All In!

                                                 Week 42 Oct. 18-24

Sunday: Joyce made the usual calls to invite members to church with not real good results.  Karen was the only one going.  It was too bad because church was very good.  A new couple in the ward spoke and a great musical number.  All of the Holly Street Acostas were there, no Green House Acostas.  Joyce helped with the music for the upcoming Primary program since Sister Chamberlain is sick.  There were also a few investigators there.  The Stake President came to set apart a new High Priest Group leadership.  After church we fed all the Elders, Sister Harrison and Karen.  The Elder Sisters were going to feed them, but Sister Chamberlain is still sick.  We had dinner early so some of the Elders could go sing in the choir for the devotional.  Karen and Shakira went with us to the devotional.  Elder Call, from the Seventy spoke.

Monday: 

Because of our meeting this week with Elder Lawrence and his wife, we are having p-day on Wednesday.  Roger and Darla stopped by on their way to Darla’s sisters.  It was nice of them to bring us a boxes of real Idaho potatoes straight from the farm.   It’s hard to find good ones here.  One of those little blessings we over look. Not just the potatoes, but also our friends.   We were able to go to lunch with them and have a nice visit.  A set of Elders (Lappalainen and Raps) needed a ride to the LDS S.S. and we owed them lunch so they went with us.  After their appointment, which took most of the afternoon, we took them to their next appointment by way of trying to find a referral we wanted them to check on.  All we were able to find was that the address is not in their area.  On the way home we had to stop and sing happy birthday to Sister Chamberlain, even though she was still sick and didn’t go to FHE.

 Tuesday:  We met with Elder Lawrence and his wife all day long with four of the zones.  We were able to see lots of the missionaries that we have worked with and some will be going home soon so it was nice to see them.  The meeting was very good, but we will save that for the preaching. Elder Jiao didn’t understand much since he is still trying to learn English.  He has only been in the country a few months. All the missionary companionships were interviewed by Elder Lawrence after the meeting, while his wife did a question and answer session.  It was pretty interesting. We had a nice interview with Elder Lawrence.  He said that even if we influence four families or people, our mission would be a success, and we are working hard to do more than that.  We went to the ARP class in the evening and when nobody was there, we decided to go home since Art is still sick.  If anyone has any good ideas we are open for suggestions.  We seem to keep passing this cold around.   As we were walking into our apartment, a sister called to ask if the class was cancelled.  She had arrived late and couldn’t find anyone.  We are going to have to rethink how to handle the class since the attendance has dropped way off, but we will have it even if only one shows up.  The sister said she would call us every week to let us know if she is coming and we will have the class for her when she is there.

Wednesday:

  It is supposed to be our p-day, but we had a project that needed to be done.  One of the sisters in the ward has to move from the care center she is in, to another which gives a little more care.  They only allow her to take two boxes of personal items and they have to approve them.  All of the rest of her things had to be moved from the old place by today. She couldn’t even be there as we went through her things to decide what to throw away and what to haul to the D.I.  Art rented a U-Haul and the Skyway Elders came and helped load as Joyce and the Elder Sisters went through everything, deciding what would go to D.I and what to the trash.  What a project!  We drove to Federal Way to the D.I. and then to the church dumpster to unload what the D.I. wouldn’t take or throw away for us.  The Elder Sisters took all the other stuff and threw it in their apartment complex dumpsters.  Somehow we ended up with the bed in our apartment, until we can figure out what to do with it.  It won’t fit in a dumpster and the D.I. won’t take it.  It is kind of a sad way we deal with old people.  All of her possession are gone and she will spend the rest of her life in a bed and chair that don’t even belong to her.  She hasn’t been that active most of her life so she doesn’t even have a good gospel foundation to take with her. It was kind of a reality check on what really is of value in this life.  The missionaries were the only visitors she had and now she has moved out of our mission so we hope her new ward will help her.  She has no family around here and we’re not too sure they would have helped even if they were close.  We had to get it all hauled out today or the Care Center was going to charge her hundreds of dollars if they did it.  It was a hard day, but it’s nice to know that you have done a little good along the way.

Thursday:

 Kind of a lazy day with Art being sick all day.  He needs to go to a doctor, but he won’t.  Joyce worked on typing up her notes from conference while Art slept.

Friday:  We attended our Institute class in the morning and went to lunch at Jimmy Mac’s, a steak house, with the Bensons and Elder Sisters.  Joyce made a cake for the baptism tomorrow and made banana bread (thanks to Jean Shippen’s marvelous recipe!) and muffins.  Mhina is getting baptized on her birthday (Saturday) so that is what the cake is for and Mhina is in Joyce’s Primary Class.  The Spanish Elders called at 3:30 to see if Joyce would play for the baptism at 7:00.  They gave us the hymn #’s from the Spanish Hymn book, then we had to figure out which ones they were in the English Hymnbook, so Joyce could practice.  They also told her she may want to practice a few other hymns just in case she was needed for the musical #.  The baptism was for Nancy and Eglen, the couple we helped move last week.  We had been teaching Nancy English for a few times, but she is very pregnant and quit coming.  Karen went with us even though we told her it would all be in Spanish and we wouldn’t understand.  Joyce did have to play for the musical #.  The cute little Spanish girl sang so softly and beautifully!  The Spanish Branch is very supportive, so there was a big crowd there with lots of food afterwards.  This is the most we have ever seen at a baptism.  With them just moving, and Nancy being so pregnant, it was wonderful that she and her husband could be baptized before the baby come.  The elder had to baptize Nancy twice.  Sister Knowles was so glad that she did not go into labor!  Anyway, with it all being in another language, we now understand how hard it is for the Acosta’s, especially Estrella, the mom. 

Saturday:  Most of the morning and afternoon was spent at the Filipino Cultural Center doing service. Joyce was in the copy area making copies, and Art sat an information table.  We think we are getting close to having a couple of the people that we work with over for dinner and maybe a lesson.   Joyce did do a little shopping during the lunch break for some new earrings that a nice Pilipino lady makes.   At 4:00 we had the baptism for Mhina Bangura.  Joyce was asked to play the piano again.  Mhina had to be baptized four times because her hair kept floating on top of the water.  Sister Knowles told her to tuck her hair into the back of her baptism suit and that worked.  After the baptism we had a small birthday party for Mhina because today she is 10. There was not a really big crowd there, in fact the Elders were a little disappointed in the support from the ward.  There was just family and missionaries.

Preaching:  Faith, hope and charity are action words that grows miracles.  Have faith in your righteous desires and goals.  Live by the word of Christ and He will intervene by the power of the Holy Ghost when we pray to Heavenly Father for help.  Then, we must do everything in our power to help what we prayed for happen. Have the faith to believe and you shall not doubt nor have fear.  Rather than have doubt and fear, be creative and get to work.  If something is impossible, and we want it bad enough, it can happen. Nephi 3 when Nephi had to get the brass plates. Have enough faith to bind the Lord, worthily claiming blessings, without brashness.  Expect obstacles.  Sometimes when we pray, we have to plead.   You are all super awesome!   Love Joyce and Art

Remember in

                         It’s me again Margaret                  

                         Week 41     Oct. 11-17  

Sunday:  We finished up Stake Conference.  We were about ten minutes into the meeting when the Skyway A elders asked if we could go pick up an investigator for them.  We hurried and left and when we got to her place she had changed her mind and didn’t want to go because the member that is fellow shipping her wasn’t going.  We got back and finished conference, which was wonderful.  Elder Murray had said that after having General Conference last week,  and having stake conference this week, it was like watching the varsity game and then the j.v. game, but stake conference was so good that we did not care that it was the “junior varsity game.”  We made plans to walk with Karen after lunch, but we had told her we were going to invite the Acosta’s to go to the Youth fireside at 2:00, thinking they probably wouldn’t go.  Reymark and Eleazar both wanted to go so change of plans. J 

We are glad we went.  Elder Murry really has a way with talking to the youth.  He also talked to Reymark and Eleazar after the meeting which meant a lot to them.  Then, we came home and did our walk with Karen at Seward Park and had a call from Josh and Jared. Isn’t face timing great!  Karen’s daughter also face timed us so Karen was able to visit a bit with her family.  It has been raining hard most of the weekend, but tonight was really nice.  A good evening for a walk around the lake.  We were in our missionary attire and one couple did comment that we were a little over dressed,(or she was under dresses.)

Monday p-day:  Laundry and letter writing is always how are day starts on a Monday.  We should say printing the letter since we have to write a bit each night or we forget what we have done. Also, a stop at the dry cleaners was needed.  The weather is changing, so it’s time to start wearing a suit every day. Jake called and let us face time with him and Mariah.  Lara was in class. Joyce needed the back of her hair trimmed, so we went over to the Elder Sisters after lunch. Art loves going there since they always have chocolate.   They had never been to Seward Park so we drove there and walked around a bit. The leaves and really starting to change now. Sister Harrison is getting a cold and isn’t feeling well. That’s probably why we all can’t get feeling better. We seem to keep pass it around since we are always in meetings together. It was a short walk, so we stopped on the way home and bought a pizza at this little restaurant. We have always wanted to try it, but have wondered about how it would be since their sign is upside down on one side.   Turned out it was a pretty cool place and good food. We went to FHE in the evening.  We haven’t been for a while and this man showed up from another ward and kind of took over things. The Elder Sisters met him at conference and he kind of invited himself.  It got very uncomfortable for everyone. He was very critical of his ward and the church and we could have either started a confrontation or leave.  We hope we did the right thing.  We got up and left. We were glad we didn’t have any investigators there, but there was a few less active members.  The sister in charge finally stopped him as we were leaving and said it was time to go.

Tuesday District Meetings:  We went early to our meeting so we could stop at the store and get some treats for the missionaries and Joyce could practice the piano.  The meeting was very good.  Even President and Sister Eaton were there.  After, we had to hurry to a visit.  We were running late and got lost, which made us more late.  Sister Skipps works out of her home by phone and when we got there she was on a call, so it was a hug from Joyce and we left.  Our next stop was at the Acosta’s to teach English and work on some Family History.  It was pretty challenging with the language.  We are trying to get some names for them the take to the Temple, if we can get them and the names ready.    Since Sister Harrison is sick, Joyce went with Sister Chamberlin to Swedish Hospital to visit Cathy Pang.  She had checked out so no visit.  We seem to get the information when members go to the hospital, but no information when they go home.   Art walked home and took a nap.  Karen went with us to the ARP class, but no one else came.  We will probably stop having them and do something different.  Since we didn’t have class, Karen went and talked to the Bishop and Art tried to figure out how to get onto the Family History computers.  Even without the class we had a good visit with Karen.  She has stopped smoking, which is a struggle for her plus a few more problems.  A few prayers for her would be nice.  Joyce fixed us all some hot chocolate and we found a couple of conference talks to help her.

Wednesday Service:  Northwest Harvest was today with the sister missionaries.  Sister Harrison is still sick so only Sister Chamberlin went with us. We worked with a group of 8^th graders boxing black beans.  This was the first time we have heard the people in charge yell at the volunteers.  8th graders can be a challenge. Joyce loved it.  It’s funny how wearing a name badge makes people think you are in charge.  We changed cloths there and drove to the Kent Stake Center to meet with President McKinney.  All the Senior Missionaries are supposed to be there, but we were the only ones that showed up with Sister Chamberlain. There is, only one other couple (the Hunts) that should attend.  All the other senior missionaries, six of them, work in the employment office (Sister Stucki and Kukudo) the mission office (the Young’s) or teach institute (the Bensons) so they can’t attend.  President McKinney talked about General Conference, our upcoming meeting with Elder Lawrence, and some suggestions for the members we work with.  We get a lot of advice, but until you work in Skyway it is hard to have a clear picture of what it is like and the problems we work with, but we always like council from our leaders.  We always go to dinner after our meeting. We needed to make some visits and Joyce had promised Raymark some cheesy potatoes so she made those and we delivered them to the Acosta’s and Vergarha’s, with a pan we will deliver tomorrow to the Freylingers.  The meeting with the Bishop was kind of a downer.  He gave us some assignments and then during the reports we found out that Annie doesn’t want to be taught anymore and the only other investigator that Skyway B has also dropped them.  Skyway A is also having investigators push back their baptism dates.  We’ll just keep trying and praying.  We have been working with most of these investigators, so it wasn’t good news. 

Thursday W.W.:  After our weigh in and lecture we decided to shop some more for groceries.  The potatoes were such a big hit we came up with a few more members we could visit.  We did a little shopping and Joyce gave out a few pass along cards, then home to make the potatoes.  Joyce made several pans of potatoes and we went to deliver them.  Annie wasn’t home at our first stop, so we went to the Dangs and gave them some children readers for the Old Testament, New Testament, and Doctrine and Covenants since Iris, age 5, is already done with the book of Mormon one that we gave her.  We planned on stopping at Mary’s, but it gets dark so early now and it is not a safe place after dark so it will have to be another day.  Since we had an extra pan, the Freylingers took two.  We think that with the grandma in the hospital that no one is fixing meals, plus they don’t have much.  Our last stop was at Ruth and Rubi’s.  Joyce is missing them with no regular church the past two weeks.  Now to our missionary meeting.  It was okay.  A lot of sickness going around among the members and missionaries.  We took Bro. Harrison home after the meeting, which is a big stretch for Art.  They don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.

Friday Institute:  We had a very good class.  Elder Holiday is such a good teacher.  Sister Chamberlain is sick now so she didn’t come.  After class we did our usually stop at Denney’s with the Benson’s.  The whole time we are eating we are getting text messages from Skyway A, Skyway B and the Spanish Elders setting up appointments.  Our day quickly went from slow to packed.  We need to make a few visits, but they will have to wait until Monday. Except now Monday is filling up with appointment with missionaries.  We met at Freylingers to help teach Mhyna her last lesson.  She is scheduled to be baptized next Saturday.  We changed hats and became movers with the Spanish Elders.  The family we moved is getting baptized this coming Wednesday.  They attend the Spanish Branch so it won’t help our ward. The sister used to come to our English class when she had a ride, so we knew her already.  We did take a break to play with some neighborhood kids in all the fall leaves. They were nice to load and unload us first so we could get to the Acosta’s on time (only ten minutes late, but we beat the Elders), for a FHE lesson.  They are such a fun family and it makes our day going to their home.  We had a good lesson on prayer and scripture study and they committed to read and pray as a family.  This should help a lot.  With so many teenagers there is a little contention at times, plus we hope it will help the father become interested in the lessons.

Saturday Temple:  Sister Sanchez wanted Sister and Elder Knowles to ride the bus to the temple with her.  We had planned to do that when she had a change of plans, so we decided to drive instead.  She sends money home to her family in Venezuela and had to wait for the bank to open. (They are open here on Saturdays to wire money).  Lots of the members work two jobs so they can support themselves and family that lives out of the country. We want to go to the temple with her to support her, plus it is good for us now that we have permission.  Sister Sanchez lives with her sister, who doesn’t like the church.  She is very faithful in attending the temple and would like someone to go with her.  Sister Harrison went with us.  Sister Chamberlain is still fighting a cold so she stayed home.  We missed the exit so had to come in the scenic way to get to the temple.  Riding in a car makes Sister Sanchez sick so she had to leave half way through the session.  After the session we had to find her in the first aid room, drive to the front of the temple and they brought her out in a wheel chair. We will try to go again with her in a few weeks but take the bus this time. Our next few Saturdays are already full, so it will have to be in November.  We took her home, picked up Sister Chamberlain and went out for a late lunch.  We had to hurry home, make dinner and clean a bit. We had Shakira Smith over for dinner. It was fun to get to know Sister Smith a little bit better.  The Smith’s just got married last month, moved into our building and now Bro. Smith has to stay on the army base for a month for training.  Bro. Smith is a West Point graduate, so he does the training.

 A little preaching: In our Stake Conference last week, we learned of the importance of the theme of the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 apostles to all the church.  Attending our meetings on the Sabbath and keeping the Sabbath Day holy.  Ask:  What can I do to make the Sabbath more powerful in my life.  Choose to be obedient, not selectively obedient.  Obedience brings blessings of eternal life.  That is how we show our love for our Savior, by being obedient.  Our sacrifice brings covenants and promised blessings in heaven.  What did the rich young ruler give up when he would not give up his riches and follow the Savior?  He gave up an association he would have had with Christ and an association of all the apostles and disciples!  Love, Art and Joyce

                    Week 38 Sept 20-27

It only takes one pitch to make a difference

                                                                     or one invitation

Sunday:  A pretty good day at church. Everyone was glad to have Joyce back, especially her primary class. The meeting was very good with lots of investigators and less actives there. For the first time in the nine months we have been here, we had a musical number in Sacrament meeting. Some of the investigators even asked some of the members to stay and go to all three meetings with them.  The Elder Sisters had all the missionaries over for supper.  They had to leave early to pick up some people for the devotional, so Joyce and the Elders did the dishes and cleaned up for them.  We then took Elder Bohne and Palo with us to the devotional.  The Elders can go only if they have an investigator there.  It was very good as always.

Monday p-day:  We did are usually thing, shopping and cleaning and laundry. Mostly we cooked and got ready for the evening. We had Annie, Luz, Karen and Skyway B elders over for dinner and a lesson.  It was mostly for Annie but Luz was there so it was good for her.  The lesson was on the Word of Wisdom, so it got pretty interesting considering the group we had there.  We invited Karen, she has problems she is working on, Luz (the member Annie and her husband live with) won’t come to church because of coffee, and it was the first time Annie had heard about it.  Annie and Luz both committed to live the Word of Wisdom but Annie told us how much she loves her coffee each morning before work!  Karen offered a few comments to help them understand the blessings of peace and comfort that come from living it.  Karen has her problems she is working on, but we love having her at lessons because she has a strong testimony of the atonement.

Tuesday District Meetings:  Meetings today were about teaching part-member families and helping them want to endure to the end.  Elder Goodell (our district leader) and Elder Walters go home on Monday so it was lots of good-byes.  Role plays were good because they pertained a lot to what we do.  Elder Knowles had a chiropractic appointment in the afternoon, then Karen wanted to walk and talk at Seward Park.  It was a beautiful fall day, Washington Lake was like glass, and Sister Knowles was wishing for a pair of water skis as all the boats went by. In the evening we went to our English Class and our ARP Class. 

Wednesday:   We went to Northwest Harvest and worked with the sister missionaries for the last time before transfers. We boxed pasta, like the Mac and Cheese kind.  We made a quick stop at Sam’s Club for the Elder Sisters.  The Skyway A elders wanted us to teach with them at 4; 00, so we rode the bus and then walked to the house only to find out that we had the wrong day.  We did have a nice visit with the family, so really it worked out great.  We can’t get internet in our back room and the Elders had sent the message Monday night and said the lesson was for tomorrow and we got the message Tuesday morning, so we thought the appointment was for Wednesday.  The President of China has been here since Tuesday and they have been telling everyone to expect traffic delays.  We found out on the way to the church what they meant, as we were trying to get Tesloach to YM’s by 7:00.  They had blocked off I-5 and all the surrounding roads when the president came from Tacoma to Seattle.  It was weird to see I-5 with no traffic on it.  Then we got to see the police lines of escorts first, and finally all the black SUV’s that went under the overpass that we were stuck on.  We thought the excitement was over for the night.  We were at the church for our English class when someone came in and told us we all had to go into the Relief Society room with the Young Men and Young Women while the police searched the building.  Someone they were looking for had run into the building.  They found him in one of the hall ways.  No one came to the English class, so we just stayed in with the young women.  We will cancel our English class and just teach in the homes. Later we had our Bishops meeting and then took Tesloach home from Young Mens.

Thursday:  We started with W.W. as always and then a trip to the museum to check on the indexing.  They still haven’t fixed things there yet, yet we are supposed to teach a class next Saturday on indexing. They even had the genealogy lab blocked off.  Some high security event was going to happen and a couple of guys in suits with radios were walking around.  They were towing a few cars from the parking lot so we didn’t stay too long.  They wouldn’t even say what was happening.  We came back home and went out walking to do our quadranting (for the second time) and Elder Knowles home teaching.  We were trying to visit four different members and only found two at home on the first try.  We did get one wrong address and talked to the lady there for a bit.  On the way home we stopped to check on Sonia, so we tried one more time at one of the homes and this time someone answered.  We didn’t get to visit who we wanted, but a young man, (Ivar) answered the door so we talked to him.  We didn’t even know that he lived there.  He said he would come to church so we will call on Sunday to see if he wants a ride.  He is a baptized member.  The ward could really use a few more young men.  The Elder Sisters came over so Art could see if he could figure out how to get pictures off of Sister Harrison’s phone.  It took a while but he got it done.  In the evening we met with all the missionaries and our new Ward Mission Leader. It was mostly a learning meeting for all of us and working out how and where we will meet in the future.  It will be so nice to finally have a Ward Mission Leader!

Friday:  The institute class stated today and we went with the Elder Sisters.  After the class we did our usual stop at Denney’s for lunch.  Joyce wanted to visit Joyce Johnson so we stopped and picked up some fruit to take to her.  She had more pants for Joyce to work on.  We rode the train up to Mount Baker then walked over to meet Diane Nardi for supper and a visit at one of the local Chinese Restaurant.  She just had surgery and has been wanting to get together.  She had some good chocolates for us!  We hurried back so we could go to a 7:30 appointment that ended up cancelling.   At least we found out that it cancelled before we drove there.  We did learn something new at the train station.  Don’t try going the wrong way on an escalator.  The last step is pretty rough.  The Muckleroys came from Idaho to stay a few nights with us while Chase plays baseball.  We had a good visit with them as we filled the blow up mattresses with air.

Saturday:  We helped clean the church first thing in the morning.  After we got home and cleaned up, we took Reymark, Eleazar, Princes Joy, Michelle, and Richel shopping for shoes and out to lunch.  Now, the boys don’t have an excuse not to pass the sacrament.  Joyce went with Karen to the Women’s Broadcast and Art took all the elders, (Jones, Palo, Fuller, Tavo, and Bohne) to supper.  This is why we have a hard time losing weight.  Seems like we are always take somebody out to eat.  Elder Jones told Art about the baptism that they conducted today.  They forgot to have an opening hymn, so when the musical number got up to sing (it was a solo), they both stared to sing thinking it was the opening song.  Finally they asked a lady next to them if they were supposed to be singing and she stopped them. Luckily it was a sister missionary doing the solo, so she just laughed about it.  Karen and Joyce rode the train and bus to Bellevue for the broadcast. They had to leave at 2:30 and didn’t get back until after 9:00 so not much else was done today.  The broad cast was wonderful and Karen seemed to enjoy being back in her old stake and seeing some friends.  Melissa, Karen’s friend, picked us up from the temple grounds, where we had walked to, after getting off the bus.  Melissa is the Stake Relief Society President and was in charge of the veggie trays, so it was nice to help with refreshments before the meeting and clean up.

A little preaching:  Joyce likes to do an object lesson in her primary class.  She used the Mento in a coke and related it to the way that kindness can spread.  If you are kind to a person, that person is more likely to be kind to the next person they see and it keeps going, just like the foam in the coke.  We can’t control others attitudes, but we can control our own and happiness can be contagious.  Like the song says “don’t worry, be happy” Have a happy week,

                                       Week 40 Oct 4-10

Going on a mission is a good way to find out who will miss you when you die!

Sunday:  Hope you all watched conference and enjoyed it.  We loved it, every session!  We had a car full of YM (Reymark, Eleazar and Ivar) and Karen.  The YM had a hard time staying for both sessions, but they made it. They really didn’t have a choice.   Actually, they liked the talks! Reymark did start clapping at the end.  We were going to pick up Annie for the last session, but she was sick and cancelled.  The Elder Sisters and we made soup, rolls, and cake for everyone to eat between sessions.  Mostly it was the missionaries, but there were a few members that joined us.  It is pretty fun to be around all the elders and sisters. We get to visit those we know and meet all the new ones in our stake.   We fed the missionaries between sessions in April, so those that knew us were expecting lunch.   Art moved the pick-up from the parking garage to the street so we could load the things for lunch and ended up hitting a big garbage container.  Another dent and scratch to remind us of the tight parking in Seattle.  The garbage container wasn’t hurt.

Monday P-day:  Today was a beautiful fall day.  We needed to run a few errands.  Joyce J. needed Art to put together a walker she had bought for Erica, return the hemmed pants, and Art needed some suits dry cleaned and altered.  We then picked up Karen and the Elder Sisters and drove to Flaming Geyser State Park for a picnic.  The State Park has the Green River running through it which has an interesting history from the 80’s and 90’s. We thought maybe all the colors would be out, but we are a little early.  It was still very nice, with some trees changing. The Steelhead were spawning in the river so that was fun to see. Art has caught Joyce’s cold so he is not doing well, he even let Joyce drive home so he must be really sick.  The Elder Sisters needed to get home for FHE so we didn’t hike too much.  Just one short walk to the river to watch the fish.  They are really worried about the spawning this year because of the lack of rain and the low rivers.

 Tuesday Zone Training: Art’s cold is worse so he stayed home and Joyce went to the meeting.  We are afraid between the two of us we will get all the missionaries sick and the next two weeks are big weeks with interviews and Elder Larry Lawrence is visiting the mission.  The district meeting was about using the Book of Mormon.  Joyce took a bunch of leftover snacks from yesterday which the missionaries loved.  Joyce also went to ARP by herself.  Most of the day for Elder Knowles was spent laying around and doing some paperwork.

Wednesday:  Art is still sick so Joyce went to Northwest Harvest alone, she did pick up the Elder Sisters.  By the time she got home, Art felt better and was sick of the apartment so we all went to the 4:00 appointment.  We had to pick up Christine and Bethany and then meet Skyway A at the church for the lesson.  Art did stay in another room in case he started coughing. After the lesson, we ran every one home and then went to the missionary meeting with the Bishop.

Thursday:  Plans can change so fast here.  We were going to drive Sister Acosta and Cabiao to the S.S office in Seattle.  That got changed to riding the train instead of driving.  We went to the train stop and no one showed, so we walked to the Acosta’s and decided we could apply online, then found we had to apply in person and needed an appointment for their situation.  After being on hold for an hour we finally made an appointment for November 5.  Sister Acosta is trying to get help for their son Eldrex.  He was born a healthy baby and at 8 months had a seizure.  They took him to the hospital where he was treated for a month and they gave him injections which made him worse.  Now he is 6, can’t walk and is still in a diaper.  He definitely has some disabilities.  This all happened in the Philippines.  Anyway, after we made the appointment, we all went to lunch, Michelle, Richel, Eldrex, Hajo (Michelle’s friend), Sister Cabiao, Sister Acosta and us.  It was fun we walked to the Asian BBQ place down the street from us, and Sister Knowles got to push Eldrex in the stroller.  The appointments with Skyway B all cancelled so we were able to go to the lesson with Skyway A and teach Mhina and some of her family.  We rode the bus and were a touch late but we made it.  The Zone Leaders (Skyway A) asked if we could sit with a sick elder the rest of the evening, so they brought him to our place, which got us out of going to the 7:45 missionary meeting.  Elder Rapp’s was sick, just like Elder Knowles had been. 

Friday:   We had a very good institute class today with lots of comments about General Conference.  The instructor is also the housing Coordinator for the mission and he had some interesting comments from Apartment Managers about missionaries.  They love having them there.  Missionaries are a calming influence and often they don’t up the rent to get missionaries to stay.  After the class we went to the Stake Center for an interview with President and Sister Eaton.   We had lots of questions for the Eaton’s and we were told to just do what we needed to do as service to the members of the Skyway Ward, even if it took us out of the mission periodically.  We even get to go to the temple 4 times a year, so we can go with a Spanish sister that Sister Knowles goes visiting teaching to.  That will mean a lot to Margarita!  The Elder Sisters were with us so we made a quick stop at Sam’s and then out to lunch.  We have a lot a sick friends in the ward so we started some soup for tomorrow to take around and then went to the Acosta’s to teach about Family History.  Joyce got to ride Reymark’s bike so she was happy!  President Obama is in Seattle today so the sky always had a helicopter or two flying around spying on us.  Joyce J. car has quit running so at 10:00 we went and gave her a ride home from work.  Busy day! 

Saturday:  We thought we had a rather slow day but it quickly got out of hand. The soup is done so we made lots of deliveries.  Joyce J. needed to go to the store so we took care of that.  While there she wanted Art to hang a couple of pictures she had gotten from work.  He hung the first one and while he was working on the second, the first came crashing down.  So, we had broken glass all over the floor.  The pictures were free so not a big deal.  Art was using Velcro strips to hang the pictures and when he rehung the first he found either the frame or the wall isn’t flat so not all the corners of the frame touch the wall.  We did finally get both hung up. Then, we took Joyce J. to the African grocery for four bags of groceries, plus a box of yams.  They must like yams in Africa!  From there we made a stop at the Jackson’s for VT.  We had a good visit and lesson, and then picked up the Elder Sisters and went to the Priesthood Leadership meeting for Stake Conference.  They had invited all the missionaries, but Joyce and the Elder Sisters wouldn’t go in the chapel and just sat in the foyer.   Between sessions of stake conference we took all the Skyway Elders to supper at Arbys.  We invited all the elders to go, but President Eaton doesn’t like them all together.  The Adult session was very good and this time Joyce and the Elder Sisters went into the chapel and Art stayed in the foyer.  He still has a bad cough.  Here are some good notes from conference:  Enjoy!  We had an area 70, Elder Murray, come to our conference and he talked about putting your “whole self in” in the gospel experience.  He likened it to the Hokey Pokey and we may start with maybe just putting in one arm or one leg in, but we need to “immerse” ourselves in the gospel and put our “whole self in” to having a Christ Centered life.  Start where you are, as President Uchtdorf taught in conference, and have a willing heart and desire.  We all have spiritual DNA from Heavenly Father and we are trying to become like God.  .  He said we all make excuses.  On his last trip to Africa he learned about giraffes.  A man was paid to haul two giraffes and one was taller than the other.  The man was driving quickly to his destination with the two giraffes and did not do the proper planning.  He went under a bridge and the tall giraffe hit the bridge.  There were many people on the freeway who called the police and the police pulled this man over.  The tall giraffe died.  The man would not take responsibility, but blamed the accident on the bridge, because he said, “The Bridge was too low.”  Elder Murray cautioned us not to make excuses like this man did.  He said to not be a couch blob and use the excuse that you have to watch one more television show or play one more game, because there will be no couch blobs making excuses in the celestial kingdom and that the celestial is where we want to be.  There are inactive people in our church, active people in our church, and proactive people in our church.  The proactive are the ones who read their scriptures, pray, share the gospel, keep the commandments, do their callings, and have an excuse free life. Anyway, food for thought… It was a great stake conference.

Love Joyce and Art

                                                  Week 39   Sept. 27-Oct 3

Visit friends often, so the path to their                  home doesn’t become choked with weeds

                                                                 And it doesn’t hurt to write them once in a while either

Sunday:  The Muckleroys left early this morning.  We got up, fixed breakfast, said good-by, and got ready for church with all the phone calls Joyce makes to see who is going to church and who needs a ride.  A few less actives that we had contacted last week are coming for the first time in months. We had the pick-up full with four in the back and three in front.  Sister Vergaro and her grandson, Ivar, didn’t stay the third hour so we had more room going home.  We were just glad that they came.  Ivar is 15, so we could potentially have another young man to pass the sacrament.  Reymark and Eleazar passed the sacrament in their new clothes we bought them, for the first time since they were ordained.  They looked so handsome!  Joyce had Ruth, Rubi, Michelle, Sunshine, Princess Joy, Mhina (an investigator) and Donny in her primary class. They loved the coke and Mentos lesson.  Reymark came to her class at the end so he could make a paper doll.  Between the four sets of missionaries in the ward we had two investigators and ten less active members at church. Two more investigators would have been there, but they are sick along with a couple more less active members that have committed to come to church.  Plus seven of the thirteen most recent converts where at church.  We know 7/13 doesn’t sound great.  Sometimes there are no less active members or investigators there.  We know one of the recent converts has moved and really we only have two that we are really worried about and work is one of the biggest problems with him.  The other we have lots of contact with, but aren’t sure what her problem is, besides being sixteen.  We thought it was a pretty good day and we had a good meeting so we hope they will all be back.   We have General Conference, followed by Stake Conference so it will be three weeks before we have a meeting at Skyway.  We will be making a lot of visits to keep up the interest in attending church.   After church we came home and did our favorite thing, TALKED TO THE FAMILY.  We did manage to watch the blood moon and find one new investigator between calls.

Monday:  We were so glad to see the morning arrive.  A member of our ward is always predicting earthquakes and Mt. Rainier erupting, so the blood moon last night had him going.  Art would have been pretty mad to think that he had dieted the week before the world ended, so he felt better when the sun came up as usual.  Plus, we didn’t get transferred, but several of our favorites, (we know we aren’t supposed to have favorites, but we do) in our zone and ward did.  We can just hope we get to see them again.  Art keeps telling Joyce not to get so attached, but it’s hard not to.  It usually is P-day but because of transfers it will be tomorrow.  We have things going on both days so we won’t be going anywhere. We rode the bus down to the Skyway area for a visit and then missed the bus for our next visit and ended up walking a bunch.  We did find another Buddhist Temple.  It is Laotian and they are not as friendly as the other ones we have been to.  We made our last visit and got to talk to Crystal Silverhorn and give her some cookies.  It was a beautiful day to be out and about working.  We rode the bus home to meet Skyway B elders at our place.  Elder Palo is being transferred and wanted to copy the pictures we have of him. When an elder has been in an area over six months they tell them Sunday night they are being transferred so they can say good-bye.  He will still be in our zone so we can still see him once every week at district meetings.  After they left we met Karen and rode the train to the Mariner’s game.  It was a little bending of the rules, but Karen needed a break and we are member support.  She has to be in by ten so we had to leave early and made it by 9:55.  Mariner’s lost 3-2.  Evan Gattis plays for Houston and hit a home run so that was exciting for Art, plus all the junk food.

Tuesday.  Joyce spent most of the morning hemming pants for Joyce Johnson.  Then, we met her at 1:30 and took her to lunch.  Joyce still has more pants to hem.  Eric is six months old and wears eighteen month clothes so they are too long for him. We think it is funny when Joyce J. worries that he isn’t eating enough.  We did have a visit for the Skyway B elders as they were on their way to transfers.  Elder Palo is getting sick so Joyce loaded him up with medicine to take with him.  She has become the Zone Mother, so the elders call her when they don’t feel well. After our lunch out with Joyce J., we walked to the Acostas for an English lesson and gave them a bunch of t-shirts we have collected the past few months.  They are always handing them out at the ballgames and service projects and we have no place to wear them.  We had a good ARP meeting at 7:00.  The Skyway A elders called at 6:55 to see if we were coming to teach at 7:00 with them.  Sometimes we have a communication problem so we didn’t make the teaching appointment.  They had forgot to tell us, but we couldn’t have gone anyway because of ARP.  After the excellent ARP class we stopped at one of Joyce’s V.T. ladies and made a visit there at 8:30 p.m.   Her name is Margarita and she has been through the temple and we had such a nice visit.  Margarita rides the bus to the temple on Saturday and was wondering if we could ride the bus with her and go to the temple with her the Saturday after conference.  It is out of the mission, like most everything, so we shall see.  It would be so wonderful to go to the temple!

Wednesday:  District meeting was today and we met most of the new missionaries in the zone. Elder Zamora is our new D.L.  He is a Spanish speaking elder and he used to live in our building.  Our new district consists of:  Elder Palo and his companion, Elder Kidwell, Sister Wright and Sonasee  and Elder Serrine, Elder Zamora’s companion.  After our district meeting we went to Wal-Mart to shop for tomorrow’s dinner.  We were going to take a p-day and go for a ride, but Tesloach wanted a ride to YM so we went home and cleaned some.  Since we were taking Tesloach we called and invited Reymark and Eleazar to go.  They were almost ready to say yes then backed out.  We have been trying to get them to YM since they were baptized so we will keep trying.   We stopped by to pick up Tesloach and when we called to tell him we were there, he then told us he was at a park and wasn’t going to Y.M.  Since we were already on our way we went to the church early and Joyce practiced the piano until time for our missionary/bishop meeting.  It went very well, with some new plans since we now have a Ward Mission Leader.

Thursday:  W. W. again with okay results.  From there we made our run to the museum.  This time we were able to make contact with Stacie to find out what she wants us to do on Saturday.  They are having a big conference on Family History and she wants us there from 1:00-until-4:00.  I guess we will miss the second session of conference. If you didn’t know, October is Family History Month.  We are mostly going to be at the museum to answer questions and do a little presentation about indexing.  Since we are not experts, it may be interesting.  At 3:45 we picked up Annie and Luz and they came over to teach Joyce how to make Pancit.  Art made two different kinds of peach pie and one strawberry pie for dessert.  They tasted okay, but they didn’t look as good as he had hoped.  Annie and Luz also brought some kind of side pork and eggroll looking things with a banana inside.  The Skyway B Elders, Bohne and Jiao, and Karen came over at five for dinner and the lesson.  There are still some Word of Wisdom issues so they pushed back Annie’s baptism and the lesson went a different direction.  We took everyone home, then went to our missionary meeting.  It was another good meeting, with more talking about people and less about the calendar. 

Friday:  The morning was filled up with the Institute Class and lunch with the senior missionaries (Elder Sisters and the Bensens).  We came home so Joyce could finish hemming the pants for Joyce J.  In the afternoon, we took Ruth, Rubi, Mhina and Joanna out to eat.  They picked a Thai place and then couldn’t find anything on the menu so we had to leave and go somewhere else.  Our next stop was Popeye’s, a Louisiana fast food place.  They liked it until they got our order wrong.  By the time we got it straight we ended up with double the order so the kids really loved that.  Plus the manager and a women were fighting over something so we got dinner and a show.  At 6:00 we met Skyway A at the church, which ended up being the Spanish Elders instead, for a lesson with Mhina.   None of our keys, for the church, would work so we went to her house and had the lesson outside.  They won’t let anyone inside their house.  Then, we hurried back north for a lesson at the Acostas.   Ivar, from a few doors down, also was there.  Meeting with the Acostas is one of the highlights of our mission. We are trying to get the kids interested in YM/YW. We had a short testimony meeting at the end of the lesson on the Priesthood, then out came all the food.  Elder Jiao (from Beijing, China) is our new Elder, Elder Bohne’s companion. They had made some Bluet for him, (boiled duck egg, with the duck somewhat developed) but he ate it with no problems, he even liked it.   They tried to get Elder Bohne to eat one again.  He would not, so Richel and Michelle each ate one.  Richel loved hers.  Michelle hated hers and spit it out in the kitchen.  Cheap entertainment for us!  How we love the Acosta family!

Saturday we thank God for a prophet:  It was so nice to attend conference with all the missionaries.   We have to go to the Stake Center and it is mostly just missionaries, but there were a few members there today.  After the 1^st session we had to leave and go to the museum.  They wanted us there from 1:00 until 4:00 and when we got there we found they only needed us at 3:30 so we were able to listen to conference on the I-pad.  We could have stayed at the church since they never used us at all.  They wanted us to talk about indexing, but the computers still won’t work and we think we are a little intimidating to some.  Joyce is fighting a bad cold so we came home and put her to bed which is not easy.   After resting, Art made the soup for Sunday lunch between sessions, and Joyce, carefully, made the cake, so as not to get germs in itJ

Preaching:  We have been studying what it takes to be a good teacher and a good student.  For a lesson to be effective both must have the spirt so that the Holy Ghost can do the teaching.  We can’t control what the teacher does, but we can control what we do and how prepared we are to learn.  When President Kimball was asked what he did in a boring Sacrament meeting he said, “I don’t know, I’ve never been in one.” (Art said, “Well President Kimball has never been in a meeting where I talked”).  We have thought about his statement and decided that we have a few things to work on to be better learners.

Hope this letter finds you all well and excited after listening to conference and ready to become better teachers and students.

 Love Joyce and Art