Elder & Sister Knowles

Week 35 Aug 30-Sept 5
It’s easy to miss what you are not looking for
Sunday: Karen was the only one that we gave a ride to church. We invited several others but nobody took us up on the offer. Rubi, Eleazar and Reymark Acosta were all confirmed with Elder Knowles confirming Reymark. Joyce spoke in Sacrament meeting on the Priesthood and she did a great job. Ruth and Rubi stayed for primary, but it took lots of coaxing. In the end, Joyce ended up with Ruth and Rubi and their mom, Jennifer, Estrella and Michel and Tesloach in her class. There was a joint meeting with the R.S. and Priesthood so there was no Young Men lesson. We did get Joshua, Eleazar and Reymark to stay, but they weren’t very happy.

Reymark thought he was starving to death. We are having trouble getting them to stay for priesthood because there is never a lesson for them. We can’t get the youth leaders to step up. Ezekiel and Tesloach were coming over for dinner, until Ezekiel decided he needed to go to bed, (he needed to go to work early) so we only had the elder sisters, Tesloach, and Karen. We had lots of left overs. Joshua face timed us, which he does every Sunday and Karen didn’t know we could do that, so we let her face time her daughter in Minnesota. She was pretty excited.
Monday p-day sort of: First a quick stop at the elder sisters so Sister Chamberlin could cut Joyce’s hair. Then, we went with the elder sisters to Enumclaw with a member of our ward that is moving there. She (Margaret Foster) is elderly and can’t live alone anymore, so she is moving in with her son’s family. She wanted us to know where she was moving to so we could come
and visit her. After the visit we stopped at a little diner along the road and had lunch. Enumclaw is a nice little town with lots of farms around it and a nice view of Mount Rainier. We could live there if forced to live in Washington. We came home and Joyce worked on the area records while Art took a nap. We took all the leftovers from Sunday, to FHE, where they were all eaten. We were glad to get them used up, then came home and found another container full, so guess we will still be eating leftovers this week.
Tuesday: We had District meeting in the morning.

Sister Missionaries At Northwest Harvest

Elder Walters was sick so we combined with his
district which gave us a few more missionaries to role play with. We worked on contacting.
Something that we do very little of. We had a fun lesson teaching English at the Acostas. Estrella, Eleazar, Eldrix, Princes Joy and sometimes Reymark (you have to love Reymark, her has the attention span of a flea) were all there. On the way home we stopped at a Filipino market to buy some banana leaves. It’s a pretty interesting place. Lots of things that we have never heard of, or thought of eating. The English class, at the church, was a bust but we had several at the APR class. We showed an awareness test on u-tube and talked about it. If you haven’t seen it, google moonwalking bear and watch it. Karen went to the ARP class with us so we were able to visit with her a bit.
Wednesday: All the senior missionaries are supposed to meet with President McKinney the first Wed. of each month. We haven’t met since April and he canceled again for this month. It’s not the meeting we feel bad about missing, it’s going to lunch after the meeting that we miss. We had Northwest Harvest with the sister missionaries in the morning doing frozen beans. Since we didn’t have our meeting with President McKinney, we rode into West Seattle with the Elder Sisters and visited Kathy Pang in the hospital, then went to lunch. Most of the afternoon was spent getting our report for the Bishop typed up and getting ready for another English class. We had one person show up. A lady from Vietnam that the elders had invited. It was a pretty fun class. Our meeting with the Bishop ended the day, with no Ward Mission Leader called yet. Sounds like members keep saying no.
Thursday: We went to W.W. first thing as usual then up to the museum to index. They haven’t fixed the computers yet so we didn’t stay too long. The Acostas taught Joyce how to make sticky rice so we spent most of the day there. Of course, they have to feed you when you visit so we had fried chicken wings, some kind of noodles with spam, shrimp, and some kind of fruit (mabutin). While Joyce made the sticky rice, Art talked to Reymark and Eleazar about going on a mission, country western music, and school. They told Art what you have to do in the Philippines to become a man. Not to pleasant. We’ll just say it involves a knife and a hammer. In the evening we walked to Sister Nielsen’s home for our missionary meeting. We still can’t get any of the auxiliary leaders to attend except the R.S.

Friday: Joyce was taking soup to two ladies in the ward that she V.T. so we spent most of the morning cooking. One just had surgery in Utah and the other is less active and will only let us in if we have food. We had some extra so we gave some to the R.S. President who has been sick. After dropping off the soup at two of the homes we stopped at Wal-Mart for some more groceries for dinner on Sunday. We have more people coming over. In the afternoon we took Ruth, Rubi, Reymark, Eleazar, and Princes Joy shopping for clothes. It was pretty fun. Eleazar and Princes Joy are very quiet and Reymark, Ruth and Rubi never stopped talking. Ruth and Rubi are usually quiet, but they like Joyce so they talked a lot. They don’t have any church clothes and the boys will start passing the sacrament soon, we hope. Ruth and Rubi don’t have any dresses. We split up: Joyce with the girls and Art with the boys. Of course the boys finished sooner than the girls so they went to the food court and ate while the girls continued to shop. Not only does Reymark talk a lot, he never stops eating. We took them all home and then had to hurry to a 7:30 teaching appointment with the Skyway A elders which turned out awesome and Joyce might have a new member for her Primary class. Kenzie is very interested in the church and hopefully will be to church Sunday.
Saturday: We spent the morning doing some business for home (Idaho Falls). At noon we needed to take lunch to another lady in the ward that Joyce has been working with. We weren’t sure if she would let us in, but she did and we had a nice visit. She said we could come anytime, just can’t bring the elders. The young lady that the elders taught last night needed the Book of Mormon Reader so we took one to her on the way home. We have permission for Joyce to fly home so we spent the afternoon preparing for that. Art will stay and take care of the classes we have so we should have everything covered. The Elder Sister will help Art with the classes and he will still be available to go with the elders if needed. They will be disappointed to not have Joyce there. Karen came over at 5:00 with dinner and then went with us to teach at 6:00 to the Acostas. They had all gone to a movie, except Reymark and Eleazar so we had a lesson with them. Allison and Ryan will understand when we say that Reymark and Tyson would be best friends. We are understanding the Filipino culture when it comes to keeping appointments and being on time. The 7:00 appointment canceled so we came home and then walked Karen home. The Safeway parking lot was full of police cars and when we got home our parking garage had several police cars in it. A usual Saturday night in Skyway. It does make a nice light show when the pavement is wet, which is was tonight. Joyce bought her plane ticket so, Allison, you may see her in Idaho Falls by Wednesday. Joshua and Anj, you will see her sooner, and Jake and Jared, you are out of luck, but we will keep you up to date on what is going on.
Our preaching for the week: At our last zone conference they talked a lot about non-linear blessings. (They don’t line up with what you are doing, but are blessings anyway). We watched the video of the moonwalking bear and after you watch it this will all make more sense. The elders have been using the I Nephi challenge (read 15 min. every day and you will finish I Nephi in 10 days). I Nephi has lots of examples of non-linear blessings. So here is your assignment, do the Nephi challenge and then see where you are getting non-linear blessings in your life and your family’s life. We count your friendship and support as one of our greatest blessings! Love Art and Joyce