Letter from Tacoma #38: July 18, 2016

 Hey everybody! Hello from Ocean Shores!

This first week in the new area was awesome!

I'm at the beach!

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This area is pretty great! It's right next to the ocean, surrounded on three sides by water, so it's hardly ever too hot. We get to go street contacting on the beach occasionally, especially on weekends, cause that's where all the people are during the Summer.

​So many cars on the beach! Summer is the best time for this area. Ocean Shores is more of a Summer Vacation city, so it's really booming with visitors and tourists at this time of year. We meet a lot of members here from all across Washington, too.

However, I'm not assigned to a ward, but rather a branch. There's only about fifty or sixty regular members here, though it is steadily growing during this season. Also, it turns out we never quite know exactly how many people are going to be at church each week, because apparently sacrament meeting can fill up to 150 people some Summer weeks, all members on vacation.

During the winter, though, it seems to be quite the opposite, and most of the town shuts down until it gets warmer. But I won't have to really worry about that... yet. With my luck, I'll only be here 'till the end of September. Seriously, I have yet to stay in a single area for more than 3 months! That's weird for a missionary, apparently.

Anyways, a cool thing about this area is how tame the wildlife is. Remember back in Idaho at Grandma and Papa's, when they'd take us to feed the deer? Well, apparently you can do that here, too. There are so many deer here, it's ridiculous! I probably see close to forty a day at most, and they're all just milling around the neighborhood. I've heard from my companion, Elder Hanson, that one of his companions even got to pet one!

Here's Elder Hanson with a doe. You can get within three feet of one of them, and they aren't even skittish.

Heck, you could drive a car going 30 mph within an inch of these animals, driving by, and they'll just step out of the way just enough to avoid getting hit, before continuing to graze right next to the road; I know because I literally saw it happen. These deer have become fearless, I'm telling you.​

And it's not just the deer, it's all the animals here. At our apartment, there's a seagull that flies by and lands on our deck railing every morning, and he lets us feed him. This is an everyday thing, mind you. We get old bread from a bakery here and we feed him with it every morning.

Say hi to Sully, our pet Seagull.

I'm still learning the area, but it's coming along well... though we've been having trouble seeing any of our current investigators. None of them seem to be home, which is weird according to Elder Hanson. He says he's never had this problem with any of them.

Hopefully this next week brings better results as far as finding and teaching goes.

Great job on testing Mom, and Caleb! I loved all the pictures, and I'm glad you gave your all for it! Although it's crazy what the lineup will be for next year! Brandon, Ryan, Jeff, Tami, and Caleb! Better make sure you're all on top of things, otherwise the big day will creep up on you.

I love you all!

Thanks for reading!

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary