Week 12 - West Seattle

We had a great first week in West Seattle!!  The area is beautiful and very diverse.  You meet lots of different people.  We also have a really nice view of the skyline.  It will be even more beautiful here when the leaves start to change color.

The first few days here were super hard because we didn't know ANYONE.  We have a really involved ward mission leader though; he's been awesome and the transition went a lot more smoothly with his help.

Our first night we had dinner with the Elder family!  They bought a bunch of pizza so I was in heaven.  The next night we had a meal with a member who gave us cheese and crackers.  I love the meals here.

This week we really tried to find a lot more people to teach.  We ran into one guy who was being taught a few months ago.  He had a church tour with the missionaries but he's never actually attended Sacrament meeting!  We also found a few more people to teach.  One lady we met is really awesome.  She has been meeting with JW's for a little while so she was really interested in what we had to say as well!  She's probably our most solid investigator right now.  We only inherited one from the previous missionaries.  He's on date to be baptized next month but he needs to kick the habit of smoking.

For my birthday, Elder Skelton baked my cake and decorated it.  It was awesome.  I got a lot of great gifts and letters in the mail.

Yesterday was our first day in the new ward, and I love it!  The building has been around forever, so it looks really old school.  The members are awesome!  The Bishop is really nice too; he set up an appointment to meet with us every week so that he can stay involved in missionary work and helping us out!  On Saturday we helped the SeaTac ward do a blitz, where we go with members and visit people on the less active list to see if they're still around and invite them back to church.  It's something that our bishop has expressed interest in doing for our ward.  It'll be really beneficial for him to have all the records updated so hopefully we can get that going soon.

After church, we met with a guy that our zone leaders found when they were tracting in our area.  He's from a reservation in Montana.  He seemed really interested and would ask lots of questions.

Last night we went to the member missionary fireside.  It's always awesome to hear the testimonies of new members because they are so strong and personal.  The theme of the fireside was enduring to the end.  It was great and afterwards we got to meet with all of our friends from North Creek.  Grace even made me a red velvet birthday cake and bought me flowers!  Great week!

Love you all!

Ben