Letter from Tacoma #58: December 5, 2016

 Hey Everybody!

I'm in the mood to tell about my week in chronological fashion.

Monday: P-Day like usual, just dinking around, finding something to do, took a nap, etc. Then that evening we went and saw a couple of former investigators, Andrea and Gordon. They had stopped investigating because life was a whirlwind, but now things have settled down and they're willing to make the effort to investigate again. The whole time they just talked about how they liked the church because "it all made sense". That's a good sign. Hopefully we can drop by tonight and see them again.

Tuesday: We spent most of the morning street contacting, but then we saw Diane in the afternoon. While we were there, we read the Book of Mormon with her, some of 2 Nephi. We're getting into the Isaiah chapters, and it's both funny and frustrating because Diane wants to understand it all, but when it brings up a metaphor or a simile, it goes over her head, kind of like Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy. We did pretty well, as Elder Devenberg and I put our heads together to merge our scriptural knowledge and try to simplify it for her.

Wednesday: We did some more street contacting before going to District Meeting. These meetings are usually pretty fun. Our District Leader, Elder Zhou, is very book-smart. He knows his stuff as far as textbook information, but common sense goes completely over his head. So District Meetings are usually a combination of great missionary messages, and a few kicks and giggles as the whole district brings up little things to mess with Elder Zhou.

Thursday: Weekly Planning, then the usual knocking doors and street contacting. Then some members, The Harris', took us out to dinner at the Shore Shack, a local joint I've never been to. I got a fish burger, it was pretty good, but I kind of wish it'd been more filling. But after dinner, we ran to the Harris' house to help them load some stuff into a trailer. They're slowly moving out of their place to live closer to their kids down in Oregon. After we got that done though, Sis. Harris brought out a Banana Cream Pie, and the four of us got a quarter of the pie each! That definitely filled me then!

Friday: We helped at the Senior Center like always, serving Spaghetti! I made some great garlic bread, and Elder Devenberg made the salad. We didn't have too many people come in, but we were still thankfully out of food by the end of lunch time. Our appointment to see Rosa fell through, so we just went out finding new investigators... which kind of sucked that day because the rain was coming down in sheets! The weather here is ridiculous, but thankfully the rain passes over quicker than other places in Washington. We were basically on our own doing stuff the whole day

Saturday: We did some more street contacting, it started raining, so we ran back to the apartment to eat lunch and put on some dry clothes. Then we helped a member move into the area, but I forget her name. We unloaded her Uhaul truck into a storage unit, because she still needs to look for an apartment or something else to live in. But that service made us late for our appointment with Diane. So we ran over there and did some more Book of Mormon reading, (We got through the rest of the Isaiah chapters! Yes!). Diane really seems to find excitement in reading the scriptures. She did a lot of reading on her own before we got there since the last time we read with her.

Sunday: Testimony meeting was really great. Diane was the only investigator who came to church, sadly. But she seems to enjoy coming to church more. She even went out of her way to meet some of the members of the branch, and she got invited to a Family Home Evening with a few other retired singles. Hopefully she enjoys that, too. She also came for the Christmas Devotional, and Sister Lundell brought some snacks for after the devotional.

So overall it was a very good week.

With December now here, I decided to get myself into the Christmas spirit, too.

​YAY EGGNOG!

​I found the tree in the apartment's closet, but all the ornaments were the ones I got last year. Funny, huh?

Now the only thing that's missing is the snow, which I really do miss a lot. Yes, I heard that there was a lot of traffic problems that came from it, but I still miss it. And it just had to snow almost a foot back home. Lucky!

Love you all!

Thanks for reading!

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary