Letter from Tacoma #93: August 7, 2017

Hi family!!!

This week summed up in two words: 'Hot' & 'Crazy'!

It was waaaaaaaaaaaaay hot over here! It was something like 104 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity was around 80%, so it's way uncomfortable to be out in. And it was like that for about three days straight (Or at least felt like it).

So glad that it cooled down to regular northwest weather! Plus, that just means we've gotten through the hottest part of the year! I'm looking forward to working in September-October, cause that's when the weather is the best: cool, but not too much rain yet. It'll be better from here on out! ... I hope...

Anyways, this week was way crazy compared to last week. Last week it was work as usual, but it was incredibly slow! We barely had two appointments, cause all the other ones fell through, so we were left knocking doors and visiting members the whole time! This week started in a similar way, all until Thursday, right as we were about to start Weekly Planning.

We got a call from President Leishman, which never is a good sign. You know that means something's up! He informs us that our district leader from Olympia 4th Ward, Elder Carling, will be joining us. We'd be in a threesome, working both areas for the foreseeable future.

So, Elder Carling arrived and told us the story. I'm not going to tell all of it for sake of time, cause it's a loooooong story. But suffice to say that some sketchy stuff was happening to them back near their apartment, and he and his companion were getting into a lot of disagreements, so their companionship had to be separated. We got Elder Carling and now cover Olympia 4th area, while Carling's companion was transferred to Tacoma.

This NEVER happens in our missions, or at least not often. But Elder Kido and I are just loving the result of all of it! Elder Carling is way fun to be around! He's the talkative one, meanwhile Elder Kido and I are pretty quiet, so now there's a lot less moments of silence as we're going from door to door. There's always something to talk about with somebody! Plus, we get a car! We're not on bike anymore!! Thankfully this happened in the middle of the hottest weather, so we had A/C for some of it.

And I really feel like this was meant to be: Before Elder Carling was dropped off with the car, Elder Kido and I started planning for next week. And we had almost nothing going on next week. Our area seemed literally dead, with less than a handful of investigators to work with. When we finished discussing about what little we had, we both felt like we were missing something, like there was something we hadn't addressed or brought up yet.

But as soon as Elder Carling arrived and we started planning for 4th ward, everything fell into place. All of our previously made appointments lined up, and both areas work meshed up almost perfectly! It turns out that both 3rd and 4th wards have been pretty slow as far as missionary work goes, so now that we cover both of them, it feels like we have the normal amount of work to do like any other proselyting area!

And all of this happened on Elder Carling's birthday:

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That's one heck of a birthday: Got two new companions, an extension to the usual work area, and birthday cake. He seemed to enjoy it.

As far as investigators go, Willy's still struggling with coffee. We met again with him this week and started talking about a plan that he thinks will help him quit coffee and start living the WoW. We worked something out and he thinks he'll be able to stop by Aug 25th, so we put him on date for baptism on Sep 2nd. We had a member there with us who also had quit coffee and smoking in the past, and he's very willing to support Willy in quitting his addiction. Unfortunately Willy didn't make it to church this week, but we're still hoping to meet with him this week.

But we're having a good time! And I'm enjoying this area. Plus this week is going to be really eventful.

Oh yeah! and it was way smoggy all week! There've been forest fires in British Columbia, Canada, and the smoke from them have blown down south into Washington, so the whole sky was just smoky. It smelled like smoke all the time, but it was cool to see!

Love you all!

Thanks for reading!

-Elder R. Austin Moe

Wa-Tac Missionary