Letter from Tacoma #10: January 4, 2016

 Ugh.... oh, wait... it's finally Monday?

Yeesh, this week has just gone by so SLOOOOOOOOW! I don't know what it is, but I've found the time between Christmas and New Years is just terrible, or at least it was for me. It wasn't really that we've been lacking in our teaching pool as of late, even though that has been the case. I don't think it was that... though it may have been part of that.

Lately I've been kind of tired and looking forward to falling asleep at the end of the day, but mainly I blame that on a few certain occurrences from New Year's Eve.

First of all was the fact that I gave in to temptation to do a very bad idea, which is known as the prune juice challenge. Now, if anyone doesn't know what happens when you drink a lot of prune juice, ask someone who does, because I'm not going into detail about it. Basically, it was the grossest thing I've ever participated in, and I'm talking about both the taste of that stuff as well as the aftermath of it.

Here's me trying to down a quart of this.... bile:

​Yeah, last time I'm doing that. During that night... well, I'll just give you a scriptural reference that accurately describes my experience: Job 30:27:

27 My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.

Anyways, enough of that. However, during that night, something funny happened. You see, we slept out in the garage of a member's home, because that's where we lived for a time. It was 11 PM on New Year's Eve, and, as per mission rules, my companion and I were sleeping (or at least trying on my part). But as soon as the clock hit 12:00, we had a bit of a surprise as Elijah, the 19 year old son of the members we lived with, burst through the door with a fairly large confetti cannon in hand.

"Happy New Year!" He proclaimed, as he wildly unleashed the single blast from his cannon of colored paper, to which both Elder Hansen and I reacted by sitting up in startled alert. Unfortunately, Elijah hadn't been aiming his shot anywhere in particular, and I had made the mistake of sitting up into his line of fire from the door. Basically, my first minute in the year 2016 was spent by getting nailed in the gut with a cork, and then covered in confetti, from the blast.

Now you see why I've been lacking on sleep these days, right?

Anyways, we were able to clean it all up today... oh, yeah, and we also moved back to the Miller's house, where we'd been staying when I first got into the Key Center area. So, my current mailing address is back to this, starting today:

1920 162nd ave kps

Lakebay, Wa 98349

But as for the work out here, it's been slowly picking up. Recently, our Mission President has been working to get us missionaries to do more member work, to get the wards and stakes more involved in inviting others to come unto Christ. It's only been a few days since we've been trying new stuff revolving around member work, and so far it seems to be going well.

Recently, we had visited an old former investigator, who'd learned about the restoration and a few other things regarding the church. However, when we contacted her, she made clear the reasons why she was no longer investigating. She had thought Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, but as soon as we told her otherwise, she asked 'if that's the case, why doesn't the bible tell of another witness or anything like the Book of Mormon?' And then we told her that it did prophesy of the Book of Mormon, as well as of Joseph Smith, and we gave her the verses that told about it. Instantly, it was like a spark came inside her as she realized that she hadn't understood what she'd been investigating so long ago, and she told us she would study the Book of Mormon a bit more, though she said she'd call us before she intended on investigating again.

Please pray for this woman... whose name currently escapes me... I think it's Jane Styner, or similar to that. Either way, we hope that she finds what she's looking for!

Oh yeah, guess what? It snowed yesterday! But it was VERY wet, and just a small layer of it on the road made driving a mite bit dangerous. Either way, like last time it snowed last week, all of it was gone by the next morning. Although, that doesn't mean it's been warm either. On a regular basis, the temperature has been either at freezing or below, and in a wet place like Washington, the amount of frost everywhere is kind of astounding.

Anyways, I'm still loving it here, and I wish everyone good luck as the holidays pass and we all get back into the regular routine!

Thanks for reading!

Elder R. Austin Moe