Letter from Tacoma #43: August 22, 2016

 Hey everybody!

Glad to hear everything is going great back home! Finally the building permit for the new house is all verified and construction can start! I'll be looking forward to seeing the new place when it's done!

So yeah, transfers is here again, but this time I'm staying in Ocean Shores for another six weeks. My companion, Elder Hansen, is getting transferred to Port Angeles, and I'll be getting Elder MacQueen. I've only ever met him once, during a mission picnic in Olympia last Flag Day. He seems like a fun enough guy, and everyone else says he's great to be around. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be picking him up in Tacoma tomorrow, so we've got a long drive ahead of us.

These next two weeks look like they'll be really busy. Next week a general authority will be coming to the Wa-Tac for a mission tour. Elder Juan A Uceda of the Quorum of the Seventy will be here on Monday and Tuesday, both days we'll have zone conferences to learn from him and our other leaders. However, that does mean the next P-Day I'll have will be that Wednesday, so don't expect a letter on Monday!

Things are going good here. Not much to report on. On Saturday we had a branch potluck, which we helped set up. We had a great turnout, even saw some less active members there, too. Though the best part was when our Investigators, Andrea & Gordon, were able to show up near the end of it. They were able to meet a few members, and we took them on a tour of the church. When we showed them the font, they seemed pretty excited for it.

They are probably the most solid investigators I've taught so far, with plenty of questions and enough patience and sincerity to listen to the answers and understand them. On Friday, we had a great lesson with them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we were even able to get a member, Sis. Ellsworth, to be there for it. She was amazing at answering their questions; I'm sure the lesson wouldn't have gone nearly as good if it wasn't for her. It's great to see that we can rely on members for the help we need.

We're hoping to put Andrea and Gordon on date for baptism, though that remains to be seen if they come to church. Unfortunately. they didn't come to church yesterday, so we'll stop by this week to find out why. Gordon had mentioned that mornings were hard for him because often times he gets migraines for at least an hour or two after he wakes up. I'm not sure how often it happens for him, but hopefully we can help him in some way.

Oh yeah, and that blackberry pie I wrote about last week? It was delicious! Sorry I don't have a picture of it... Actually, I don't have any new pictures this week at all!

Turns out I had lost my camera charger in my last area without realizing it, so I spent a bit of time last week trying to call, find, and retrieve it, with no luck. My camera has been dead ever since, but don't worry! It's all good now! A member here helped me order a new one and it's already arrived! It works great and my camera is back to working. I'll be sure to take more pictures this week to make up for my lack of them now.

But I think that's all from me! Love you all!

Good luck with your Senior year, Brandon! Now we're almost all out of High School. Keep on winning your Football games!

And Ryan & Tia, you better let me know how your honeymoon went!

Thanks for reading!

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary