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!