Letter from Tacoma #56: November 21, 2016

 Oh, COME ON! SERIOUSLY? KRISTA AND JOSH WENT SKYDIVING WITHOUT ME?!?!

I'm just kidding, but oh, I'm pretty jealous. That looks like so much fun!

That snow looks fun, too. The little kids look like they enjoyed it. I miss snow. It's too humid for snow most of the time. The only times it has snowed during my mission was last December; It only snowed twice, and both times the snow had melted by the end of the day.

Although this week we did get some hail, so that was cool.

And way to go at that TKD tournament, Kamryn and Kyler! Both of them got first place? Awesome!

This week has been pretty busy busy, what with transfers and all.

I got my new companion this week. Meet Elder Devenburg:

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Yeah, he made that sword himself, out of duct tape, foam, and pbc pipe. He's really creative, very athletic, and overall just bursting with energy. I don't think I've ever seen him stop moving. There was one time he was trying to show me a picture on his camera, but it was kind of blurry on my end because his arm that was holding the camera wouldn't stop moving! Lol

But he's a lot of fun to work with. He's very energetic around people. He's a lot more social than I am, so that helps a lot when we're talking to people... but then again, I still have to break the ice once and a while with people that I know that he doesn't.

It's been getting really dark lately. We still knock everyday between five and seven o' clock, but nowadays when five rolls around, it's already dark! Keep in mind though that a lot of the houses in Ocean Shores are vacation homes, currently unoccupied during the winter season, and hardly any of the streets have street lights. So that means we're walking down pitch black streets, and we can walk for ten minutes straight on some roads and we won't see a house with a light on. But it's alright, because I happen to have a really really good flashlight, and all the extra time between houses flies by when you make conversation with your companion.

Speaking of which, Elder Devenburg also likes anime, just like me. So for the past week that's mostly what we've been talking about. How come it seems like I always get the really cool companions?

Some fun highlights this week? Let's see...

I finally got around to making that cake batter Mom and Dad sent to me.

​They turned out pretty good! I like these cookies way too much. Whenever I see cake mix now, all I think is, 'Ooh, these would be really good cookies'. Funny how that works out.

Yesterday evening, we went to our Branch President's place for dinner. We had a good meal, but then President and Sis Baron showed us a new hobby of theirs... Freeze-drying food. To help with their food storage, they had bought a pretty expensive freeze-drying machine, and once they got it, they apparently went to town freeze-drying just about anything you can think of. The picture below is freeze dried Gummy Bears, Chocolate Pudding, Ice Cream Sandwiches, and Blackberries.

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At first, I was a little unsure about these, but then I tried some of them, and they are so good!! Sure, they look a little weird, but they taste basically the same! I liked the dried ice cream sandwiches the best, because after popping one into your mouth, just suck on it a little bit so it can absorb the moisture and it melts in your mouth, still tasting like ice cream, but it's not cold. It's kind of weird, but I can see why the Barons got hooked on it.

On Saturday we had a potluck, which was set up by us and our Branch Mission Leader, Bro Davis... Unfortunately, Bro. Davis went out of town by then to spend Thanksgiving week with some family, so we were left to set up and get everything going, but they did leave us everything we needed. We had about 18 people show up for it, and they all brought food, so we ended up having enough to feed twice as many people... we had a lot of leftovers.

The cool part was our investigator, Diane, came too! She brought her own dish, some pumpkin pie bars, which was really good, too. The best part was the fact that when she got there, she didn't even sit by us. Instead she went mingling at another table, talking a few other members she only just met. I thought she would have just hung around us and we would have had to manually introduce her to some of the members, so I guess she's not as shy as she lets on. Diane seemed to enjoy herself, and even with a few people there it was still lots of fun.

The rest of this week was pretty much the usual. We spent most of it showing Elder Devenburg around and introducing him to the members of the branch.

I'm excited for Thanksgiving! We have plans to spend the morning serving at a community Thanksgiving dinner here in town. Then later in the afternoon we'll head to the Giles for our main dinner. Then we'll run back home, get weekly planning done, and then just visit other members in the branch. Sounds like a fun day!

Anyways, I love you all, and I miss home a lot! But I've still got plenty to do out here.

Thanks for reading!

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary