10-9-08

What's up everybody?

I'm an official missionary; it's pretty sweet. People stare at me a lot with my name tag and suit and tie and all that stuff. Some people are afraid of us and it gets really awkward trying to talk to them, those are pretty entertaining.

I'm in Mt. Vernon for the first 6 weeks at least, so until Nov. 6. Then there is another transfer which happens every 6 weeks and I will stay or be moved to anywhere else in the mission (I could be here for 6 weeks to 6 months).

It's pretty nice here. I'm about 10 miles from the Puget Sound and about an hour and a half south of British Columbia. There are farms out here surrounded by forests of huge evergreen trees. I live about 10 minutes from downtown Mt. Vernon to the east in a more woodsy area next to a lake in the basement of a family's house who are members of the church. My companion for this transfer is Elder Jones. He's from Utah, believe it or not. He's chill. He'll jam on the guitar and is into college football big time, so he's pretty stoked since his team is BYU.

Basically, I wake up at 6:30 every day and I have an hour to eat breakfast and work out if I want to before "personal study" where I study the Bible or Book of Mormon for an hour. Then at 8:30, Jones and I get together and study for the questions or concerns the people we are working with are having. Then from 10 am to 9 pm we are working, which is a mixture of tracting (knocking doors), street contacting (walking around downtown talking with people), or going to the teaching appointments we've set up. We have a Corolla we drive around, pretty sweet. Basically we find people to teach, and teach people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it can help them, then ultimately baptize people. It's hard work but it's rewarding. It's nice to just be focused on helping people out.

Anyway, then at 9ish when we get home, we plan out the next day, what we'll do, where we'll go, who we'll see. Study some more or write letters and do it all again. Thursdays are P-days (preparatio days) where we get all the local missionaries together and play soccer, v-ball, tennis, take ferries out to the islands or whatever. We run errands, buy groceries and stuff too. There are a lot of thrift stores here since it's kinda ghetto so we can get old-school 3-piece suits for 30 bucks or so and really gangster 70's ties.

We all went to this rope swing last week that was one of the most intense things I've ever done. It sounded pretty weak, but when we got there, I wasn't even sure I was going to try it. This tree was about 100 feet tall and the rope probably went that far up it too where it ties to this branch. (I have no idea how they got it up there.) Behind the tree was this big hill and on the hillside of whoever's house this was we were at, built this 3-level step-looking platform that went up the hill away from the tree that the rope was attached to. So you could go from the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level of this thing and then jump off and swing by the tree and out. It was gnarly. I went from the top and when I swung past the tree, I was going really fast and then when I swung out away from the tree, I was about 30 feet in the air. It was sick. Jones' feet slid out from the foot-circle thing where you put your feet, because it was raining, and he was holding on with his hands when he was swinging. It was pretty sketchy. He's been banished from it.

It's pretty here. Big evergreen trees everywhere, blackberry bushes grow wild and are really good. It's usually some form of cloudy or drizzling; rains a lot. I like it. Nice windy, foresty roads. A big river goes through downtown. It's really scenic. When you look to the east it's big hills covered in evergreens to the Cascade Mountains which are big and jagged, then behind them is Mt. Baker. It's this huge extinct volcano that is snow-capped year round.

Anywhoo, I wanna know what's going on with everybody. Hit me up. It's old school here, we don't do emails, just letters. So send me one. The address won't change, my mail all goes to the same place and then gets sent out to me wherever I will be in the mish. And no, they don't read them. So send me those love notes/poems you've been cookin up for the last month…Get those feather-quill pens out and write me a letter!

Nate