Elder & Sister Knowles

                           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