Zone Temple Trip

The Van East Zone at the Portland Temple on 7/19/16

Sorry probably won't send a big email today we are really, really busy.  Happy Pioneer Day for you at home.   We are not quite celebrating today except I got a haircut and bought some really classy slacks from Kohl’s today. I can't buy things anymore... It's horrible all I try to do is make the best buy for my buck!  I can't even enjoy shopping anymore.  We are playing the BOM game right now it is hilarious!! Thank you parents for sending it. It's a big hit with the zone.  The temple trip was amazing... I miss that place so much.  Can we hit up the temple every week when I am home?  I love my new companion he is awesome.  It is hard sometimes because Elder Matthews didn't talk at all but Elder Reinwand loves to talk.  We are having fun together.   We found a family that wants to be baptized! They are on date for the 20^th.  I have never prayed harder to find someone to baptize.  Our zone is slacking... We are kinda low on numbers, but sometimes you just get a rough hand dealt to ya?  Here, where we are serving it is the ritzy part of Vancouver.  President McAteer is the best and he is very humble.  He is the opposite of President Taylor.  BUT NOT CALLING PRESIDENT TAYLOR PRIDEFUL.   He was just confident.  So sorry for the lame email... I sure love you guys at home and thanks again for all you do.  I am still reaping the benefits of the birthday packages  you all sent me.  Question... As a leader how do you gain trust with your people?  That is the question that I am pondering this week as a zone leader.

Spuds!

New companion Elder Reinwand

I received a new companion to embark on another round of Fisher’s Landing adventures with me this past week.  Elder Reinwand is his name and he loves to work / have deep conversations / make me push the cart at Fred Meyer.  Pushing the cart is probably one of my biggest pet peeves. We had another fantastic week through.  BTW it was my b day and I did go to Olive Garden and we found some incredible new investigators all on the same day.  Okay story #1:  We had dinner with one of our favorite members.  His name is Steve and he has cerebral palsy.  He comprehends and understands almost everything, but compiling a sentence is a little difficult sometimes.  He is the son of the member we live with and he wanted to take us out to dinner.  COOLEST THING.  We understood every word he said all evening.  He even bore his testimony and told us he loved us.  One of the more spiritual experiences of my mission.  This guy is really close to Heavenly Father.  Okay miracle today @ Fred Meyer:  We went browsing for shoes /things we don't need.  We spent about 20 minutes looking at Camo Crocs.  I really want a pair.  This man walked by us about 5 times and as we left the shoe section we noticed we were headed towards the women's clothing section... We decided we don't need any of that so we turned around and there was the same guy staring at us!  He comes up to us and says "God is speaking to me right now.  This is crazy.  I went to the dentist earlier today and my dentist is LDS.  We were talking about it most of the session.  I also was baptized when I was 8 but then fell away and joined the Episcopalian church. I am unhappy with the church now... I feel like God is speaking to me. What would you recommend I do?"  YEAH THAT HAPPENED!  I told him to buy a pair of camo crocs and meet with us ASAP!  That really set the tone for a good grocery shopping session.  Next cool miracle:  We took a member from the High Priest group out with us (a bunch of old men). Brother Anderson came with us Wednesday and we went to visit an old 89 year old lady.  She could barely hear us and we didn't want to yell.  Well, Elder Reinwand & I didn't want to yell, but Brother Anderson testified of the importance of the temple very loudly and sternly, essentially rebuking this 89 year old lady with love.  We were shocked at the way he taught her so boldly... This guy was almost yelling at her!  He said the spirit promoted him to really share what he shared.  After talking about the temple for 30 minutes she said "Well, I haven't been to the temple in 30 years and the last thing I told my husband before he passed away was... That I would make sure I got myself back into the temple". WOW.  I think that's about all I will share for the week because I want to go play BBALL. Elder Reinwand is from Idaho so I titled the email “spuds”.    I wanted to share a picture of my birthday cake.  SOME OF THE FINEST MEMBERS IN ALL OF VANCOUVER asked me to come over late in the evening on my bday, and when I walked in many members began singing happy birthday and they sliced me a piece of cake with a Diet Dew.  Geez!  Life is good.

 

Happy 21st Birthday Elder King!

WHADDDDAAAA Week!

Last district meeting before transfers.

The Lord's team???

Sorry for the lack of writing last week I hope my follower count didn't decrease.  It was a busy day and honestly I just wanted to play ball and drink soda at a July 4^th ward BBQ.  But this week we just had a freakin blast!  Elder Matthews and I saw tons of miracles. Unfortunately, he is getting transferred to Gresham :(. We were tearing up the pavement here and it is sad to have him leave (don't tell him I said that). We never compliment each other because it just isn't manly.  Okay are you ready for a killer miracle?! We had a lesson with some less active members of the ward and it went really short... The LA members had to go and eat shortly after we arrived (priorities right?),  and we took the member we had with us tracting.  First door we knock on was the guy we met the previous week that speaks Portuguese with our ward member friend.   As we knocked this time... Little did we know this member we had with us this time (different from the other Portuguese speaker) speaks Portuguese as well!   We didn't even know both times our member would speak the same language that we needed to communicate.  Right after that, we went to stop by another potential investigator, and we had the prompting three times to talk to a lady behind us and the third time we finally caved and did it.  After a 30 minute conversation she told us "she doesn't feel a need for the gospel right now.  If she had more of a need she would probably investigate".   At this point it was similar to an old west showdown with the levels of intensity we were felling.  We WERE A LITTLE SHOCKEDBE CAUSE WE FELT A PROMPTING... Luckily, as it always does, the spirit whispered the words we needed in the moment we needed them.  It whispered "ask her what she would feel if she got to the final judgement of God and she passed up the chance to investigate?" Her heart CAVED!  She wanted to hear the message and wanted to investigate.  This was no sales pitch!!  my heart blew up like the Michelin man!! The spirit overwhelmed.  We had the best 4th of July with the best members let me tell you we almost got hit with fireworks.  The family we went to watch the fireworks with had a card table with tubes on the top to shoot off some mortars.  The first and second mortars flipped the table over and a mortar shot into the grass.   BOOM!  The mortar blew up and almost shot some American pride right into my SLACKS! I ducked behind my chair like I was hiding in the trenches of the WWI.  I drank 3 diet mountain dews.   This week we had our last district meeting with my district before this transfer.  I also found this awesome  picture of an LDS general authority in a Dodgers jersey.  Just letting everyone know who the best team is.  I just want to say I couldn't be more on cloud 9.  We had a baptism in the zone Saturday night.  We PRAYED OUR BUNS off for an investigator to have the desire to attend the baptism and HEAVENLY FATHER DELIVERED.  One of our investigators replied within 10 minutes of our text and she told us she felt incredibly peaceful during the baptism.  This warmed our souls.  This investigator had avoided our texts all week to set up a lesson... Go figure.  Love this gospel and love being a missionary.

Happy 4th of July

Best friends in Vancouver Ward.

I got an awesome 4^th of July package this week. I got a Sons of Liberty shirt to wear today that is   amazing.  We had a ward breakfast with pancakes, ultimate frisbee & volleyball.  With all the great young couples in the ward it was a blast.  I still have my skills from 6th grade PE volleyball practice ;). I unfortunately cannot light any of the fireworks in my package myself, so I must have someone else light them off.  We cannot wear themed ties in our mission, but I am keeping the patriotic tie that I got close to the heart for when I come home.  Wow, what an emotional week this was. It was Brother Lambert’s viewing in Salt Lake.  I’m so glad that my parents got to meet Sister Lambert, because she surely made me feel right at home. Former mission president Taylor was there too.  I learned something that just makes me smile.   HAHAHAHA I KNEW ELDER LAMBERT & I had more of a connection than just diet Coke and American history.  THE MAN APPARENTLY WORE A MUSTACHE FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE!! Very soon when I come home I will grow that magic on my upper lip again. We shared Diet Coke love all the time at baptisms and out at dinner. Glad my family got to meet some of my favs!!  I am positive serving a mission is the best thing I have ever done.  Do you know what my patriarchal blessing says? "You were sent here for a specific purpose, to take the gospel to the world". Seems like it is my real duty to do missionary work!  I suppose when I get home it will continue. But, honestly this is the greatest experience of my life and I know it is nothing I have done.  Every time I think I'm getting good at missionary work, I get humbled and the Lord speaks to me quite frankly.   Kind of like Dad has to speak to me sometimes.  We are on our way to a BBQ right now and to watch some fireworks!  We can stay out until 11:00 p.m. tonight!  Reading the email I got from my family this week hasn't made me sad, because I know what Elder Lambert is doing in the spirit world and that makes me happy.  I guarantee he hasn't slowed down a bit.  In fact, I know he hasn't slowed down at all, he’s not that kind of man. Sorry for the lame email, but we have been busy all day with the ward and with missionaries.  We had a great week full of miracles again.  Just know we had another week just like the last!! The work is good, the church is true & I have the best legal guardians a guy could ask for.  Thank you mom and dad for going to the viewing and meeting everyone that I love from my mission.  That means more to me than I can express.  I can't express in the slightest how I really feel.  I will never in all my life become less - active in the church.  MARK MY WORDS & if I do, you all better whip me into shape.  Have a happy 4^th of July celebration!