Pepsi Max

I wanted to start this email with Pepsi Max because I drank almost a whole 2 liter of it yesterday.  It really does have maximum taste and no calories if you were ever questioning what the bottle says.  The best way to end a fast Sunday is by drinking that sweet nectar.  This week was great.  Honestly one of the greatest.  And while I speak this very day we are preparing for a p-day bbq.  I witnessed one of the people I was teaching in Portland enter the waters of baptism and we saw plenty of miracles from striving to be a little more obedient.  Okay, let's talk about the first great thing that happened this week. I think we could say it was traveling back to Portland (where I belong) and seeing Romeo get baptized.  We found Romeo about 4 or 5 months ago looking for his neighbor and after his neighbor denied meeting with us he said "would you like to come in and study the Book of Mormon?" The beginning of that BOM study was Romeo saying "you know I think I want to get baptized".   5 months later we had ourselves a baptism and turns out his fiancé is now taking the lessons and they are working to get married in the temple.  Pictures will be attached at the bottom and one of them will be in front of Izzy’s.  Izzy’s is the worst buffet the north west has to offer.  I think I ate my own barf. You may ask why we went there to celebrate a baptism?  Romeo said he liked it.  Elder Lambert standing next to me in the photo gave me excess amounts of gruff for agreeing with the post-baptism Izzy’s celebration.  Alright, this week our mission President changed a few of the policies which caused murmuring amongst a few people.  Myself included.  I was even wondering what in the world would happen if we could ONLY have dinner from 5-6?! Members are gonna get ticked because they can't always feed us from 5-6... But let me tell you THIS! We cancelled some of our dinners, and about 20 minutes after cancelling our dinner for the night we stopped in on a less active member of our ward that we have been unable to contact for about a month now.  Guess who was walking down the steps the minute we were walking up the steps to his door?  YEPPP!!  Minutes after we followed the counsel of the mission president we saw a miracle.  One of our investigators named Jordon asked us a very intriguing question this week.  He asked us "how much electricity do you think it would take to see God?"  This question puzzled us as we pondered what substances Jordan must have partaken of prior to our meeting.  We attempted to teach the restoration instead of electricity and ended up talking about black holes by the end of the lesson?! To be honest I keep forgetting what happened during the week, but I do remember the sun shining for the majority of the week and it seemed like many people had been hiding under rocks or in holes in the ground for most of the winter season.  The Washingtonians are out and about with the sunshine and they all want to get coffee at Dutch Bros at the exact same time!  Without a doubt... Everyday... At all times of the day... There is a traffic jam at Dutch Bros.  I don't see why they just don't drink Pepsi Max?! Agreed?! Have a great week.

Baptism celebration at Izzy's.

Romeo's baptism in Portland.

General Conference Greatness

Elder Andrew's farewell dinner at Red Lobster.

WHAT. A. GREAT. WEEK.  Between sessions of conference, Mongolian grill food & fiber pills it has been a week to remember. We were able to watch all sessions of conference with a member of our ward or an investigator which was awesome.  Not the same as Momma King’s conference morning pancakes & eggs, but the church is still true pancakes or not.  Let's talk fiber pills.  My companion introduced to me an amazing new invention... Pills jam packed with fiber material and laced with spiritual joy.  Needless to say my companion & I have been making periodic stops to the church building to interrupt some of our proselyting.  You may ask... Why in the wide wide world of sports would a couple of young missionaries take fiber pills?!  I ask you... Have you ever eaten out almost every single day for 4 months straight?  The kind YSA members sign up to take us out each week & we cannot deny them blessings nor deny our stomachs cravings.  If you're in need, please get yourself some fiber pills.  Okay now for something a little more important.  Let's talk general conference and how cool it was to have one of our investigators there. Skat (it is pronounced Scott) is from Cambodia and is investigating the church. He struggles to speak English at times but the spirit speaks to everyone the same.  Luckily, we have been given seer stones to help us translate his speaking. Actually, as long as we have the spirit the lessons are great.  Skat came to watch general conference at the church building this weekend, and the poor guy worked until 3:30 in the morning. But nonetheless he showed up at 1'oclock to watch conference with us. He fell asleep about 10 minutes in!  He awoke and told us he had to leave and darted out the door... We were a little sad. We had no Red Bull on hand to spare for him.  About 30 minutes later Elder Sander’s back started hurting, and so we went to the foyer to have him lay down and relieve some tension (perhaps caused by the many bowel movements due to the fiber pills) and we found Skat laying on the couch fast asleep!!! We thought for sure hehad left, but he was just in the foyer snoozing.  He woke up right when Elder Holland started speaking and listened to his talk.  Although he may not have understood any of the words Elder Holland spoke, he said it was "awesome" and when we taught him about the Word of Wisdom he said that was "awesome" too.  We had been praying all week for a miracle to have Skat come to church so he could be baptized on the 16th of this month. God is good. My favorite missionary friend left for home this week.  I miss him already. We enjoyed our last Red Lobster
outing together, where we consumed far beyond the recommended amount of cheddar bay biscuits.  Elder Andrew was one of the best Elders I have ever known.  We will return to Washington together someday and find sasquatch. By the way, the talks this weekend in conference SOOTHED MY SOUL.  I think it was a really spiritual moment for me when President Uchtdorf mentioned Chewbacca in his talk.  I really can testify I felt a witness through the spirit of God that the words they spoke this weekend were true.  Can't wait to get a chance to watch / listen to them over again.  We really are incredibly blessed to have the guidance from them.  Overall, it was the next best week of my mission so far.  Excited for another one.

Easter Excellence

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend has arrived and left just like that.  I refrained from Cadbury eggs to the best of my ability and ate many carrots instead to be like the Easter Bunny.  My companion & I were blessed with many miracles this week.  Like the sighting of less active members at church + we ate sushi + the work is good. Let's begin this email with talking about how great taking out returned missionaries of the Clark YSA out teaching with us is.  A member of our ward named Gavin said he would come out with us from 10 AM to 4 PM and help with whatever we needed. He went to Brazil on his mission and clearly spoke to many people throughout his two years. We went tracting and he kept inviting people on the doorstep to be baptized.  We then had an amazing lesson with Scott our top investigator.  We had concerns with the Word of Wisdom but those were cleared up REAL QUICK because the spirit told Scott he should just keep the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. He was actually a little bit excited to keep them both surprisingly.  It just makes ya real happy when you tell someone to be happy they need to live the commandments of God and they immediately change to "make God happy".  After the lesson we also went to shake Scotts hand and he just went IN for the hug.   WHAT A PRECIOUS MOMENT.  I was feeling some Cambodian care in that moment & knowing exactly why I am here.  It was one of those weeks where we taught all week long.  Busy busy busy.  Each night driving home we have just been at peace knowing the Lord is directing all this work. OKAY WAY COOL one of our less active members has been living with his girlfriend who is taking the missionary discussions and she committed to a baptismal date.  Her story was way cool she prayed about the date and got the number 37?! But that wouldn't work.  She kept on praying and got the number 27... which would mean she should be baptized on April 27^th, which actually happened to be 37 days from the exact date!  Way cool.  And her boyfriend who we are teaching, decided to just up and move out so they can get married.  The work is good.  I met a man that apparently wrote around 30 Metallica songs.  He taught us the importance of rock music intertwined with the gospel to the point where you feel the spirit hit you like a bowling ball.  His hair flowed like Samson & his words followed with the same inspiration.  Yesterday we had an Easter feast fit for a king.  The ward mission leader and his wife gave us ham, green beans, the world’s best Mac and cheese + Cadbury eggs to make a feast in our apartment and we did so.  Then after this delicious meal a young Russian single adult wanted to teach us why our church is false.  But no bible bashing could quelch our Easter spirits.  Hope you all enjoyed your Easter experiences and hope this upcoming week is even better.  And yes, the Mac and cheese we had really was the world’s best, because the box it came in even said so. 

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!