Letter from Tacoma #8: December 21, 2015

 ... ugh... uuuuuuuuuuugggggggggghhhhh... If there was one thing anybody and everybody is talking about these days, it's star wars!!!!! Yeah, okay, I get it! It was a great movie that I'll have to miss out on for a while, okay? As soon as I open up my email, I'm just overrun with pictures of everybody in costume, Star wars shirts and a whole bunch of other stuff, like free tickets to early showings, how great it was, and yada yada yada.

Oh well, on the plus side, who knows? I could be back home in time for the next installment and I'll be able to see the two of them without a year's wait in between. HAHA! I have the last laugh.

But honestly, I'm not even sure what to write about in this letter, cause then I'll have nothing to talk about on Christmas morning.

Oh yeah, so how the plan for Christmas morning is working over here is that Elder Hansen and I will be heading to our Ward Mission Leader's house for breakfast around 7, and then we'll be calling home from there. I'm pretty sure the window of time we have to call is pretty open, any time between 8 and 12 over here (9-1: Utah time). So, I think 11 on my end will work, and I'm kind of glad we're doing facetime this year instead of skype. The last few years of missionary calls over skype have been very... glitchy, to put it mildly.

Anyways, can't wait to talk to you all!

Oh, this morning I actually got a package from home! Inside were two presents (Don't worry, haven't opened them yet. Still got four days to wait through) and a bunch of Christmas cards from the Seamons! Thanks for all the cards, they look great!

So yeah, I actually have a pretty funny story to end this letter off on. This last Thursday was one that shall live throughout history in infamy, for behold it was a day that comes once every month: Park Day. Basically, there is a commandment given in the Wa-Tac for missionaries with cars, that once a month, we leave the car in 'Park' for a whole day. Now while this is used to save on miles, basically a fast for things that go fast (lololol), it doesn't change the fact that every park day has its downsides. Just as the Lord gives commandments for his children to follow, and trials and tribulations must surely follow thereafter, this park day was one or many a trial.

When missionaries don't have cars, they are given three modes of transportation to seek out, walking, biking, or calling members for rides. Unfortunately, this park day, we couldn't find almost anyone to hitch a ride with, and this area is definitely not one meant for biking, but we made do.

The time for 5-7's came, where we are commanded to tract for that two hour period, no matter the conditions outside, and we managed to get a ride down the Key Peninsula to tract a certain street. Our plan was to knock this road, then after 7, we'd continue walking all the way down to our Ward Mission Leader's house, which wasn't really that far away (Or so we thought).

And then the rains came tumbling down... though tumbling isn't quite the word to use for it. More like the rains came down in buckets. But nonetheless, we continued with our plan. To make a long story short, we ended up walking for a full hour (not including the first two hours we were out there), walking seven miles, in the pouring rain, in the dark of the night.

It wasn't half bad, though by the end of it, I knew I would rather bike on park days than go through that again. Oh, we were so soaked by the time we reached our destination, my raincoat was soaked like a sponge, though the rest of me was dry. He's a pretty good picture of my slacks by the end of it:

​Hahaha! It looked like I had an 'anti'- accident

But it was all good. Our ward mission leader gave us hot chocolate, and then later drove us back home.

Oh yeah, and the Ward also had their Christmas party! It was a blast! There was singing and dancing, lots of good food, and one of the members gave me an early Christmas present: "The Missionary's Little Book of Teaching Tools". It's a really interesting book, full of awesome object lessons and other things, and I'd recommend checking it out!

Well, I'm almost out of time, so I'll cut my letter here and tell you guys more during my Christmas call home. I'll be sure to call ahead of time over phone to get everything underway.

I love you all!

Thanks for reading!

Elder R. Austin Moe