Week 3 in Raymond, WA

Letter from Elder Green

July 29, 2013

 

 

Mom you are funny! I don't know if I am surprised or not but regardless I think that it is really cool that you got to meet his family. I figured you and his mom would get along well. We laugh all the time at how we are sure our moms are  friends and so far we have been pretty right.  Elder Webber is a killer companion and I love him to death!!

 

*(Elder Webber's family, from California, was in Utah for vacation/visiting family.  Kent & I had the opportunity to meet ElderWebber's family on Friday.  We were super excited!  We visited for about an hour 1/2.  It was really fun comparing stories of our 2 favorite missionaries!!  We had a great time getting to know each other.  Needless to say, they are such an amazing family and we're honored to have met them!)

 

 

 

 

This week in Raymond has been incredible! Our first baptism went through and it was amazing!  Terry let me baptize him. He is an awesome guy and has come so far in the past few weeks that we have known him. The ward has been doing a good job of fellow shipping Terry, and his baptism had a good turn out. I love being a missionary here in the WA-TAC! 

 

 

 

  I have been obsessed with listening to conference talks lately so we took a cd of talks from the church library.

 

That's good to hear that Kt got my letter. I haven't heard from her for a little while. hopefully I will get a letter back this week.  Thanks for helping out the missionaries I know that they appreciate members like you who give them rootbeer and help them be obedient. I got a letter from Kyrsten and her family and they said that you get to see Rich all the time, Dad.   He is a good guy, him and I always got along really well.

 

Have fun at City of rocks! Climb hard!

 

 I'm glad to hear that Zach Bishop sent a friend request. He taught me so much. He actually sent me an email this week! He was a great missionary and I am excited to see where he goes in life. 

Sister Angelovich did have her baby. It's a girl! They haven't named her yet. We baked them a cake and gave it to them this morning. 

I love you Mom & Dad!

Have a good week!

Elder Green



Welcome to Raymond!

Week 2 in Raymond

July 22, 2013

 

 

 

Welcome to Raymond

 

 

My week this week was amazing. We put one of our investigators, Terry on date for this Saturday. He is awesome, he even gave up chewing tobacco in a couple days so he can get baptized Saturday. He is an ex-trucker. Owned his own rig and everything but had to retire because of health problems. We also have been teaching this guy named Layton Woodruff (descendant of Wilford Woodruff) and he has been making a ton of progress. Both of these people came to church on Sunday which is awesome. There is this family in the ward with a non-member husband and he has been coming to church for the past year faithfully. We went over yesterday and talked to him about baptism and he wants to work towards it. We taught him the first lesson and he promised to start reading the Book of Mormon. His wife is super funny and blunt. She kept saying things like "You're pretty much already Mormon, Honey, just pull the trigger." The ward here is pretty great and they have been doing a great job of fellowshipping the investigators for the most part. Raymond has definitely been good to us.

 

Elder Webber and I talk about how we are pretty sure our moms talk to each other and you confirmed our suspicions. Haha  Elder Webbers a great missionary and we get along great!  I am hoping I get to stay at least another transfer with him because he is pretty darn rad. Plus we have so much work to do. 

 

We live above a garage that is detached from the house of one of the members. They have a pretty big house so the reason it wasn't on google earth was it must just need to be updated. They are called the Anglovich family and they're great. I got to help milk their cow the other night. They had a milking machine so it wasn't too hard. They have two young daughters that always knock on our door in the morning and talk to us. They are so cute! They painted us pictures the other day. Sister Anglovich is likely going to have a baby this week as well.

 

 

Elder Webber & Elder Green milking a cow!

 

 

It is ridiculously beautiful here. We drive to West Port at least once a week because we technically cover there too and the drive is along the coast. It is the coolest drive in the world. It seriously is a rain forest here.

 

Have fun rock climbing. Make mom try!

 

Thank you so much for the package Mom! We both really appreciated it. Next package would you mind sending me my gray Neff beanie? Thanks I love you!

 

 

Elder Green

 

 

 There's these creepy statues all over Raymond. This one takes the cake though.

 

Elder Green

Downtown Raymond

Raymond is a logging town - Local lumber Yard

 

 

 Elder Webber in front of lighthouse

Last P-Day we climbed a lighthouse

 

Top of lighthouse looking down

Under the light in the Lighthouse

The Lighthouse's lens

The view from up top!

 

 

NEW ADDRESS in the city of RAYMOND

Letter from Elder Green

July 15, 2013

 

 

Only 30 minutes to e-mail so I have to make this super quick this week. Raymond is awesome. We have a car because we live 30 minutes from EVERYTHING. Right now I am emailing from Aberdeen. Elder Webber is the best. He is an amazing missionary and we get along great. Honestly I have nothing bad to say about him. This is his second transfer so we are way young. Turns out we got doubled in. I don't know if I told you that or not but the both of us are new to the area. The ward here is pretty rad. The bishop's first counselor Roxy Oneto is the best member missionary in the world. We had 6 lesson's with a member present in the 5 days we have been here because of him. We also cover the West Port branch. 

 

 Raymond is a one horse town to say the least but it gets a little bigger each day. We have been doing a ton of finding because we have a super small teaching pool right now. We are working super hard and trying to be super obedient. Even though the work has been a little slow most people here are way nice and the members really like us. Things are picking up slowly but surely and I know miracles are on the horizon.

 

We live above a garage detached from a members house. We get free milk from them because they have a cow. Raw milk is super good. Our apartment has AC which I didn't know existed in Washington. Elder Webber and I have been having a lot of fun.

 

HERE IS OUR NEW ADDRESS:

53 Elk Creek Road

Raymond, WA  98577

 

Love you and miss you lots.

Elder Green

July 8, 2013

Pictures & Letters from Elder Green - July 8, 2013

 

 

 

This week was incredible. Especially Saturday. Two of our investigators got married at the church outside in the pavilion. President Weaver was the one that married them.  After the Wedding we got permission to go to the reception in Olympia and set up a chocolate fountain. It was really cool. Some guy there kept trying to spike Ashley and Vadim's drinks, though, and we were getting kind of mad. The adversary works in many ways, but Ashley and Vadim stayed strong.

 

 

The Elders & Vadim

 

 

 Also one of our investigators, Mary Lou Bugala got baptized on Saturday. The spirit was so ridiculously strong there and it was amazing. She was baptized by her father in law and when she came out of the water she was like "Thank you so much!" And gave him a big hug. Super cute.

 

 

 

 

 Then we had dinner at a members house that night, the Delimonts, and while we were there we got our transfer calls. Elder Bishop is going home, Elder Kearney and Elder Waring are staying, and I am going to Raymond Washington in the Elma Zone. This is in the booneys. AP Dennison was the one who gave me my transfer call and he said "There's like 4,000 people there so talk to everyone." My companion is Elder Webber and I am follow-up training him. We are going to be a super young companionship which means we get to exercise our greenie faith. I am super excited. The past couple of days I have been getting myself in the zone and today for comp study Elder Bishop gave me one last training about how to be successful and I am way excited to apply it. I'll send you my new address as soon as I can.

 

Ashley and Vadim are getting baptized at 5:00 today which will put me at 6 baptisms so far! That's baptizing bi-weekly!

 

I love you very much! Have a great week!

Elder Green 

 

July 1, 2013

Letter & Pictures from Elder Green - July 1, 2013

 

 

 

 

This week was super crazy awesome and also frustrating as can be. We almost ran out of miles on our car so we had to bike all week. I fell of my bike twice - no big deal. It rained early on in the week and then got super hot, which made the humidity just ridiculous. With that being said, it was a really good week!!

 

 I got to teach our investigators the Bugalas the commandments with Elder Bishop and President Weaver joined us as well. He is the coolest guy in the world. Also, we had a baptism yesterday. He is a 17 year old kid named Tailonie Dixon and he was the first person that I have been able to find to teach and baptize in a transfer. He is super awesome and the first person in his family to get baptized into the church. I got to get in the water for the first time as well because he asked me to baptize him. Needless to say yesterday was pretty amazing.

 

(Blake getting ready to baptize Tailonie Dixon)

 

 

Yesterday a girl named Ali came up to us and said she wanted to start taking the discussions. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and she knows that it is true and has been coming to church with some extended family. She is on date for the 13th of July so most likely I won't be here for it, but it is still awesome to see.

We are having a wedding this Saturday for our investigators Ashley and Vadim and they are getting baptized next Monday. This next Saturday we are also going to have a baptism for this girl we have been teaching named Mary Lou Bugala. She is so amazing. She has been asking about callings and what her calling might be when she is baptized. She is worried that her calling might take her away from going to Sunday school because she likes it so much. I love the Bugalas so much! So my week all and all was great.

 

(Found a place in Olympia that looks like the Sacred Grove)

 

Thanks for all your prayers that you send my way. I love you very much!

 

Elder Green