Hey everybody,
I had my first transfer last week. Sunday night I found out that I'd be staying and Jones was leaving. I can't complain, I love this area. So on Tuesday, I got my new comp: Elder Martineau. He's from S. Jordan and he's been out for 3 months. So cumulatively, we've been out 4 1/2 months and are in one of the highest baptizing areas in the mission. It's pretty sweet. That greeny/transfer atmosphere is gone so it's a regular companionship where we both pull about half, and it's a lot better that way. We've got a lot more energy and we're more driven and we're just going for it. We can't answer every question but what we don't have as far as knowledge and experience, we tend to make for with synergy.
We're still working with Brian. He has been reading chunks of the Book of Mormon and now he's almost through 1st Nephi going from cover to cover. He's awesome. His wife divorced him a few years ago for no major reason and he refuses to sign the papers because he's 100% by-the-book and in the Bible it says only under fornication is that ok, so he left her and took his gun, his bow, some tools, a knife, a tent, seeds, and a sleeping bag and went out in the forest and lived there for a year off animals and a garden. He got custody of his son, Jonah, too while out there and would have him out there with him after school and on the weekends. Jesus tended to retreat into the forest so Brian thought it would be a good idea. I found out he went to OCC for a year and lived at the river jetties when he was younger. Weird. (Maybe I should live in the forest for a year...)
We have been starting to make our rounds to all the part-member families with unbaptized kids and got about 10 referrals from SLC in the last week. So with all of that and our pool of investigators, we have a lot of work to do.
The ward here is solid. There's a good mix of older couples and younger families. There aren't a whole bunch of them, but for the most part, they're very strong in the Gospel. We get dinners pretty much every night and they're excellent. When I got here and Sister Showalter told me the average missionary gains 25 pounds in the first 6 months, I was skeptical, but I am a believer now. I've been able to keep the gains to single digits, but it's definitely an uphill battle given the goodness of the food and the car we drive.
The rain has arrived. It rained all day Thursday, Friday, and part of Sunday, then the sun came out and it went from 55 degrees to 75 degrees in 10 minutes while we were teaching a lesson on a doorstep. It was weird seeing the sun. I forgot it was above the clouds. It was kind of like that time I was little and asked what it was when it finally came out in Issaquah.
We're in a finding mode so we do a lot of tracting. We ran into two of the weirdest people yesterday. Without the weird ones, our tracting wouldn't be half as fun. The first one was my door. I knock, she opens and I say "how are you doing today" to this older lady with curlers in her hair, but you know she never leaves the house. Anyway, she stares at me and doesn't answer and then yells, "what do you want?!" in the voice of Ebeneezer Scrooge, I'm pretty sure. I've never heard him talk, but I'm sure it would sound like this lady. I told her we weren't salesmen but that we had a message about the restoration and she slammed the door. Martineau had to walk away from the door when she yelled because he couldn't hold it in. It was good. So I say, "why do I always get the crazy ones?" and tell him he's going to get somebody worse than that. Sure enough. Probably 3 doors later a guy answers that looked related to the first lady and gives Martineau the same evil stare instead of responding and then cuts him off mid-sentence as he's asking him how he's doing and says, "better than you, because I'm not out bothering people looking like the bleep, bleep, bleep police." Then he mumbled some words to us and slammed his door. I lost it. It was a high point for the day. I try not to laugh most times, but this one was too great. The best part is we we took a priest along with us to get some member-present lessons. He wasn't expecting this crazy people so much, but he was still glad he went.
Today was a good day. After Stake Conference we went around to see all the part-member families with unbaptized kids in our area. We had been trying to see this family for weeks and they had never been home. So we went out that way and halfway there, Martineau was asking why we were driving out so far when we didn't have any miles to spare. He was leaning towards turning around but I kept on saying how today was perfect and how it needed to happen. We show up, knock the door, no answer. Then we knock another door even though we were pretty sure nobody was there because there were no cars outside. An older guy opens the door and invites us in. He was the grandpa to this 9-year-old girl, Mallory, that we were trying to see. He and the grandma were both there and asked us if we were teaching Mallory. We said "no" so they started talking about baptism and we taught her about it. Then the dad walks in and here's the missionaries and his parents talking with his daughter about baptism. He was pretty unfriendly and is extremely inactive. He agreed to let us teach her and she wanted to be baptized. He probably wouldn't have talked to us if his parents weren't there, and they got in the night before. The timing couldn't have possibly been better. We're going over tomorrow to start teaching through the lessons and we're going to try to have the Grandpa or Dad baptize her before the grandparents leave on the 18th of this month. Things fall into place perfectly sometimes. It's amazing.
After this, we hung out with a guy named Mike who was tracted into about 5 missionary sets ago and hasn't gone anywhere. We got him started with the Book of Mormon and he and his daughter, Monique, are going to read and we'll teach the whole family hopefully next time.
It's interesting, Elder Martineau and I have less than 5 months in the field combined and we've done more in a week than Elder Jones and I did in 3 weeks last transfer. It just goes to show that knowledge is not as important as energy and determination. It's gonna be a good transfer. I learned a lot last time and it's a lot more natural now. Things are good in Mount Vernon.
Those pictures of the Prop 8 effort are great. Jeff, I liked the "force" recreation too. I'm glad that everything worked out with Jose, that's great. Michael, thanks for the letter. That's good stuff and I'm working on the same things right now. Thanks everybody for the letters and the support.
Love, Elder Packer
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