Letter from Tacoma #51: October 17, 2016
Hey family!!!!!!!!
Ugh! So much rain! It just never stopped this whole week! The weather was basically the talk of the town the whole week. During P-Day, we had people preparing for some "Huge storm this weekend, and it's gonna be bad!" So, we were a bit on edge for the weather that was apparently coming... which it did, but it definitely wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be.
Monday: P-Day! Nothing out of the ordinary, though what we had planned to do that afternoon, play some games with a member family, the Chisms, had to be cancelled because Bro. Chism was sick. But we've rescheduled to play with them today after we get done emailing. That evening, we went to the Gerou's for FHE, and they had this super old FHE video from the church for the VCR. I've definitely never seen it before, but it was entertaining and spiritually uplifting. One of my favorite things from it was a little animation explaining the creation of the universe through an explosion would be just as likely as a printing shop exploding to create a dictionary: Very funny and very true.
Tuesday: Not a lot happened, but the biggest thing that did was our service project for that day. The Friday before last, we had met a lady named Rosa, and she needed help cleaning out the home they had just moved into. It's only her and her daughter, but both of them can only get around with walkers, Rosa because she's old, her daughter because of multiple strokes. So Tuesday we stopped by to start on cleaning the place out. They bought the house just a couple months ago, and it has a main house area, as well as a separate apartment in the same building. But the previous residents had been squatters (Homeless people who live in abandoned homes) and they had just wrecked the place during their stay until they were evicted by police. There was trash everywhere, they had stripped the place of a lot of wiring, broke a few windows, burned profanity into the walls, filled the piping with dirt and mud, and apparently the squatters had owned pets because there was animal poop EVERYWHERE! During the two months Rosa and her daughter had been there, they'd cleaned out the main part of the house to the point where it is barely livable, but they hadn't even touched the separate apartment yet.
The contrast between the two was immense. They'd done a really good job cleaning their place up, given their limitations in mobility. So, what they needed from us was help with the apartment cleanup. It was disgusting, but we made quick work of it, filling up about twenty trash bags of junk and literal crap. They were grateful for our help, but we weren't finished yet. We planned to come back and help more on Saturday.
Wednesday: Zone Meeting! Stake President Larson of the Elma Stake came and spoke to us at the start. He shared with us this video that I thought was great. I always liked this story about President Hinckley:
What I got out of Zone Meeting in general is that I need to start an actual study journal. I know preach my gospel wants you to have one to write down spiritual insights and take notes, but I've kind of ignored it for the first year of the mission. But not anymore, because today I'm gonna buy a journal to use while studying. We'll see how it goes.
Thursday: Weekly Planning. Nothing really happened. It was raining and everybody was "panicking" that the storm was coming, so nobody was outside. So, we spent the day trying to visit members, and do at least some knocking. Most the people we tried visiting weren't home, ironically, even though everybody else was!
Friday: We served lunch at the Senior Center like always, though this time we made meatball sandwiches. YUMMY! Then we also stopped by our only investigator's house, Diane. We had a nice visit, just checking up on her and seeing if there was anything she needed. We helped cut down a medium sized, dead tree at the side of her house, since she was worried that it might do damage to her home if there was a bad storm coming. So, despite the weather, we got that taken care of.
Then near the end of the night, we stopped by McDonald's, which here in Ocean Shores they also serve hard-scooped Tillamook Ice Cream! So Elder MacQueen and I both got ice cream cones there to celebrate my year mark on the mission. I haven't gotten that box yet, Mom, but I should get it later today. I wonder what it'll be.
Saturday: It literally rained all day, not even stopping at any point in the day until about 6:00 PM. It was a little windy, but nothing more than what we're used to or what we've already seen this season. We had breakfast with the Wikan family, and Bro. Wikan is the best cook I've ever met, so the bacon was amazing like always! Afterwards we stopped by Rosa's again and got a lot of work done at her place, including filling about ten more trash bags, cleaning some more trash out of the main part of the house, and even lugging a moldy, broken fridge out of there
That took up a good portion of the day, so we ate dinner at home, then knocked our 5-7's. But in the middle, the rain finally stopped and the sun came out, just on the horizon, casting the glow of twilight through the cloudy sky. It looked pretty awesome, but I didn't have my camera on me. so sad.
Sunday: Great day as usual. It's interesting how only after I'm on a mission that I realize how much of an energizer or a re-charge church is for me. I feel as if I am progressing through living the gospel, and that fact has become much more apparent as I've lost myself in it. It's like that scripture in D&C section.... um, something.... "He that saveth his life shall lose it. He that loseth his life for my sake and the gospel shall find it."
After church, we brought the sacrament to Sis King, our only member of the branch who is 100 years old and still kicking it in the recliner. She's still fun to visit with. The rest of the day afterwards was just the usual, knocking, talking, finding.
Now take that whole week, and just add rain to every day of it, not the whole time, but on and off throughout the week. That is an accurate description of my week. And so is this!
Have fun at Disney World everybody!
Oh my gosh! All the little kids are growing up so quickly! Brandon really does look like a cave man with that beard too. Way to go, Brandon, passing the trip up to support his team and play! That's awesome of you!
Be sure to send me lots of pictures of the trip so I can be green with envy... don't worry, I won't actually be envious or jealous. I just want to see how fun it is for you guys!
I love you all!
Thanks for reading!
-Elder R. Austin Moe
Wa-Tac Missionary
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