Squatchin!

This week we have been using a squatch call that was graciously given to me by a good friend to cry out for the beast to no avail.  But we have been getting some squatchy vibes lately.  I will tell you what, serving in Vancouver is the best place to serve.  This week we had the coolest miracle.  I went on exchanges with Elder Jones, one of my favorites, and we decided to pray over a list of people to see.  I was secretly wishing and hoping that he would not select a few particular names, due to the distance we would have to travel to find them.  Well, you can guess which names he chose!  The ones farthest away!  BUT WE HAD PRAYED so I knew we must go.  We showed up at the post office?  Hoping for a miracle, we walked in and asked for the young single adult we were looking for.  No one knew of him.  Dang... We called him outside in the car, and no answer.  OKAY here is where it gets cool… three or four hours later we get a text from the man we were looking for.   He asked us if we had dinner that night or any lessons soon that he could come to. When we met him, he told us how he had been less active for about 2 years now, after returning home from his mission, and when he received a call from us he decided it was the time to return.  He came to a lesson with us the next day and took us out to Killer Burger after for some delicious grub.  Then he came to church the following Sunday.  The Lord is good!  Killer Burger is good too!  Other than tha,t the YSA has been really dramatic lately.  We have had about 3 or 4 breakups causing the missionary work to take a HIT.  Everyone brings their boyfriends and girlfriends to investigate the church and they keep breaking up.  The really solid members keep getting married and are no longer in our YSA ward.  I suppose we should just be happy for the love birds.   I guess this week I hit my halfway mark in the mission so I burnt a shirt in a parking lot late in the evening.  I attached a video below of the pyrotechnics, hopefully you enjoy.  A year really does fly by especially when you get to drive a Chevy Cruze, eat at fine restaurants like Costa Vida and Red Lobster and meet the local Portland / Vancouver people each day.  Not too much more to report because I am going to eat Cadbury eggs (thanks to my grandma) and play some basketball.  Also, thanks to my parents for sending me an authentic Gryffindor Harry Potter original tie from Disney World.  Have a great week and a great Easter and please eat some peeps and think of the Savior.  I tried to share the gospel with the family that owned the fast Mercedez Benz in the picture and they denied so I thought it sufficient to preach to the very car itself.  Probably had more luck with the car. Also, Squatchin at zone conference attached below.

Preaching to cars in Vancouver

Squatchin at zone conference with Elder Sanders-Smith

Hump Day!!!

Happy Hump Day Elder King!  You are half-way home!  What a great year you have had, and what a wonderful year ahead you have to look forward to.  We are so proud of you.  365 days and counting...

Vigor in Vancouver

 

Elder King and Elder Sanders-Smith at Longview, WA.

WHAT A WEEK.  What a grand week indeed.  This week a few thousand miracles came up in our zone mainly concerning baptisms.  We chewed and spit a few bacon flavored sunflower seeds while driving.  Elder Sander-Smith & I actually ran in the mornings to reduce the effects of our muffin tops which was also great.  But really here is a grand miracle to share... A couple Elders in our zone have been working their buns off to find someone to baptize and they came into an area with little to no work... BUT THE LORD PROVIDED!  The missionaries in that specific area have been teaching a man who has medical issues that inhibit him from moving or coming to church and they worked with the ward to create a "virtual church tour" where they filmed the church walked around to show the various rooms. The members of the ward edited the video to make a real swell production to show him and apparently he felt the spirit so strongly he committed to baptism on the spot!  BUT IT GETS COOLER.. we are working on lining up a PROXY baptism where someone else will be baptized for him because he will not be able to do it himself due to medical issues.  It is still in the process of being approved but this will be the first time I have ever seen it.  Elder Sander-Smith & I received a text message from an investigator named Scott, wanting to have a lesson with us at the library in La Center.  We drove up to meet him knowing he has been investigating the church for a while now and not really ready to commit to anything.  He apparently didn't like the last elder that I replaced.  Luckily they upgraded to ME!!!!!!!!!! My stunning good looks & charming personality apparently persuaded him to baptism, because he committed to baptism on the 9th of April! He also barely speaks English and is from Cambodia.  We
sometimes feel the need to use Google translate.  But the amount of genuine love I feel for this guy is crazy. The first lesson when he agreed to be baptized and said the closing prayer, we both just wanted to wookie cry as loud as we could.  NEXT COOL thing was traveling to Longview because one of the investigators I was teaching in the Castle Rock ward decided to be baptized.  Jeff Langston entered into the waters of baptism.  Unfortunately I didn't really get the pictures we took together ,so I cannot send one home, but it did HAPPEN I SWEAR.  Longview still smells,  but I missed it most definitely.  The baptism was a treat.  It had to be done 6 different times before they got it right.  And 4 little kids were running wildly about.  Jeff is now a member of the church, regardless of the foolery at his baptism.  We are now celebrating pie day by purchasing pie at Shari’s cafe to eat as a zone.  Too many of our zone members think they are all healthy eaters though,  but a few of us will engulf ourselves in coconut cream pie paradise.  My mustache is going to be really thick when I get home just FYI for everyone.

Vancouver Victory

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The Vancouver Zone

What a swell first week in Vancouver it has been.  My new companion, Elder Sander-Smith is awesome he has traveled to 26 different countries and knows just about everything about Marvel comics you could ever know.  Along with teaching young single adults this week, we have been debating who would win between a duel with Iron man & Captain America.  I think Iron Man would win.  Okay, not much time to write this week but I wanted to update on a couple stories.  Really cool thing happened just a day after we arrived here.  We went looking for an investigator named Turner.  We caught him home on his only day off and we talked to him for a good while & sat down for a little lesson.  We started teaching about baptism and invited him to pray on the spot for confirmation if he should be baptized.  We knelt down to pray and after his prayer our hearts were feeling like hot air balloons.  We invited him to baptism and he accepted for the 9th of April.  A good start to the new transfer!  Elder Sander-Smith has an injured lumbar.  We have been taking it a little easy on his back with periodic visits to the church to relax his lumbar for a few moments each day.  I tell him that he needs to stop loafing around when he lays down to chill out his lumbar!  I sent a picture of the new zone here in Vancouver.  We had a zone breakfast with many pancakes and many spiritual thoughts from stake presidency members.  This new zone is awesome.  I only know two of the missionaries here from my past areas.  I am quickly making some NEW FRIENDS.  We also taught a lesson to an investigator under the influence of some hallucinogen.  He opened the BOM to Ether & told us "I love the book of Hebrews here in the Mormon Bible.”   It was one of those lessons where my tongue was just about bitten off because I wanted to laugh out loud so badly.  Update:  I drank Diet Pepsi this week again. & had Thai food for the first time.  There is a Costa Vida located in Vancouver, which is awesome and I bought some Willy Wonka glasses.  Oh, and remember…THE CHURCH IS TRUE!

Spiritual Wookie

Portland YSA mission leaders hard at work.

Another week flew by in the service of the Springwater YSA ward in the Portland Stake in the Washington Vancouver mission.  One of the best weeks in a long while.  We casted some demons out, went on a couple exchanges and ate horribly disgusting Chinese food from the dungeons of Mordor.  You could say just another week in Portland.  I do want to start with a cool story about one of our investigators named  Tyran.  Our ward mission leader, Garrett,  is a dream come true because he wants a call every night about our next day's activities. He invites investigators over every Saturday morning for pancakes, eggs, turkey bacon and a short lesson after.  He even comes with us to teach our recent converts at Buffalo Wild Wings.  He invited our investigator, Tyran over for dinner one night.  We have been struggling to teach Tyran.  He is strong in his belief and we have respected that.  We don't push him to accept our beliefs, but we sneak in teaching opportunities quite often.  Just like this week when Garrett invited him over for dinner and a short lesson after to help us become better teachers. The lesson turned into this spiritual atomic bomb within minutes as we began to talk about the plan of salvation.  Our ward mission leader testified of the Savior and it brought us all to tears from our eyes. Tyran actually read from the BOM for the first time with us then, and up until that point he refused to touch the book.  The spirit softened his heart truly.  But the moral of the story is that the power of active members of the church at lessons is beyond what any missionary could ever do.  Okay, another cool story.  This week two twins in our ward from Idaho made us a HOME-COOKED MEAL!!!!  Only the 4th home cooked meal in like 3 months here in the YSA!!!!  They even fed me Diet Pepsi.   Which... I admit that I broke my promise and partook of.  BUT IT WAS GOOD.  The twins even told me that aspartame in diet drinks isn't even that BAD!!  I will maybe be taking sips of diet soda every now and again I suppose... Big News:  I am getting transferred :(  Bye- bye Portland.  I am being transferred across the Columbia River to the Vancouver central zone.  I have actually never been assigned in Vancouver city in my mission so far, so this will be cool.  I will be a zone leader over the Clark YSA ward in Vancouver, which is quite large and I am excited. But the Springwater YSA ward here in Portland, was my favorite ward by far.  I will miss these young single adults dearly.   Especially those whom have taken me out for some fine dining.  Bitter sweet feeling,  but excited to see the “Couve Zone” for the first time.   Also, we met with a  new less-active member we are teaching named Harrison, and he loves drawing.  He has decided to draw Elder Jewkes & I as spirit animals holding a BOM and a CTR shield running into battle against Satan’s minions.  My spirit animal is a Wookie(how fitting!) & I will be riding on the back of Elder Jewkes, who will be depicted as a Curlom (an unidentified animal in chapter 9 of Ether in the BOM).  Crazy and I can’t wait to see the finished artwork!  Anyway love you all.  Have a great week!

Temple Conundrums

Having dinner with President and Sister Ferrin

I shall begin by explaining the reasoning for this foolish subject title.  Elder Jewkes baptized a wonderful family back in his very first area and they entered the temple this past week to take out their endowments / get sealed for time and all eternity.  I joined the festivity along with a member of our ward who kindly escorted us to the temple.  This kind member possessed a V6 2001 Saturn Ion gold edition.  The wind was flowing through our veins as we zoomed on the freeway to the temple.  We arrived and I think I had one of the most spiritual experiences of all my life in the temple coupled with some of the greatest spiritual revelation I have ever received as well.  No words can really express the joy we felt as this family took their endowments out and was sealed for all time.  I could only imagine Elder Jewkes joy inside.  After the session I took pictures of everyone (and they wanted to take many) and we found the member that kindly drove us to the temple, only to find that his luxurious Saturn had broken down.  The car was not working.  We were stranded at the temple until a kind member of the ward came to pick us up.  Unfortunately, I left my I-Pad in his car and the temple parking lot is locked on Sunday & Monday.  YES I AM EMAILING ON A COMPUTER RIGHT NOW.  I feel so... old school.  

Another wonderful miracle happened this week I would like to tell you all about.  I embarked on exchanges with Elder Orr this past week in the Sunnyside ward.  We had a great day doing service at the storehouse & searching for the less active members of the ward.  BUT, the greatest event to happen was dinner being delayed for 30 minutes.  Why you may ask?  Well, during this time of postponing our stomachs being filled, Elder Orr decided to be the best missionary ever and follow the spirit to check upon one of his nearby investigators.  As we got out of the car a dog came sprinting at us (probably just to lick us) but in the dark of the night it freaked both of us out and we started to run as a man laughed at us.  We looked back and laughed for a second before continuing along our path... 5 seconds later we knew we had to go back and talk to this man.  Well, he is YSA age, a member of the church, going through an amazing conversion process and looking to come out to activities.  The rain stopped right as we approached him the timing was perfect.  He even looked past our pansy attitudes at running away from his dog.  

We had interviews with President Ferrin this week which was also awesome.  They wanted to go out to dinner with us after at the Olive Garden.  Another really swell week with fancy Italian food filling my soul.  That’s about all I want to type this week because this keyboard is really irritating my fingers.  I hope you all have the swellest week.  -Elder King

The Weekly Beef

Trying to avoid the camera...

Got the picture anyway!

Being a missionary is probably the greatest thing in the world.  I love it.  It's just one of those days where I am stoked to be a missionary (these seem to occur often).  This past week most definitely ROCKED my world.  We saw some amazing miracles, had a Valentine's Day feast date (with the two Elders we live with) good clarification right? We also had a really great broadcast from the brethren presiding over the NW region.  The best thing that happened was probably all of it.  Okay FIRST cool story.  We get a referral from church headquarters for a man named Chase.  We called Chase immediately and set up a return appointment for a few days later.  THEN the next day Elder Jewkes threw his coat in the washer to cleanse the stench... But neglected to remove the phone from his pocket.  The phone was demolished and we attempted to put it in rice overnight but that didn't work and the rice was flavored... So all we have now is a southern rice flavored broken phone.  All appointments were difficult to figure out especially Chase.  We used the church phone to confirm our appointment with him and he said "I will be there from 1-3". Nice timing right?! Well we had a lesson at 1:00 and went to that.  Great lesson and we thought we would just work around that area until dinner when we remembered we were supposed to meet Chase! We bolted down to the church hoping he hadn't left yet... And guess who was waiting for us talking to sister missionaries in the foyer?!  Yeeeeeeep!  CHASE!  He is now preparing to be baptized on March 12th! Things always work out. Elder Jewkes caught some sort of wuss-itis sickness this week and we went into the hospital for a while to get his diagnosis.  The poor fella worked his tail off all week while being sick.  No NyQuil or DayQuil could cure this disease.  Not even sleep.  Other than that the week has been relatively busy due to meetings and reports.  I lost my Chapstick twice and felt much sorrow until I prayed and I figured I would find it and I did.  Which was quite a relief.  My consumption of flavored water has gone through the roof. I have been frying my eggs.  Life is good.  I love being a missionary. Things always seem to work out because Heavenly Father is always in charge.  Never forget that.  Valentine's was low key because we had a fine dining dinner of breakfast burritos and Tang flavored beverage accompanied by Oreos.  It was romantic as can be.  Then we went out to find a really cool guy named Victor who wants to investigate the church.  Friday was Abe Lincoln’s b-day so we celebrated it by heading out to Red Lobster.  What a great week :)