Week 46 Nov 15-21
It’s
beginning to look a lot like Christmas
(At least in our apartment)
Sunday:
We had a normal day for church.
Only Karen wanted a ride or was going to church. Ruth and Rubi did stay and also the Acosta’s
for all three meetings. In the evening
we took Karen, Princes Joy, Joshua, Michel, and Eleazar to the Mission
Devotional in Renton. A recent convert
in our ward (Brother Valdez) spoke at it.
It was very good as usual and we were happy to have the Acosta’s come
with us.
Monday p-day: We seem to always have somebody needing a ride on
Mondays. Joyce Johnson needed to go to Kent
to have her hair done. We like helping
her since she is always so thankful. We planned on going to
F.H.E. until Skyway B called and wanted us to go to Sister Fabon’s with
them. We love going there almost as much
as going to the Acosta’s, so no F.H.E.
We had a good lesson on reading the Book of Mormon every day. Our computer also crashed this morning so now
our communication may be a little slow.
Tuesday: No meetings this morning because of Zone Conference on Friday
this week. It was a good day to stay in
with the weather being very bad. Lots of
wind and rain. The trees blow over all
the time and cause power outages. Art
spent most of the day trying to restore the
computer without losing all the files.
We did try to teach English at 2:00 at the Acosta’s, but they forgot and
weren’t home. You can only stay in the
apartment so long, so we braved the weather and made a visit to the Buddhist
Temple to take some fruit and also to visit one of our less active members,
Ethel. The Monk at the Temple that we
wanted to visit (Sovet) has gone to Cambodia for two months, so we won’t be
seeing him for a while. We did have a
good visit with Sister Ethel Skipps. She
is always so kind to us that we love to check on her. We picked up two ladies for the A.R.P. class
in the evening and a third lady was also there.
We have turned the sharing portion of the meeting into more of a
discussion while reading the suggested scriptures. It works out well with our small group. Everyone makes such great comments!
Wednesday
Northwest Harvest: We had a good morning of service. Toasted oats and elbow macaroni. The regulars are a lot friendlier than when
we first started going there. We are
still working on the computer so we did a little shopping and went to lunch
with the Elder Sisters. The shopping was trying to find a Best Buy and when we
finally found it, it turned out to be the warehouse. We’ll try again tomorrow. The weather is still cold, windy, and
rainy. In the evening we had our meeting
with the Bishop. He is a good man.
Thursday W.W. Art wouldn’t weigh because we have
eaten out too much this week. He handles
the stress from the computer by eating. Just
so you know we joined W.W. to get us out in the community. Even though we haven’t done so well with the
weight loss, we have made several new friends, so it has been worth it. We
should do better in the future because Art is getting worried. They asked him
to be Santa at the Filipino Cultural Center and he is worried why they would
pick him. We did more looking for computer, which just confuses us more, so we
did what we know best and bought some food.
We wanted to visit Mary Hurley and she always wants food from us. One of the things we said we would never do
is go to her place in the dark. We must
be getting braver or dumber because that’s what we did. The weather has finally gotten better so we
wanted to go for a walk. It was worth it, because she was so happy to see
us. She thought we had forgotten her. We
did make it back to the apartment okay.
The worse part of the walk was going around all the construction. In between shopping and walking we got Karen
a new bus pass so she can go to Federal Way for the needle club. (She donates plasma).
Friday Zone Conference: The topic for Zone Conference was
“Mighty Prayer”. It was a good meeting
even with the hour of role playing we had to do. What we learned will come in
the preaching. It was an all-day meeting
and we had to stay after to get new temple recommends. We had the Elder Sisters with us so we
stopped for supper before going home.
Saturday: We started the day with a bus ride to Fred Meyer. Joyce gave out several pass along cards for
the Nativity display in Maple Valley, Bellvue and Federal Way. We were doing service at Fred Meyer for the
Salvation Army. We made up bags of
groceries for people to buy, and then they donate the bag to the Salvation Army
so they can give them out. There were
too many Elders for the small room we had to work in, so Joyce and I went out
and rang the bell by one of the kettles.
This wasn’t a planned project, but the Salvation Army folks know they
can always get help from the missionaries, so they call us a lot. Several
Elders had to miss lunch to be there, so Art went to the Deli and got them
something to eat. We had a dinner
appointment at 5:00 so we stayed downtown and walked around before walking to
our appointment. Since we hadn’t eaten lunch, Art was getting hungry. We knew that the dinner at night was all you
could eat and he didn’t want to go there and over eat if he was too hungry. To
solve this problem we walked to Sam’s and hit all the sample booths, some more
than once or twice. Brother Marler lives
in an assisted living complex and he invites all the missionaries to come to a
special dinner they have the week before Thanksgiving. They have a big buffet. The Elders got their money’s worth, especially
with the desserts. It’s interesting to watch the Elders from China, Tonga, and
the Philippines and see what they think is good and what isn’t. We tried to get Elder Jiao from China to try
the mashed potatoes, but he wouldn’t do it.
He did love the dessert table, so did Art. After dinner the Elder Sister drove us home so
we could get to an appointment with the Acosta’s. Ric, the dad, said he would take the lessons,
but leaves whenever the Elders come over.
We’ll just keep trying. We did
have a good lesson with the rest of the family on prayer.
Preaching: Gratitude is the catalyst for all other characteristics. We should see people as God sees them, and
plead with our Father in Heaven for them.
If we continue to care and think of others, we will receive personal
revelation. We, the weak and the simple,
are His hands. Our faith in Jesus Christ
provides the way that we can accomplish mighty miracles through mighty
prayer. Pray for: persistence, things to
come, prepared hearts, specific people, specific needs, what to discuss,
inspiration, energy, the ability to withstand temptation, the gift of
discernment, to not be scared, opportunities to grow, understanding,
forgiveness, opportunities to be more charitable, the pure love of Christ,
sensitivity to see people through God’s lens when people are difficult to
love. From the song, “Come Thou Fount,”
remember to Pray to Heavenly Father to shape your heart, to change your heart
and to take your heart. Love Joyce and
Art
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