Letter from Tacoma #72: March 13, 2017

 Hey everybody!

This week has been pretty good! Unfortunately I won't have too much time to email today just because of scheduling reasons: We don't have our car today because Elder Pisciotta and Elder Simkins are going down to Port Orchard today to get Pisciotta's blood drawn. He's been sick with something and throwing up for the past month now, which is way longer than the doctor guessed it would have stayed. That means that now we know it isn't an ulcer or an inflamed stomach, and worse case scenario, Elder Pisciotta will need to get his gallbladder removed.

So yeah, that's exciting.

Well, you remember how last week Harrison came to the fireside? Well, unfortunately, we haven't been able to see him since then. We text him everyday, but he never responds. There's a young woman in the ward who is one of his friends, but even she hasn't been able to talk to Harrison at school. We honestly have no idea what's going on, but we're not giving up on him yet.

But we still had some good success this week. We're teaching a small family right now from the Marshall Islands. The mom's name is Leona, and she has a daughter, Readi, and a son, L.C. They've been taught most of the lessons, and at first they weren't really interested in the idea of baptism, but now they've just barely committed to be baptized on the 8th of April. They came to church yesterday for the first time, too. Leona and Readi enjoyed the different classes, though right now we just need to work on getting L.C. to be comfortable going to Primary. They show a lot of progress and promise.

Oh yeah, and this week I got sick with a cold. At the end of Monday, I wasn't feeling too good, so I went in early. Woke up Tuesday and felt even worse, so I stayed in most of the day. Being sick on a mission isn't fun, in fact it's way boring because you've got nothing to do. You can only sleep for so long before you can't sleep anymore. But that day, by 5:00 I was feeling good enough to knock some doors... only to return home at 7:00 because Elder Pisciotta was throwing up again and I was getting tipsy myself. Just a couple of sickies going about, knocking doors. lol 

A few funny things that happened this week:

1). On Friday we helped a friend of Bro. Eastman's move. He was living on the Naval Base here, but now he and his family is moving just a little ways off base. They needed our help to move the big stuff. One of these things was a big, bulky coffee table. This table in particular could fold half of the tabletop up to access a large compartment inside.

So, we loaded it up into the van, with me carrying it backwards into it. When we set it down, it blocked my way out of the van. So I sat on it, swung my legs around so I could scoot to the other side. But I completely forgot this table had hinges poking out of the top of it, so when I scooted, I heard this massive rip!

I got up and looked down to see a massive rip in my pants where it had caught on the hinge! Whoops! But it was pretty funny, so we got a laugh out of it. And my coat concealed the rip, so we just kept on loading stuff up. Today I'm gonna need to get a new pair of jeans, though.

2.) On Sunday, we ate dinner with a member family, the Dayley's. They served us some way good Italian sausage soup, with a little spicy kick in it. Of course, Elder Pisciotta knew that wouldn't agree with his stomach, but he knew by then that no matter what he ate it was going to come back up again and he wouldn't be able to work that night anyways. So, he pigged out a bit, and he did okay for the rest of the meal.

But about a minute after we left their home, driving away in the car, Pisciotta suddenly gets this wide-eyed look on his face as he rolls down the window. With not a moment to spare, he leans out the window and lets the first chunks roll out onto the pavement. Elder Simkins who was driving noticed in time to slow the car down, but he started freaking out, like "Why did you puke out the window?! You could have told me to stop the car!"

Elder Pisciotta just replied, "I wanted to try the window!"

To make the situation even more humorous, a little bit of it got on the side of the car, and it stunk way bad. And to top the whole experience, there had been a guy standing on his driveway right by where Pisciotta had leaned out the window, and there was no doubt that he had seen the whole thing go down. Hahaha! It was a funny situation!

Here's Elder Pisciotta cleaning up afterwards:

Oh yeah, this week we get transfer calls. This is the time of the year where we are losing a lot of sister missionaries who came out two summers ago, but we aren't getting a lot of missionaries in return. So all the foursome companionship areas are getting reduced to regular twosomes. That means for sure that I'll be transferring somewhere else this time. Not sure where though, but I'm excited to be serving somewhere new next transfer. I'll miss my current companions though. They've been a real party to work with.

Anyways, that's all from me! Hope everything is going well back home!

Thanks for reading,

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary