Letter from Tacoma # 81: May 15, 2017

Hey Everybody! (Disclaimer: This is a long one. It has a lot of entertaining stuff, but I won't be sad if you skip this one either. You'll just miss out!)

This week was a pretty good one! I loved calling home yesterday, and I'm glad I was able to talk to everyone! The little kids are still as adorable as ever and everything seems to be going really good.

Let's do a little synopsis of my week:

Monday: P-Day was alright. We got our groceries, then headed to Key Center's library to email home. Then we got lunch, then hung out at Key Center's apartment again. They live with members, so I was browsing through their bookshelf and I found a little book called, "Boys Who Became Prophets." It's a very cool read about some stories from each of the latter-day prophets' childhood. Very entertaining. Then we knocked, and then visited with some members the rest of the night.

Tuesday: Pretty regular work day. We spent the day trying to visit less-active members, and then knocking doors in each of the neighborhoods after attempting each visit. Around 2:30 though, we felt like we needed to go into town and go street contacting. As we were walking around, a guy waved us down while he drove past, before pulling into the parking lot and hopping out to talk to us. He asked if we could talk, saying he had some questions, so we heard him out.

His name is Nathan McVikkers, about 25 years old, and he's a super smart guy. He knew his bible front and back, to the point that while we taught him some stuff, he would bring up scriptures off the top of his head that supported what we said. He was a very genuine seeker of truth, and he said he had just quit his job that day because he felt he needed to go to a church each week, which his job had been preventing him from doing so. And then what do you know, he happens to see us walking by the road he was driving on, even though we hadn't been planning on going street contacting at all today.

But the story gets even better, because we want to give him some materials to read, but our car is in a different parking lot. So we tell him to meet us there while we walked there. We did, and he met us there, and we were walking towards our car when suddenly a big redneck in a truck pulls up beside us. This redneck (I'm using this term for accuracy, because this man was the spitting image of a generic redneck), also asks if we can answer a question he had. It's very apparent that he was only interested in arguing with us, but we listened to him. He asked why we 'added to the bible', regarding the book of mormon, a very common and frankly overused argument that every preacher seems to love telling to their congregation.

However, to our surprise and delight, Nathan, this genuine, amazing genius, actually defends us. He tells him straight-up that we don't believe in 'closed-canon' scripture, and how we believe in modern-day revelation. Nathan proceeded to, lovingly, tell this man to read a few different books, which I can't even remember what they were because he was rattling them off so fast. By this point, the man in the truck started to get defensive, saying, "Look, I was only asking, 'cause I want everyone to be saved in Christ." He then admitted, a little proudly, that his church was teaching him how to contend with other faiths, and explained how he was still learning.

So, through the whole conversation, we didn't have to say a word, until the end when we bid the redneck a good day before he drove off. We thanked Nathan for what he said, which I think has led me to have a great appreciation and respect for him, and then we went to our car to give him a triple combination and a couple of pamphlets. He gave us our phone number, and he said he may stop by our church services. He's not sure if he wants to officially investigate yet, but I hope he contacts us soon, because he's definitely been prepared by God to receive the gospel.

Wednesday: District Meeting. It was a great day when we got out of the meeting, so we went knocking doors at the edge of our area. It was a full day of work, which I'm enjoying a lot more than I did at the start of my mission. I've noticed that nowadays, I'm starting to get anxious to get out of the apartment and get going in the mornings.

Thursday: We had interviews with President Blatter. Supposedly this will be his last set of interviews before the new mission president comes in July. To celebrate, Sister Blatter baked her homemade cookies for us while we waited for our turn to be interviewed. She even emailed out the recipe today.  

Friday: Another full day of work, though not quite missionary work. The whole afternoon we spent doing service at this old woman's house, cleaning her roof gutters. We had knocked into her earlier this week, asking if we could do any service for her, and she took us up on our offer. We started, and it was okay... and then it started raining, and that's when it got fun. Haha, she started worrying about us, telling us we shouldn't be working in the rain. We simply replied that we've worked in worse weather, continuing on until it was all done. I really love physical work, because it's something different to do, and you get to see the result of what you've accomplished. The lady was grateful, and she gave us brownies!

Saturday: We spent the day at the outer part of our area, Grapeview. We spent the day visiting members out there, since we don't get out that far very often. We had a few good visits, but for the sake of time and not making this letter too long, I'll only mention my favorite out of all of them: The last visit of the evening at the Mills'.

I mentioned over the call home how they are farmers, they produce a lot of their own food, and they have a good sized rabbit farm for their meat supply. They had recently received a few rabbits from some friends, but now they were having to spend $40 a week to feed all of the rabbits. So, they decided to thin the herd a little, picking out two rabbits to butcher. While they were working on the first one, we visited with Sis. Mills and their sons, while playing with a few of the rabbits. 

After seeing all of that, I was laughing a bit, "Oh, I can't wait to tell Mom about this tomorrow! Happy Mother's Day!"

Sunday: Mother's Day! I especially loved Sacrament Meeting. They had the primary program, and while they singed, the spirit was so strong. I was reminded how much I love Mom (and Dad, too), and I felt a strong feeling of gratitude that lasted the whole day.

We had dinner at the Madison's, with another member family there as well, the White's. They made Cafe Rio for us, which was way good! I haven't had Cafe Rio for over two years, I think! Oh, and Kylie, Bro White told me about this pizza place in Lehi that's way dope! It's Pizzeria Limone, he said it was way good, so if you want to do a Foodie review on it or something, that's a recommendation for you!

Again, I had a lot of fun calling home. It was good to see a few aunts and uncles, too!

Oh, and Mom! Is it possible to send soda through the mail? If so, since you asked if I needed anything, I would really enjoy a few cans of Barq's Red Creme Soda! They don't sell it anywhere in Washington, which stinks because that's my absolute favorite!

Anyways, that's all from me!

Love you all!

Thanks for reading!

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary