Week B41 Feb. 22-28

                               Put me in coach, I’m ready to play

                     Look at me, I can be 2nd base

Congratulations, Caden!  Thanks for calling us with your good news on Saturday!

Preaching:In the middle of a large round table was a large delicious pot of stew.  The people sitting around it looked sickly and weak.  Each person had a spoon with a very long handle strapped to his or her arm.  Because the handle was so long, the person found it impossible to get a spoonful of stew into their mouth.

Sister Missionaries at Northwest Harvest

In the next room, it was like the first with the stew and the long handled spoons strapped on, but the people here were laughing, happy, and well nourished.  You see, they had learned to feed each other.  They had learned the truth about service.  President Monson said that real joy is well within our reach as we become aware of our power to give to one who is needy.  May we become Christ’s agents and in such nourishment find true joy and happiness.      

Monday p-day:  We kind of took it easy today, laundry and letter writing and delivering a birthday present to Estrella.  FHE was in the evening and Art taught the lesson.  Nothing special, pretty much the same group of people attended.  We did find out that Johnny Joel didn’t get his passport renewed.  Someone told him differently than what we had told him and he went with what they said.  We will have to help him in July when they do it again.

Tuesday District Meeting:  We thought we were having district meeting and then got a text that it was zone meeting and earlier than we had planned.  We had to hurry but we made it on time.   Most of the meeting was role playing.  We did have to leave early to go and teach English and Joseph showed up to tell us that he had gotten a job.  We are happy for him.  The Muslim ladies at the front desk said they were sorry that we didn’t have anyone to teach, but we said we were happy he got a job.  That is what we had been working towards with him.  So, maybe its time to move onto something different.  If Sara doesn’t come on Thursday we will be cancel it. We walked to the post office to pick up a letter and made a few visits along the way.  No one was home, but we were able to talk to one man out working in his garden atone members home.  We will send the Elders to follow up with him.  No one came to ARP, so it’s probably time to cancel that class and move on to something else. Skyway B came over after we got home so they could us our fob, to get into the building, to check on an investigator.  She was also not at home.   Lots of no one home or no shows for most of what we did today.  Love missionary life.  

Wednesday: 

We sacked and boxed rolled oats at Northwest Harvest with the Sister Missionaries.   Our group was too small to divide and too big for one room so it was a little crowded at times.  (They didn’t divided us.)  After the service project, we stopped and did some shopping, with the Elder Sisters before going to lunch.  Sister Larson had invited some of her kids to go to lunch with us so we could meet them.  Sister Larson has extended for two more weeks until Sister Beck arrives.  Most of the evening was spent doing paper work and Joyce practicing the piano since our Bishops meeting was canceled. 

Thursday:  Our plan was to walk to the Acostas and help get B-Boy on the bus, but we were to late.   We did end up walking to the school to check on the English class for Estrella and a video she needs to watch so she can volunteer.   We might volunteer at this school, when our English class is over, so we came home and filled out the applications and watched the video.  Since Joseph has a job and Sara is a maybe most days, we’re probably done.  Karen had called and wanted to walk so we walked the trail along the power lines (Chief Sealth for Seattle).  The Union Gospel Mission, where Karen and Diane live, finally approved us to volunteer there, so we will sign up to serve dinner there once in a while.  The weather has been great all week and it was nice to get out and walk in the sunshine.  In the evening we visited Joyce Johnson and Joyce read the Book of Mormon with her.  We ran some errands and then attended the missionary meeting.  We found out about more lessons the Elders want us to help with.  A little more notice from them would be helpful.   We know they are working hard so we don’t mind.

Friday institute:  We had a very good class today.  They talked about the keys and church organizations.  The Elder Sisters were with us and we all went to lunch after along with the Crabtrees. They were the housing missionaries before the Holidays.  Our order at Sam’s club arrived so we picked it up and also worked on getting Arts prescriptions filled.  We had to make a few phone calls but we think we have it worked out.  We will find out on Monday.  It has been so nice all week, until this evening and now the rain is back.  The 4:00 pm appointment was late.  The kids hadn’t gotten home from school yet, so Joyce and the mom went to school while the rest of us (Art and Skyway B Elders) stood out in the rain.  The lesson did go well once we got started.  Joyce taught most of it on prophets.  The Elders asked her to do it,  so she was ready and did a great job.  We didn’t have time to go home before our next stop.  We were waiting then found out Joanna was running late so we made a quick trip to see if we could catch Tesloach at home.  No luck, but we did find out that Skyway B has had contact with him, but not his dad.  We took Joanna and Karen to Bellevue and the Family History Discovery Center.  They really enjoyed it and they are both excited to start doing some family history and getting some names ready for the Temple.  The Temple is still closed so they had to take pictures and look at the Temple from outside the fence.

Saturday:   It was supposed to rain today, but it ended up being a beautiful day.  Our plan was to ride the bus to the church, but we missed it by two minutes.  We took another bus that got us close then started walking.  Casey Smith stopped and gave us a ride the rest of the way.  We spent four hours going over the ward roster with the ward council and the missionaries. The clerks will now move out the records of those we know have moved.  The Bishopric will do all the “do not contacts” and will do something with them as per the church guide lines. Even with all our work from before, we still have lots of visits to make.  Now, we will decide which ones we will visit and which ones the Elders will visit in our area and the Elder Sisters and Skyway A will do the same. All the missionaries have been working on this for years so we are glad something is now getting done.   After that meeting we walked to the Acosta’s to check on a few things and ended up helping Sun Shine try to get her keys out of the trunk.  She locked them in. We walked home to get tools, then, we had to leave, but Richelle’s boyfriend got the back seat out and found them. We did get Estrella to watch the training video so she can now volunteer at the school.  It was in English so not sure how much she understood, but it’s done.  The lesson for Princes Joy went well.  We had Dylan Sablon there so he could teach her in Cebano.  After the lesson he explained to Sister Acosta about Priesthood blessings and she wanted a blessing for Eldrex, so we took care of that.  Bro. Sablon did the blessing in Cebano so Sister Acosta could understand it.  After the lesson Reymark and Eleazar wanted to play basketball, so the Elders played with them until time for them to go.

Sunday:    The rain is back.  We started off with a text from Skyway A asking if we could contact someone about a ride to church.  We did even though we didn’t have room in the pick-up.  He never responded.  We picked up our usual group and went to church.  It is different with so many Acostas gone to the Philippines for the grandmother’s funeral, but at least the ones that came to church, stayed all three hours.  Since Joyce only had Princes Joy in her class, Brother Munson, the YM President, decided to join the Primary class for lesson time with Princes Joy’s brothers, Eleazar and Reymark.  We were not long into the lesson when the Bishopric came in to ordain Eleazar to a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood so that he can baptize Princes Joy next month.  They also set apart Remark as the President of the Deacon’s Quorom, since he is the only deacon.  We also went and got Estrella and Sunshine out of Relief Society so Sunshine could be set apart as the Relief Society Assistant.  Now, they just need to get a calling for Estrella.  After all that we only had 15 minutes left of class time, so Princes Joy voted to finish doing the plays that we had started doing a couple weeks ago.  It was fun to see the YM Presidency and the Bishopric all in costume doing our plays with Princess, Reymark, and Eleazar.  It was a good Sunday.  After church, Karen came over and ate dinner with us and then Joyce and Karen did Karen’s  homework from the Hope Gospel Mission.  It was three pages of questions from the Old Testament and reminded Joyce how much she loves the Old Testament.  It was delightful!  We got to face time with three families and talk to Mom and Dad and that was our Sunday.

Hope you all have a good week.  We love and miss you.  Art and Joyce

                  Week B42  Feb 15-21

                      “No Problem”

Preaching:  When we had dinner Sunday, for dessert all the kids helped Joyce make Rachel’s famous “Rolo Pretzels!” We applied the recipe to the gospel:  First, work to line a cookie sheet (the sheet means to do Service) with  foil and spray it .  Place the twist pretzels (Pretzels mean Prayer) on the foil and put a Rolo (Rolo means Read the scriptures daily) in the middle of each. Bake in the oven on 350 degrees for exactly (exactly means exactly obedient) 2 minutes and 30 seconds.  When you take them out of the oven and turn the oven off, place a M and M candy (M stands for attending your Meetings each Sunday) in the center of the Rolo.  Then, they must stand  (Stand means to stand for truth and righteousness) for 45 minutes.  This is a recipe for a yummy treat and by following it exactly, it is a recipe for a testimony.

Acostas and missionaries

Monday:  We didn’t get all the Valentines delivered on Sunday so we stopped at the Acostas on the way to a bus stop.  They were excited to see us and we ended up staying longer than planned.  That put us having to run to the bus stop and we weren’t fast enough so we missed it.  We did get a good jog in and had a good view of the bus leaving.  By now we are running too late to be able to catch the next bus, so we walked back home to get the pick-up.  And the bonus was it was all done in the wind and rain.  We had a tour at the museum and since we were running late we also managed to hit every light on MLK red, and there are a lot of them.  It was free day at the museum, because of the holiday, so our tour kept gaining new people.  We started withIt was a fun group.  They were a group that teach girls how to be ladies, so they were all very polite, curious, and courteous. There were around six young women and four advisors, plus the few we picked up along the way. Everyone asked a lot of questions.  Elder Knowles took way too much time on his part so instead of Sister Knowles doing her part we just let them go on their own.  Most of the afternoon we spent working on writing up some notes we had and preparing for FHE.  There was a good crowd at FHE.  Karen even asked a “young man” to come walking with us at Seward Park.  We’ll let you know about that!

Elder Murphy, Reymark and Elder Jones

Tuesday:  Today was supposed to be p-day but our Tuesdays are already booked.  We had the English class first.  Joseph was the only one who showed up.  We knew Sara has been sick.  After the class we picked up Reymark, Princes Joy, Ruth and Rubi for an activity.  They were out of school and wanted to do something.  It wasn’t raining so Joyce took them to the park across from our place and Art stayed home and made pizza for them.  They played on the swings, the zip line, the slide, and Reymark had his basket ball, so they even played that for a bit.  Then, they came in and ate.  We took Reymark and Princes Joy home then stopped at the Hope Mission to pick up a lady for ARP.  She brought another lady with her.  We dropped off Ruth and Rubi (they live close to the church) and then went to the ARP class.  It was a pretty good class.  The second lady isn’t a member so she is not to engaged at times, but the first lady really enjoys it.  The non-member did ask a few questions about the church on the way home.   She asked what beliefs of ours make us different from other religions.  We told her about the Godhead and Prophets, but then we were at Hope Place and time for them to get out.  We just hope that her being at ARP may someday spark more interest in the church. For now we know she’s there to get a meeting in.  We have thought about dropping ARP but we keep picking up new people, so we will keep it going at least for a few more months.  

Coming home from the first day at school

Wednesday District Meetings:  They have finally got it worked out with the mix of Elders and Sisters so we know for sure that we are in Elder Samuelson's District.  Either way Joyce will have to play the piano. She didn’t have to play today.  They were cleaning carpets so we couldn’t use the rooms with pianos, plus we were late.  We walked Eldrex to school for his first day this morning and it took much longer than we had planned.  There were more forms to fill out. They have a temporary wheel chair for him, so after we got him there, we transferred him from his stroller to the wheelchair.  When we left, the teacher already had him out of the wheelchair and he was scooting around on the floor as they did there morning activities on the carpet.  Estrella had a hard time leaving him.  She kept looking in the classroom, but he had a huge smile and was so happy!  We did get to the district meeting in time to do some role playing.  After the meeting we came home so Joyce could help Diane with a book she is writing.   Joyce types, and Diane dictates.  Her life has been hard and very interesting.  It is such a testimony of how our Savior is this for each one of us and how He blesses lives!   At 3:00 we walked back to school to bring Eldrex home and fill out more forms.  Our meeting with the Bishop was canceled, so we stayed home and finished the taxes.  We should have them sent off tomorrow.  The Smiths came down to visit and brought chocolate!  They live on the 4th floor in our building.  The Elders, (Skyway B) came over and wanted us to help them with a visit.  They checked first it see if the referral was for real and when it was the Smiths went back with them and helped them teach the first lesson.  We will try to have her over next week and teach a lesson at our place.  We are booked at night the rest of this week, so it will have to be next week.  The Elders were pretty excited about her.  Art stayed up late to send the taxes off but he was having trouble getting them to send so he went to bed.  Will check on it tomorrow.

Discovery Center

Thursday:  The taxes have been sent and received by Data Tax.  Happy day!   We may have to celebrate today with a diet pepsi.  Now it’s just a matter of waiting for good or bad news. We walked Eldrex to school again and helped fill out more forms.  Now Eldrex is signed up for lunch, they are working on getting him a wheelchair and Estrella may be able to  volunteer when we watch a video with her.  Mr. Westcom did tell us that he tested Eldrex yesterday and he seems to be very smart so he should do well and Mr. Westcom is optimistic about helping Eldrex to walk.  More tender mercies.  The school district should have a bus lined up sometime.  We also found out that Ric’s mother passed away last night so several of the Acostas will be going to the Philippines next week.  This will effect Green house and Holly house Acostas and will slow down the missionary lessons.  She had been sick for several months so it wasn’t unexpected, but Ruth and Rubi are so sad.  Diane came over and Joyce typed up more of her book.  They worked on it until time to go back and pick up Eldrex.  We were a bit late getting to the Acostas and they had already left, which is a good thing.  Tomorrow they will be on their own.  They went out one door as we were going in another so we missed them at school, but we did get some more papers from the teacher.   We did catch up with them on the way home and we did find out that it will be one more week before a bus starts to pick up Eldrex.  We came home, (after a stop for supper, taxes are done), filled out some volunteer apps for the Hope Mission, studied until time for our meeting and made phone calls trying to set up the trip to the Discovery Center tomorrow.  Karen wants us to help at the mission and they need to do a background check on us before we can. Our missionary meeting was very good.  Both sets of Elders wanted us to help them teach tomorrow, but we already have the Discovery Center planned with the Acosta’s.  We worked it out with Skyway B, but not Skyway A.  They use us as a backup when the members can’t go so sometimes it just doesn't work out.  

Sister Knowles, Estrella and Michelle

Apollo, Art, and Jane

Friday institute:  The rain is back in force.  We picked up the Sisters and went to the institute class and then to lunch after.  We are trying to help a young lady in the ward get involved with the young singles and visiting with the Bensons was very helpful.  The class was also very good.  We ran into President Eaton’s parents at the restaurant.  We had to stop on the way home and do some shopping for Sunday and fill up with gas for the trip tonight. On the way home we discussed Captain Moroni and how that  story relates to Joseph’s coat of many colors.  Last week our discussion was about the resurrection.  Sister Chamberlain has had many experience with her husband (he passed away several years ago) that are testimony builders, so the resurrection was a good discussion.  Our trip to the Discovery Center went well.  We had the Sisters and the Munson’s lined up to help transport everyone.  The Green House Acostas didn’t go at the last min. Ruth and Rubi are sick with a fever and coughs, so Joshua didn’t go either.  They are all supposed to fly Wednesday to the Philippines, so we hope they get better quickly.  Eleazar and Richel didn’t go, but all the rest did: Estrella, Michelle, Reymark, Princess Joy and Eldrex in his stroller. Skyway B showed up at the last min. to teach Princes Joy a quick lesson so that put us running late and we also had to contend with the end of the going home traffic, but we made it on time.  The Elder Sisters were able to ride with us and the Munsons so they didn’t have to drive.  We think everyone had a good time.  Its hard to tell with kids and Estrella doesn’t understand some of what is being said.  She did go into the recording booth with Joyce and the children.  She talked a lot.  Michelle translated for Joyce.  She told about her conversion and also about the Philippines growing up and meeting and marrying Ric.  The others also all shared experiences  as Joyce asked questions.  It was all recorded on a jump drive  Joyce took everyone over to the Temple, but the gate was locked so they weren’t able to walk around, but we still took a lot of pictures through the gate.  They wanted to touch the Temple.  Looks like we will plan another trip.  On the way home we stopped for ice cream.  Michele is going to the Philippines in March so we gave her the assignment to gather more info about her family.  We felt good about the whole experience and we are sure it helped the Acostas.

Elders, Bohne, Knowles and Jiao

Saturday:  We walked to the Filipino Cultural Center and spent from 9 A.M. until 4 P.M. there volunteering for the passport renewal program.  It goes for three days but we could only help on Saturday. Skyway B worked there yesterday. Jane had asked us to come and help plus we enjoy going there.  Joyce worked in the copy room and Art worked in the photo room.  Art wasn’t very busy so he had a good discussion with Jane about the church.  She asked a few questions and he answered them until he remembered the talk from conference, then he told her about the restoration.  It’s mostly the first lesson the missionaries teach.  Now we just need to get her a Book of Mormon and some family history sheets.  She said she would accept a Book of Mormon. Michelle posted on face book about how much fun the trip to the Discovery Center was, so we will count that as a success.  We came home, very tired, and Joyce got things ready (a broccoli and cauliflower salad) for tomorrow’s lunch until time to take Joyce J. out to celebrate her passing the citizenship test.  We are going to try to help her get her son and mom here to Washington.  It is another process that is going to take a lot of tender mercies, but we have confidence that it is the right thing to do.  We had a good time, we are very proud of her for passing! Then, we came home and finished getting ready for tomorrow (snickers salad this time, Art’s choice).  It was the first sunny day in a while and we spent most of it indoors.

Sunday: We got up at 6 A.M to put the casserole in the crock pot and get ready for church.  We had a car load for church, Karen, Diane, Joyce, and Eric.  That was good and after one good day, the rain is back.  Lots of flood warnings.  None of Joyce’s class showed up for primary.  Ruth and Rubi were still sick with their coughs.  Several other Acostas weren’t there either, and those that were there, only attended Sacrament meeting and then left.  We were a bit worried about our dinner party that was supposed to be at 1:00, after church.  So, we invited the Sisters and Elders because we had prepared a lot of food.  We said the blessing and were dishiing up when when, Rubi and Irma showed up with Joshua.  Ruth was still too sick to come.   Then, Sunshine brought Michelle and Princes Joy, so six of the Acosta’s showed up!  Sister Knowles did part of her Primary lesson because they are leaving for the Phillipines and won’t be here for three weeks.  The Elders were able to teach the Plan of Salvation to Irma and Princes Joy.  They do such a good job. Irma and Princes Joy seemed to really enjoy the lesson.  They had the Plan of Salvation all sketched out on the White Board with the cutest pictures!  We did have tons of leftovers that we can use for FHE tomorrow.  In the evening we attended the mission devotional in Kent, which was good as always. Karen and the Elder Sister went with us and we were able to see lots of our favorite missionaries.  One small miracle was having Elder Jones (he is a favorite) sing in the mission choir.  We never thought we would see that happen.  It has been a busy week, but productive we hope.  Lots of things we need to follow up on.  Love Joyce and Art

Sister Chamberlain and the Eatons

                           Week B43 Feb.  8-14

                                        Happy New Year

Preaching: We learned from our conference talks that the way to answer questions about the church is to start by talking about the first vision and revelation and then your answer comes from what our Father in Heaven has revealed to us through a living prophet.  We can’t wait to try it.  We hope you will try it, too.
Monday Vietnamese New Year:  

We went with Estrella, Michelle and Eldrex on the light rail train to the Seattle School District office in Sodo to have Eldrex tested for school. He speaks no English, except “Elder and Sister Knowles,” so, his English wasn’t  too good.  On Thursday we will meet with a school teacher to see if they have the facilities to meet his needs. The meeting is at the school they think he should be going to, close by their house.  We hope it all works out.  On the way home we stopped for breakfast and Art bought some donuts.  A boy came up to him on the way home and asked if he could have a couple of donuts.  Only in Seattle…  We got off the train and the Acosta stayed at our place until time for Eldrex’s appointment for his shots.  We worked a bit on some family history for them and they looked at our journal books with all the pictures of them.  They really liked seeing all the pictures of themselves in our books.  Looks like we will be making a book for them.  After the appointment we walked them home and then went to the Buddhist Temple just a bit up the road.  We wanted to see the Dragon Dance, but we missed it.  It’s New Year's day for them.  We did get something to eat, but only something we recognized.  They tried to talk us into the soup, but we couldn’t tell what all was in it.  Things were winding down but there were still lots of people there and lots of incense still burning.  In the evening we went to FHE.  We picked up our usual group and then added an extra for the trip home.  The extra is one we are working with so we were able to visit a bit with her.

Tuesday:  Our plan was to walk with Karen in the morning but it was very foggy when we got up so we decided to wait until the afternoon.  That worked out good since we needed to clean the apartment.  At 1:00 we went to teach English, thinking nobody would be there.  Sara was sick, but Joseph showed up after missing the last two classes, so that was good that he came.  After the class, we met Karen and we rode the train into Seattle.  She wanted to walk the Alaskan Trail.  It runs along the water front through several parks.  Since Karen is often 50% of the ARP class and she was with us, we decided to cancel the class for tonight.  That allowed us to walk longer and watch the sun set.  It was beautiful, peaceful, and brought her a lot of hope that she desperately needs right now as she fights to get her life back on course.  After it got dark, we stopped and ate then walked back into downtown Seattle and rode the train home.  The whole point of the trip was to help Karen a bit.  She has had a rough couple of days.  She went home very happy, so it worked.  The walk and the food didn’t hurt us either.  It has been the closest thing to a p-day that we have had for a long while, plus it is supposed to start raining again for the next ten days.

Wednesday Zone Conference:  Today was exciting. The rain is back but not too bad .  We stated with Zone Conference at 09:30 at the Stake Center in Renton.  President and Sister Eaton are such good teachers.  We spent a lot of time on teaching repentance and teaching learning by faith.  We had to leave a bit early to go and do a tour at the museum.  It turned out to be an all black group and they were a bit surprised when they found out that their docents were white.  We had some pretty interesting discussions about race differences. They asked us to stay after the tour and we thought they were going to fire us, but they wanted to know if we could pick up a tour on Presidents' Day.   Next, we picked up the girls for achievement days.  Reymark wanted to come so he could play basketball.  The girls worked on goals and Raymark and Art did some family history.  Everyone did get to play a little basketball in the end.  We took everyone home then came back for our Bishops meeting at 8:30.  It was a long, but rewarding day.

Thursday: 

We have finally gotten Eldrex into school!   At 8:30 we met with the school ( an IEP meeting).  We were just a bit late because Michelle forgot to remind her mother.  Joyce was right at home in an IEP meeting.  It brought back lots of good memories.   He will start school next Wednesday.  This is a little bit more than a tender mercy, almost like a miracle.  It has been a long, hard process and it is now going to happen.  This will be such a blessing for Eldrex and his family.  After the meeting we had another tour at the museum.  It was another mostly black class.  7th and 8th graders.  Again we had some good discussions.  The hour tour time goes so quickly when the groups are engaged.  Our English class was next so we couldn’t stay at the museum to visit.  Sara was the only one that showed up.  Joseph called to let us know he had missed the bus and wouldn’t be coming.  Sara still doesn’t feel well so we were going to keep it short, but she kept talking.  We found out a lot about her.  She wants to have us over for dinner, we think.  We didn’t quite understand everything she said.  She dresses like a Muslim, but she is a Christian.  Her husband is Muslim and makes her dress that way.  When we asked how two white Mormons would be received in her house (they live with her husbands family who are Muslim) she just kept saying, “no problem”  Thats our new saying when we are asked to do something.  She had her kids with her today.  A boy and girl, twins.  Grandma Joyce loves them.  After the lesson, we stopped at Safeway for a few things for our dinner engagement at our home.  A lady came up and wanted to know where our church was because she is looking for one.  Hopefully the Elders will start teaching her and her family.  Joanna Lua and the Elders ( Jones and Murphy Skyway B) came for dinner at 5:00.  Joanna is a recent convert from Hong Kong/England, who just moved here.  We ate dinner and had delightful conversation with her.  She is 23, has her master’s degree, speaks 4 languages, and has traveled extensively.  Her dad is Buddhist and her mom is agnostic.  They are separated and her dad is happy she found her religion that she loves while studying in England.  She has not been brave enough yet to tell her mom that she was baptized in April last year.  We had a short message from the Elders and then drove her home.  She doesn’t live too far from us, but it is raining and dark so not ideal for walking.  Our last stop for the day was our missionary meeting at 7:45.  It’s usually a test of patience and tonight was no exception.  The elders work so hard with not much success, but at least we are getting some heads of auxiliaries to come to this meeting.

Friday:  

We picked up the Elder Sisters for institute. Our tour at the museum was canceled so there was no rush to get back.  The bad thing about sleeping, is all the ideas we wake up with.  Looks like we will be planning more dinner lessons.  Our plan for going to the Discovery Center was one trip but is now up to two and may grow more.  “NO PROBLEM”  After our class we did some much needed shopping.  Joyce had planned to visit Nancy Hale, but we ran into her at Sam’s Club so we will go to her home later.  She wants more English lessons.  She is our friend that got baptized that we keep seeing at recent baptismsIn the evening, Joyce, Karen and Debra Driggs went to the Valentines party at the R.S. Presidents home.  Art stayed home and did paper work. Sister Chamberlain drove them home.   It was a slower day than the rest of the week and we needed it to be slow.  When it comes to our age showing we can’t say  “NO PROBLEM”.

Saturday:

  The big meeting we were going to have with the ward council was canceled so we went to the temple with Margarita.  The canceled meeting has been a frustration for us.  We want to be moving on the ward roster so we are just going ahead without the assignments being made.  We had a tender mercy on the way to the temple.  We have to make four transfers and we made them all with very little waiting.  The weather was nice when we left but we took the umbrella anyway.  It was a good thing.  It rained all day.  The Temple was very nice and Joyce and Margarita had a good visit.  We took Margarita to lunch after the session and then to Desert Book to pick up a few things we needed.  The ride home wasn’t as good.  One bus stop had three buses that never came.  We were trying to get home so we could take an investigator to a baptism, and then found out she had canceled. We figured that’s why we didn’t get heavens  help with the buses.  We got home wet, cold and tired (umbrellas work great except when the wind is blowing) and had two packages waiting for us.  What a nice pick me up!   Thanks for the wonderful letters in the packages!  Thanks Allison’s family and Josh’s family.  Thank you very much.  Hearing from home is great.  The rest of the evening we spent (Joyce) getting some Valentines ready to deliver tomorrow, if they show up at church.

Sunday: The member that lives up by I-90 didn’t let us know that he wasn’t going to church so our drive there was for nothing.  We are going to rethink this process.  As of Thursday he was coming to church.  We did have Karen Vargas and Joyce and Eric Johnson with us.  All of the Valentine receivers didn’t come so we stopped on the way home to deliver them.  Thanks Rachel,  we used a lot of the ideas you sent us on the scriptures.  Our church was a stake meeting, and it was where all the speakers were from a broadcast in Salt Lake.  It was a very good meeting.  Joyce took little Eric out so he could play with other children and we listened to the speakers in the foyer while the kids played.  After church we had Karen over for lunch then Joyce and Karen went for a walk while Art talked to the kids on face time.

It has been a very busy week, but we feel like we did accomplish a few things.  Hope you all have a good week.   Love Joyce and Art

Bus stop waiting for 106

          Week B44  Feb. 1-7

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.  M.L.K.   Share what matters to you.

Preaching: The Lord has given no greater charge to His people than sharing the gospel with our Heavenly Father’s children. Missionaries take people out of the darkness of the world and lead them to the safety and light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To find and teach and baptize and confirm someone who has never paid much attention to God or to Christ and His great atoning sacrifice is one of the greatest services a person can provide.   We heard a story about a person who had a friend from high school that called her twenty years later.  She said, “ Twenty years ago, you knew that God and Christ had appeared to a young man and called him to be a prophet.  Didn’t you think that was important to tell me.”  

Monday:  We spent most of the morning working on paper work and getting meals ready. We had an appointment to go read with Joyce Johnson and Joyce wanted to take her lunch.  After we read with her and studied a bit for the citizenship test we went over to the Elder Sisters and finished working on the ward roster. Now we just need to stat knocking on doors.   In the evening we attended FHE and met a new couple that just moved into the ward.  They should be a big help. 

Tuesday p-day: We did some laundry and prepared for our English class.  Karen brought one of her friends over to meet us, Marcie Boyce.  They stayed and visited for awhile.  The English class went okay considering Joseph didn’t show up and Sara was sick.  After class we walked to the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple (the weather was beautiful today) to see when the dragon dancers will be there for the New Year celebration. It was a bit hard to communicate, but we think we have it figured out. It’s across the street from the clinic that we helped clean up so we made a quick stop there to say hello.  Our main reason for going this direction was to visit the Filipino Cultural Center and find out when the passport renewal is taking place.  We will probably volunteer there again.  On the way home we stopped at a Vietnamese restaurant to eat.  Not sure what some of the food was, but we ate it. Pretty exciting when you think you have ordered one thing and something else comes out.  Some of it looked like white worms, but it was just octopus. We did have to ask which parts to eat and which not to.  The owner was very nice, so even though the meal wasn’t the best, we have had, we will go back there to visit with her and order something different.  Her name was Canton and we told her we were missionaries.  She, too, is a Christian, converted from being a Buddhist, so when we asked her about the Dragon Dance at the Buddhist temple, she said that they asked her to be in the dragon, but she could not, she is Christian now.  She was interesting and told us about the Buddhist legend of birth with the angel and the dragon.  The Chinese people get slanted eyes from the dragon, that went back to the sea, and our eyes are more round, from the angel that went to the mountain.She asked me my name and when I told her, Joyce, she said, “My name is Canton, which means happy, just like your name means happy!”  She was very cute.  The ARP meeting went very well.  Seven of us counting the senior missionaries and we had a good discussion.

Wednesday district meetings:  We had our meeting this morning and weren’t able to meet our new zone leader because of sickness.  We heard it was bad food from a fast food place. We didn’t change districts until we arrived at the church and found out the the mix of Elders and Sisters didn’t work out so we did have to change. It worked out good for us because we got to stay with the young sisters that we really like and we are with the Elder Sisters, also.  Joyce still has to play the piano in the meetings so that is also good.  We did get to meet the new Elder in Skyway B, Elder Murphy from Reno, Nevada.  He is brand new, two days out.  Elder Jones will be his trainer which is very good for him. Elder Jones is another one of our many favorites. After the meeting we had to run a few errands and then went over to the Elder Sisters for lunch.  Sister Larson wanted us to meet a friend of hers that works in our area.  She drove us there and then we took the long way home so we could drive across the bridge on Lake Washington.  The rain is back in full force so we did some much needed shopping and then spent the rest of the evening doing more work from home.  Karen needed a little help so we took care of that and Josh called so we were glad that we stayed home for a bit.  

Thursday:  We thought it was going to be a slow day, but it quickly gets out of hand.  Joyce spent most of the morning doing the taxes and Art was paying bills.  Thinking we had plenty of time we didn’t hurry.  Nobody showed up for English which wasn’t a big surprise because of sickness going around.  We had planned to make a bunch of visits so that just gave us a little extra time.  First we walked to the Acostas to get more info for Eldrex and make sure everything was ready for tomorrow.  Good thing we checked since the hospital had called them and reschedule the appointment for next month, because they had all been sick.  We did get the info we needed and were faxing it when the school district called to say they had enough  info they needed, so we set up an appointment for Monday.  We made a stop at the home of some recent converts who haven’t been to church in months.  They weren’t home so we walked to another visit we needed to make hoping we may run into the kid, from the first visit, coming home from school.  It was too late in the day and school had been out for awhile so no luck there and the lady we wanted to visit had moved this week so we struck out there also.  We rode the light rail into West Seattle, the Sodo station, so we could find the district office for our appointment on Mon.

On the way home we stopped at the Acostas to let them know about the appointment on Monday morning and found out that the Holly Park clinic had called and scheduled an appointment for Eldrex on Monday afternoon for shots.  Monday is going to be a busy day.  The hospital and the clinic use an interrupter sometimes, or send letters, and the school uses us, (mostly Joyce) to communicate.  That’s why we are dealing so much with the school. It was cloudy all day so we packed the umbrella everywhere, but never had to use it.  Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.  In the evening, Joyce finished the taxes and Art worked on a list for the Skyway B Elders to visit until time for our meeting with all the missionaries and auxiliaries.

Friday: We attended the institute class this morning. All the ones we had invited to go with us slept in. It was a very good class. The Elder Sisters met us there because they needed to run a sister to Federal Way first thing in the morning.  It was a good class about the spirt world so there was a lot of discussion and questions asked. After class we went to lunch, as usual, with the Bensons.   They are down to weeks before they go home.  On the way home we drove by the Renton Highlands building to make sure we can find it for the baptism tomorrow.  Gas is down to $1.66.  That’s a nice tender mercy for us.  Today is cloudy and cold, but the rain didn’t start until after it got dark.  We worked on taxes again and our maps of the area so we can start knocking on doors next week.  Joyce did finish the taxes except for the info Allison has to mail us.  We did have to make a quick trip to the church and a stop at Ruth and Rubi Acosta for a primary assignment.

Saturday:  Joyce organized a get together lunch with all the senior couples.  We have a few new ones and some that are going home soon.  We have to get together on a Saturday so the office missionaries can come and do it early because of the size of the group.  The Hunts, McKinney’s, Layman’s, Young’s, Benson’s, Sister Chamberlain, Larson, and Hanson were all able to come to lunch with us at the Black Angus.  Good thing we had reservations!  After the lunch Art dropped all the Sisters off at the Mall and he sat in the pick-up while they shopped.  Joyce needed a new purse.  On the way home we had to stop at the church and then make a visit for the Primary lesson tomorrow.  Joyce practiced the piano until we had to leave for the baptism that she is playing for.  It was in the Spanish Branch so we didn’t understand much of what went on.  We did understand the font running over and flooding the room. 

The Hermana’s that were watching the water said they were “role playing” when it ran over.  That’s another reason that role playing should be banned according to Art.  (Not really, we use it a lot for practicing when we teach…)  The baptism service was very nice with lots of support from the branch.  Even though we don’t understand much they are very spiritual and up lifting to attend.

Sunday:  A lot of no rides again.  The early meeting time is taking a toll on attendance.  We did pick up Karen and Diane for church.  Diane is going to work on her four generation sheet so we can set her up an account on family search and maybe take Karen and her to the discovery center someday.  (We need to get the Acostas there first).  Diane bore her testimony in church so that was special.  Karen and Diane both have things to work on but they are headed in the right direction.  Joyce’s primary class went well with our costumes for the plays.  She just ran out of time.  All of the Acostas were in class with her and that brings in the young mens presidency also, to be with Eleazar and Reymark.  After church and lunch we walked around Seward Park with Karen.  We had a nice day weather wise, no rain and lots of sunshine.  When it is clear, like today, there is a great view of Mount Rainier at the park.  It has been a busy week but lots done.  We e-mailed several on the list of contacts we now have and had one respond positively, so we will make a visit with her this coming week.  We need to get out and knock on some doors but can’t seem to get the time.  Next week is already very busy with appointments.  The new contacts need to be made, but he don’t want to drop the work we already have in place.  Hope you are all doing well and sharing the gospel.  Love Joyce and Art.

            Week B45 Jan. 25-31

                  Singing in the Rain…Most days

Preaching:  As we contemplate throughout the sacrament, we can screen and filter out what is amiss in our everyday life.  We need to be bound to the Savior and the Sacrament binds us to Him, His love, and His joy as we contemplate HIs great love for us, that He died that we might live forever.  The sacrament is a time of personal revelation and to reflect on what we could do better.  It is a time to think about 1. what to stop doing, 2. what to start doing that is not getting done, and 3. what things to continue doing.  Through the sacrament and renewing our baptismal covenants and then acting on decisions made, let us relieve ourselves of burdens that are weighing us down that we do not want to carry any more.  Like people on the the Oregon Trail, people would leave possessions behind that were life threatening if they continued to carry those possessions.  They were simply too heavy.  The sacrament is a refining time of evaluation for us alone to become better and to leave burdens.  Our Savior suffered and died for those burdens and if we repent, his mercy will make us whole and happy.  Intelligence is truth and light and as we are obedient and learn, we become a better person.  Satan has no light.  At our final judgement, wouldn’t it be awful to have the Savior say, “Oh, if you had only let me help you!”  Brigham Young said that we live far below our privilege.  Taking the sacrament and going to church is our school, our institute, to help us learn as we study the gospel, the prophets and the scriptures to learn of our Savior.   

Sisters Goodman, Bailey and Knowles  Elders Knowles, Samuels, Samuelson, Larson and Nelson

Monday District Meeting:   We had our last district meeting for this transfer.  Mostly we had a discussion on the special broadcast from Salt Lake. (That is where the above “preaching” came from.)Elder Samuelson is a very talented leader and he also is very musical.  We did have to role play a bit.  After the meeting we always get a quick picture of the district before transfers.  Since we are busy tomorrow when it is suppose to be p-day, we did a few things that needed doing.  We got the oil in the pick-up changed, washed and vacuumed the pick-up and did some shopping before FHE.  We celebrated Debra Driggs birthday at FHE and there was a good turnout.  Joyce taught the lesson on the restoration and bore her testimony.  There was one person that she had in mind when she prepared her lesson and she actually decided to come with us tonight when we invited her. it was a tender mercy!

The Bensons, Michelle, Sister Larson and Chamberlain and the Knowles

Tuesday p-day:  Most of the morning we spent getting ready for the English class.  It seems like we never have the right thing prepared so we over prepare.  Now that we have gotten to know the two students a little better we can stay on their level a little better. Sara brought her little boy with her, so Art read with both of them and used the flash cards we had bought.  They both liked the flash cards and took them home so they could practice.  Sara wanted us to have a class every day, but we just don’t have the time for that.  Joyce read a book with Joseph, and played a game. He is at a much higher level than Sara.  They both are interested in the citizenship test so Joyce went over the some of the questions with them while Art read with Sara’s little boy.  After two nice days in a row, the rain is back.  We walk a lot so the sunshine is nice and the umbrellas, also.  Our next stop was at the Acostas to teach another English lesson and Joyce reads the Book of Mormon with Estrella.  We finally got the info we needed for Eldrex today to get him enrolled into school.  The ARP class went very well.   One new lady from the Hope Mission came with us, plus the three regulars.   The new lady (not a member) asked us about the strange names for some of the chapters of scriptures (Mosiah, and Alma) and she had no idea what we were talking about when several mentioned the atonement. We did a little explaining about the Book of Mormon while trying to stay with the lesson.  She didn’t really show much interest or understanding of the atonement.  We’ll see if she comes next week.  They need to attend so many meetings, out side their Hope mission, each week and  ARP is easy since we pick them up.  Joyce signs a slip for them after each meeting.  Most are very committed to learning.   A few of them are smokers so they spend time out side the building, but a least they come to the meeting.  

Wednesday Northwest Harvest:  We always start Wednesday at Northwest Harvest unless we have meetings. Today we worked with the Sister missionaries for the last time with this group.  Transfers are next week so Elders and Sisters will move on.  That’s the hard part of our job, we get too attached. But the bright side is that we will also get to meet new missionaries. We packaged elbow macaroni. After the service project we went to lunch with the Elder Sisters.  We didn’t have much going on until the evening so we went home to work on a few projects.  We faxed the info for Eldrex to get into school and crossed that off as done, then got a phone call from the district office telling us the documents we sent won’t work, so we are back to working on that again.  We picked all the primary girls and Michelle up for achievement day at 5, had Achievement Days until 7, and then took them all home. Bishop’s meeting is at 8:30, so between the taxi service and our Bishops meeting we made a quick stop at Wal-Mart for some more material for the English class and for Joyce’s primary class.  We go through a lot of gasoline!   

Thursday W.W.  We weighed in and then drive up to the top of the ward boundary to visit a lady the Bishop had assigned us to.  She is not a member but is very interested in the church. She’s already read the Book of Mormon and attended church for the past year.  We weren’t able to visit with her because of reasons we can’t say, but we did leave our # and she called us later in the day so we will see her sometime next week.   We prepared for our English class and then went and taught it.  Its slow progress but it is progress.  Today, Sara brought both of her kids.  They are twins, Ryadd and Rita.   Michelle wanted to go to Beehive Books and More in Federal Way so we picked her and the Elder Sisters up, and then joined the going home traffic on the freeway.  It’s slow progress, but we made it before they closed.  Michelle wanted a ctr ring, which they did’t have, so Joyce and her shopped for clothes instead.  After all the shopping we were hungry, so we had to go get something to eat.  Our missionary meeting was tonight and it went very well.  Almost all of the organizations were represented, so Joyce suggested to the Primary President some visits to make.  It was a very productive meeting.  After the meeting we stayed up late to finish our journal book so we could get the discount.  Art stayed up and finished his puzzle while the book was uploading.

Joseph, Sister Knowles, Sara and Elder Knowles

Friday institute:  We attended our class this morning with the Elder Sisters and Michelle Bacus Acosta came with us.  Joyce and Michelle worked on their primary lesson on the drive there and back.  That is very good for Michelle.  She is so excited to help teach!  After the class we all went out to lunch as usual.  Today we picked up an extra couple for lunch, the Crabtrees.  They used to be the housing missionaries, so we have worked with them before.  Our plans were to have the Acostas over and work on family history with them, but they are all sick or getting sick so it didn’t happen. Instead we came home and made chicken noodle soup for them.  When the soup was done we walked it down to the them.  We did get the info for Eldrex again and got that faxed again.  We will find out Monday if it worked.  

Saturday:  We had a meeting with the Bishop, clerks, missionaries and most of the ward counsel and went over the ward roster.  After two and a half hours we are finished with the C’s.  We now have lots more doors to go knock on.  Art is loving it. It’s his favorite thing to do.  We came home after some shopping and worked on putting the new visits on our map system in between making some more supper deliveries.  It is the cold and flu season and also some women in our ward that have morning sickness needed some food and TLC.

Princes Joy

Sunday: Our morning started with a few cancelled rides for church.  Mary Hurley wanted to go to church until we told her it started at 9:00.  That was too early for her.  We also had to get food ready for more deliveries after church.  The ward keeps growing, but and that makes some sick.  Karen and Diane both came to church with us and it was a very good meeting.  Jenefer and Irma Acosta were also there.  We found out that Elder Jiao was transferred yesterday (emergency transfer) and Elder Jones will move to Skyway B and Elder John will stay as Skyway A and they will both get new companions.  Several of the Holly house Acostas were there,( several still sick) but they all left after sacrament meeting because of sickness.  Joyce was glad the Green House Acosta Family were not sick, because it was an answer to Ruth and Rubi’s prayers to have their mom, Jenefer, and their Aunt Irma come.  Irma and Jenefer went to the Tagalog Gospel Principle Class and then to my Primary Lesson.  Joshua, (Jenefer’s son and the twins big brother,) came to my class, too.  He thought that Irma and Jenefer would like it better than the fifth Sunday combined lesson in the gym.   We hope they come again.  After our meetings we made our food deliveries and also a stop at the Holly house to drop off some cleaning supplies we had extra, (we had asked them ahead if we could bring them over) and we had some diapers for Mary Ann since we didn’t make it to the baby shower yesterday.  The Elder Sisters came over and had supper with us and then we worked on the ward roster for a couple of hours, then the Elders came over and we went over some area info with them and sent them home with some food. They had to hurry home so they can make the transfer calls tonight.  We did get a few calls from the kids in between all the paperwork.   Thank you! 

That has pretty much been our week.  Love Art and Joyce

Michelle

Achievement Day