Interviews

Week 19: Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello all! I hope all of you had a great holiday! This week was a fun one. First off, on Tuesday we spent almost all day with the McKenna Elders serving at the local food bank giving out turkeys and other Thanksgiving-ish food to people who could not afford it. It was a lot of fun. It was really good for us too, to get our faces a little better known here in the community. We had a lot of people ask questions and were really grateful we were there to help out. It was awesome.

The next day we had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators. She is doing super well and is eating everything up. It's really cool to see people progress in the gospel and get answers to prayers confirming what we share. 

Then, we had Thanksgiving! We were not supposed to proselyte that day so we all stayed in a played board games. I lost bad at Monopoly but one Catan, so I think it equals out.

The rest of the week flew by as well. We knocked a lot of doors and found a bunch more people to teach! Things are pretty exciting out here in Yelm.

We also had a really good sacrament meeting here yesterday. There were a lot of talks on faith and how it can provide so many different things in your life, from strength to comfort to motivation. It is important to always remain faithful, no matter how hard the trial is. He is always there for you, and if you remain faithful, He will bless you for it in ways you could never imagine.

Anyways, that's all I have for this week.

Till next time

Elder Parker

1) a picture of (most) of our zone after helping a lady do yard work and set up her Christmas stuff! 

Week 19 Mom email

I did get the garments!! Thank you so much. They are really nice. They are a big help in keeping me warm, that's for sure. I did have a good week. Hey! 1 of 2 Thanksgivings down. How crazy is that! I'll be calling home here pretty soon. That is weird to think about, isn't it? Time sure has flown by, at least for me.

My pair of slacks I brought out died on me this week. I wore a hole right through them from walking so much in the middle of nowhere. I have a pair I found in the apartment that work for now. There is a brand everyone wears here but I can't get them because the store is in Tacoma, 45 minutes outside of my stake boundary. They are called RSQ from Tilly's. Do you think it would be possible to order some for me? If not, I can try to figure something out.

We have a new Northwest mission thing. We won't get to eat dinners with members on weekdays and then on weekends they want it to be with investigators and inactive members. They are implementing our 5-7s rule to every mission in Washington, California, Oregon, British Columbia, Alaska, and Hawaii to see if it will help raise numbers since we are the highest baptizing mission in the Northwest and that's what sets us apart. It will be weird not getting dinners. If you ever want to surprise us by ordering a pizza or something at 4, it would be greatly appreciated hahaha. I'm learning out how to cook now, which is nice I guess. Well, learning to cook is probably a little strong. Ha.

Love Nathan

Surprise text!

Sister Parker, we have your awesome son here and knew you wanted to see his smiling face! Our oldest daughter is in the Madrid Spain mission and we just moved back to Yelm from living in Belgium where we didn't have regular missionaries in our branch. We were so excited to have these guys for dinner then they changed the rules. Well, they came to me after Sunday school and asked if they could still come. Of course, I would never tell them no but I didn't want to get them in trouble;) They announced to us last week no more feeding the missionaries. They can eat on weekends at less active and nonmember houses but they said they had no one lined up. They still tracted until 7, so they are following the rules! We ate before they came over since it was just turkey soup, so we talked to them while they ate. I think I'm glad we don't have sisters because I always cry when I see them. I love the Elders but I can keep it together more with them. I see the sisters and I just see Amelia. We had such a nice visit with them, and it helps me to feel closer to my daughter because I know members are taking care of her in Spain. Have a wonderful holiday and I will try and send you another picture whenever I think of it.
Sister Kennington

Week 18: Mom email

My companion is doing good. He is a lot of fun. We get along very well. Knocking 5-7s isn't bad. We just have to reknock on doors a lot especially now that it is dark during it. We try to stay more in the neighborhoods. The nice thing is though that Yelm is like 2/3rds military so every time we reknock an area there is like four families just moving in!

The elder in my picture on the group email is not my companion. That was Elder Johnson, fresh out of the MTC 3 weeks ago. It was when we were doing yard work service as a zone.

Week 18: A Week of Service

Hello all!

This week was a fun one. We did a lot of service! One of the biggest was our time at the food bank! We went to the food bank and I loaded boxes of food onto shopping carts while my companion sorted fruits and took out the rotten ones. It was a lot of fun! There was a lot of people that came there that seemed really happy with the food they were getting which was awesome.

We also helped a guy move out of his old house and into another. He had a giant mattress that was quite the adventure to take down the stairs. It had a mind of its own and did not want to budge.

Then, we also helped a lady do her yard work and raked her leaves. She was very thankful for all of it and really happy we could help.

We also had a few really good lessons this week as well! It is awesome to see people grasp onto what we have to say and how the gospel just "makes so much more sense."

In my studies this week I also came across a great scripture. It says "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." I really like it because sometimes in our times of success we forget where our success comes from. We need to remember God in everything we do, for everything we have is from Him, giving thanks is the least we can do. As we remember God in our daily lives we will be uplifted, more grateful and in tune with the Spirit. So we should try and have gratitude for all that we have.

Anyways, that is all I have for this week. Till next time, 

Elder Parker

Pictures!

1) our little Christmas Tree!

2) an elephant chair used to ride elephants?

3) a lizard thingy we found doing service!

Zone Conference

Week 17: Dark Nights

Hello all! This week was a fun one, that is for sure. We ended up doing service of some kind almost every day this week, from laundry to yard work, to cleaning out a storage unit. It was a lot of fun. It's always so cool to see how service can make other people's day.

We also now have the opportunity to teach one of the coolest 9 year olds ever! He is the son of a family that feeds us every other week and one day he told his parents he wanted to be part of the church! We taught him the 10 commandments after dinner that night and he took notes and drew pictures and everything. It was so cool, he is so excited about it all! We are now going to start teaching him on a regular basis and it should all go really well.

During my studies this week of the Old Testament I found a scripture that I really liked as well. It was in 1 Samuel 16:7. It says "for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart". I think that is really important for me as a missionary as we are walking the streets. It is important to talk to everyone, we do not know the desires of their heart or what they have going on. We should do our best to treat everyone with love and care because who knows, sometimes the people who look like they don't need it may need it the most. 

Anyways, that's all for this week

Love

Elder Parker

Emma Email

I do like to work, but in order to work hard, I've got to nap hard. I'm pretty sure that's science, I think. My new companion is awesome! He is from Utah (I feel like all of them are haha). He is really funny. He makes me laugh a lot. He likes to work too which is a plus, just likes working in a different way than me so we are trying to combine our work methods. 

I was out knocking doors when the game was on. I kept getting people to update me on the scores as I went haha. It was fun.

This one is me battling a 9-year-old. I lost haha. He had a shield.

Week 16: Mom email

My companion is doing really good, especially with adjusting to the new mission culture. I found out from elder Jackson (he went home last week) the best boots to get that he wore every day of all his mission. The store is near here had them for sale. They are awesome, waterproof and everything! I got them for $55 which wasn't bad at all! They are leather so I can polish them. They are very comfortable and by the Georgia boot company. I got the low cut ones. They were a lot cheaper and both are waterproof. plus they are easier to put on. I'll probably wear them even when I get back home. They are super popular shoes over hear, everyone wears them.

I have ridden my bike once haha. The area I cover is just so big that the bike isn't very practical, especially if I want to get out to Rainier, the other city I cover, that's like an hour bike ride! Tracting in the dark can feel long sometimes but that is ok. I just hope my thermal garments get here soon!

Week 16: Dad email

Hello! Things are good with my new companion. He is a really nice guy. He understands my sarcasm which is a plus. Once he gets the hang of tracting I think things are going to go really well here. Luckily we have CPS so that helps a lot with showing him around because it turns out I didn't pay super good attention when my old companion was driving haha.

I'm glad that magic is staying alive back home with me gone. I got the esper commander deck. It looks a lot like how my miracles plays, which should be a lot of fun. I miss my miracles deck haha or just real magic in general. We play a lot more competitively than a lot of folks haha, especially missionaries. Most missionaries just have the planeswalker decks which isn't really the game of magic.

I bought new boots today and I am really excited about them.

Do you have any Christmas music by the trans-siberian orchestra? It's Christmas time now according to the mission president and they are some of the best Christmas music I know, haha.

Love,

Nathan

Week 16: Halloween!

Hello all! This week was a lot of fun. I got a new companion named Elder Monsen. He is a lot of fun. He comes from the Federal Way mission, which was dissolved a few months back, but he stayed in his area and kept Federal Way companions so I am his first experience with a Tacoma missionary. It's been a lot of fun and I almost feel like I'm training every now and then haha. (They hardly ever tracked there and we tract all the time here).

This week we also met a guy who is in the process of converting from Buddhism to Christianity. He told us that he had been praying all day and then we showed up! How cool is that! We had an awesome lesson with him and are getting him a mandarin Bood of Mormon because he cannot read English. We also taught this really nice guy who flew Apache helicopters in the army. He gave us both 30mm casings. It was awesome.

Halloween was also this week! For Halloween, we stopped proselyting at 4, had dinner and then met as a zone to watch the movie The Best Two Years. It was really funny. It really shows how important diligence is as a missionary and how working hard can pay off.

Daylight savings was also yesterday. Now that was interesting. It starts getting dark around 5 here which makes knocking 5-7s quite the adventure. Especially in the boons.

Anyways, that's all for this week. 

Love, 

Elder Parker