few times and fixed her steps.  The R.S. President was there from her Tongan ward so we didn’t stay long.  They were getting ready for a Tongan funeral with lots of food and making decorations.  We didn’t have a lot of success with our other visits.  We did find a few at home and only had one door slammed on us and one home that we will send the elders back to. One of the active members we visited, the Cabaios, told us about their car being stolen Saturday, but they got it back that night. It was out of gas, so who ever stole it went to another parking lot and stole another car and left theirs.  They are very humble because he just had a kidney transplant, so they had prayed a lot and their prayers were answered.  In the evening we had our classes.  No one showed up to the English class, but we had two at ARP.  One was for the first time so that was good. 

Wednesday:  We did Northwest Harvest in the morning.  The Elder Sisters were busy so it was just us and the elders.  We did rolled oats.  There wasn’t a big crew.  We stopped on the way home and bought some groceries, so we could go to Joyce Johnson’s and read with her and take her some fruit.  Eric has been sick, (he is getting a new tooth) so we wanted to check on them.  We needed to do some more shopping, when the elders called and asked if we could pick up the Acostas for the 6:00 lesson at the church.  We needed to get both families and a few extra came so we ended up with a large group for the lesson.  Both sets of elders taught, Skyway A and B, since they are both teaching parts of each family.  There are three committed to baptism, so that is wonderful!  Our meeting with the Bishop was cancelled, so after taking the Acostas home we came home, made one more trip to Safeway, and called it a day.  Walking to Safeway is always exciting in this neighborhood.  This is where the Cabaio’s car was stolen from.  They need to change their name because there is nothing safe about their store.  While standing in line we saw two ladies almost get into a fight.

Thursday:  Joyce is still fighting her cold so it was a long night, or short depending on how you look at it.  We skipped W.W. because we haven’t been very good this week, plus we got up late.  We did go to the museum for our indexing class; we both did one batch.  The Freedman records are hard.  Most of the rest of the day was spent doing paper work.  We needed to get all the information caught up that we have gotten put together for when we get a new Ward Mission Leader.  We did have our last meeting with Brother Kigin.

Friday:  Zone Conference was wonderful, and lasted most of the day. President and Sister Eaton are so inspiring.  It was a good spiritual uplift for us.  After zone conference we took dinner to a Dianne Nardi, who just had surgery.  We did get a letter from Allison and the kids – THANKS, we loved the letters! They may be coming for a visit, thanks to Caden making the traveling team that plays in Centralia, Washington!  Jake drove safely to Pittsburg with the furniture and with BostonJ Lara and Mariah flew safely on Wednesday and by then, Jacob had talked to the Bishop of the ward.  They got the place that they wanted and got moved in, so that was all a tender mercy for them.  They even have nice neighbors that have brought them stuff and welcomed them!  Jared and Emily are having mice for visitors, along with a thief, so their life is exciting…, Joshua’s family is still working hard on the house after their fun vacation to St. George (thanks for the pix), and AnJ’s family is getting ready for school to start and Braeden is excited.  Good luck, Lexxi, with your tryouts for volley ball. Dad took Mom in for more X-rays on her back.  She is still in a lot of pain and we pray for them always.  Well, that catches everyone up on the family.  One of the interesting things from Zone Conference was how many times President Eaton referred to the Skyway ward and the need to be careful there.  We don’t watch the news so we find out about the shootings and robberies after the fact.  We are not looking forward to the day light getting shorter. It also rained all day which is needed here.  We had a few appointments that we had to cancel because Zone Conference went longer than we had planned. 

Our preaching for this week: President Eaton focused on writing the mission purpose in our hearts.  He asked that we all fast on Sunday, write a 3 minute talk on one of the purposes of missionaries, read Elder Christofferson talk on “Why we preach the Gospel” and several pages from Preach My Gospel.  It all comes down to invite, invite and invite people to come unto Christ.  Everyone has agency so all we can do is invite.  Being a good example is important, but we still have to invite.  This is not just a good idea, it is a commandment.  President Eaton gave the stats for the mission, that 1 out of 19 investigators are baptized when contacted by missionaries, but 2 out of 3 are baptized when invited by a member to hear the message of the restored gospel.  The lesson the missionaries teach about keeping the commandments, before baptism, includes sharing the gospel.  Enough of that, we hope you get the point.  P.S. If you don’t know the missionaries purpose or members invite the missionaries over. They will be glad to teach you.  

Pres. Eaton and Pres McKiney

Saturday:  This is our clean the church day.  At 10:00 there was a baptism in the Tiffany Park ward for one of the young men that Tesloach goes to scouts with so we attended there.  We mostly went to support the sister missionaries, but wish we wish we would have invited Tesloach.  Most of the rest of the day was one cancelled appointment after another.  We were going to teach English, teach with the Elders, read the Book of Mormon with the Elders and some members, and walk with a lady we are fellowshipping.  All of them cancelled.  We needed something to pick us up so we tried a Vietnamese Restaurant down the street from us.  Wasn’t bad but we don’t think we will eat there again. There is a big push here to clean up the area, so they have put up signs on the street saying “Hello Othello” in 40 different languages.  Kind of interesting.  There was another fire down the street from us which is a pretty common sight, and while we were walking around we ran into a Muslim lady we had met months ago that recognized us, so we visited with her for a while.  In this area you can’t have too many friends. Also, our friend, the security guard at Safeway told us good news yesterday, He is getting baptized on 9/11.  It will be a day he will always remember and we were happy for the good news.  He is always so friendly to greet us and talk to us when we get groceries at Safeway, and our cashier ask us to pray for her, her name is Yolinda and she needs a new job and a place to live.  Requests are interesting in the big city… 

Hope you all have a good week and remember to invite.

Love, Joyce and Art., Mom and Dad, Elder and Sister Knowles

                           Week 31  Aug 2-8

 Eternal decisions have eternal consequences 

Sunday:  A pretty good day at church.  We picked up our normal group and gave them a ride home also.  In High Priest two members got in an argument so that livened up the lesson.  Joyce had ten in her primary class (all of the adult Acostas stayed to her class). She used the egg in salt water for an object lesson.  We came home and all of the children called and we were able to face time with Joyce’s mother and dad thanks to Allison and her cute family.

Monday p-day:  It was supposed to be sunny, but lots of clouds when we got up.  Our plan was to try Crystal Mountain again.  The elder sister had hair and doctor appointments until ten and by then it was clearing off so we made the trip.  First came a stop at the mission office to pick up the zone packages and supplies for the Zone Leaders.  When we got to Crystal Mountain it was still cloudy but they were high clouds so we went to the top in the gondola and ate our lunch on top.  The sun would break through every once in a while and shine off of Mt. Rainier.  The view from the top was great. We had a chipmunk that wouldn’t leave us alone.  It was climbing up our legs and even got onto the table while we were eating.  After we got home, we texted Karen to see if she wanted to go for a walk.  She was having a bad day so she was ready to go.  We walked to Seward Park, then around the lake.  Our plan was to ride the bus home until we missed it by a minute.  The next bus wasn’t until after 9:00 and Karen has to be in by 10:00 so we ended up walking the mile and a half back home, making our evening walk about six miles round trip total.  Another late night, but we made it by 10:00.

Tuesday:  Tuesday are always our busiest day because of district meeting and our evening classes and teaching during the day.  District meeting was good with lots of role playing. We worked on challenging investigators to read every day for 15 minutes so they could finish I Nephi in ten days.  After the meeting we came home and ate lunch and prepared our lessons for English.  Joyce went visiting teaching to the Acostas.  Art came later for the English class, but Sister Cabiao was late so Joyce did English first and V.T. last. Art got there in time for the VT lesson.  Joyce taught a great lesson on preparing to go to the temple.  The Elders showed up just as we were leaving to teach Eleazar.  They wanted us to go with them later but we had our classes to teach.  We had two to the English class and two at the ARP class.  Several more had called about the English class because there was some confusion about the time when it was announced in church. Seems like we always get the texts or voice messages an hour too late. We hate to walk around checking our phone every few minutes and it’s on vibrate when we are teaching.  Maybe by next week we will get it straightened out.

 Wednesday:  We did frozen peas at Northwest Harvest, 8,000 pounds.  Art was taping the finished boxes with some guy who thought it was a race.  He never wants to work with him again.   After the service project we stayed in our work clothes and went and did some work for Tara Mudaliar at her clinic she is trying to open.  She needed some ceiling tiles replaced. We only got a good start when we had to leave for the next project which was serving dinner  at the Salvation Army, which is always an interesting night.  It was supposed to be a light night, but people kept coming in.  We ran out of refried beans and rice and went through three big pans of enchiladas. About 120 people.  They only had to throw one guy out.  We didn’t have time to change before we went to a teaching appointment with Skyway A at the Acostas (Ruth, Rubi and Reymark) and then our meeting with the bishop.  The teaching went well with Rubi and Reymark committing to be baptized on the 29^th of August!

Thursday:  We had to face the scales first thing in the morning at W.W.  The teaching appointment last night went a lot better than the scales.  We ran from there to the museum to do our indexing class, which still needs a boost.  A lot of people express interest, but nobody has showed up yet.  That’s ok since we are still try to figure out what we are doing.  We ran from there back to the clinic to work on the ceiling tiles some more.  Skyway B needed us to help teach Eleazar at 4:00.  He is just a block from where we were at, so we took a break and went and taught in our work clothes again. Eleazar committed to be baptized also on the 29^th. He is Reymark’s older brother, and Rubi’s cousin.  We planned on going back and finish the tiles, but Tara called and said she needed us to come back on another day.  She had some kind of emergency.  That gave us time to go home and change for our 7:00 meeting with the Ward Mission Leader and all the missionaries.  There is a good possibility that we may get another set of elders in our ward on the next transfer.  (We know it will be elders since they won’t put young sisters in Skyway).   We have a hard time keeping up with two sets, so it will be interesting to see how we do with three. We have other commitments and members that we are working with besides the ones the elders are working with and there are two sets of elders that we work with, maybe three soon.  We love teaching with them so we hate missing a teach opportunity when we can’t go. The Kigins are moving so the Bishop is in the process of calling a new Ward Mission Leader.  We hope it happens soon as the Kigins are leaving in two weeks and we want a smooth transition. There is a lot going on and we don’t want the ball dropped.  Since we rode the bus and walked to the meeting, we had the elder sister give us a ride home.

Friday:   Our morning started with a 7:30 call from Renee to see if we could take her the E.R. at Harborview hospital. She has been having left shoulder/arm pain and weakness for the past four days.  Now we know why she hasn’t returned our calls. We checked on her later in the day and nothing serious was wrong, just some inflammation in her shoulder. After the trip into Seattle, we came back home and did our study class for the Book of Mormon. We had to cut our study a little short so we could get to our English lesson with Sister Acosta.  After the lesson we went to the Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park with Reymark, Sunshine, Princes Joy, Joshua, Ruth, Rubi Acosta and the Elder Sisters.  We bought them all lunch then the kids went and played in the water.  The park is at the southern end of Lake Washington.  We planned on a few more, but work gets in the way sometimes. While there we ran into another missionary couple for the Seattle Mission.  They are in the mission presidency so it was okay for them to be out of the mission boundaries.  The wife was from Arco and her husband said we were the first people he had ever met who knew about the Lost River and where it was at. We did buy a few more hamburgers to take to the Acosta’s that couldn’t come with us. 

After a quick stop at home we bought some groceries and made a visit to Joyce Johnson so Sister Knowles could read with her.  (We always try to take her some fresh fruit when we visit.).  While there the Skyway B elders called to see if we could go to a lesson at the Acosta’s at 7:00.  This was at 6:30.  Sister Knowles was just finishing so we made another quick stop to put our groceries away and then walked to the Acosta’s.  The lesson was not the best, but it was okay.   We did teach them the 10 commandments and the signs to remember each one by and they liked that.  Reymark seems to have trouble paying attention when he is taught in his home and Eleazaz seemed tired.  The elders are working on a way to teach all of the Acosta’s at the church.  The elders did show a Mormon Message at the end so the lesson ended on a real positive note.  On the way to the Acosta’s we ran into Karen and she has invited a friend of hers, from the shelter, to go with us tomorrow.  We will see how that works out in the morning. It was a long day and not much of a date night.

Saturday:  At 09:30 we picked up Karen and drove to Crystal Mountain and rode the gondola to the top.  Her friend didn’t show up and we had no way to get a hold of her.  It was cloudy over Mt. Rainier so we couldn’t get a clear view of it, but the rest of the weather was great. We ate lunch on top of the mountain before stating to hike.  We hiked along the ridge trail about a mile or two and then turned around and hiked back.  They were setting up for a wedding by the gondola, but by now the clouds were starting to get a lot heavier.  We even had a few sprinkles of rain on the way home. We thought we needed to get home for a 7:00 meeting, then found that it didn’t get set up.  That was good because Joyce needed to clean the apartment and work on her lesson for Primary, and Art was tired. 

Here is our preaching:  “The Spirt of the Lord usually communicates with us in ways that are quiet, delicate and subtle… The standard is clear.  If something we think, see, hear or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing or doing that thing.”   Elder David A. Bednar

Hope you all have a great next week.  Love Joyce and Art