Two Baptisms! 4/24/2017

This week was crazy! First, we had stake conference which was a blast but everyone was super anxious because we were all going to hear the news of the realignment of the wards in the Lakewood stake. Because of size and lack of leaders they discontinued two wards, but on the bright side we got a chunk of each area so that is pretty cool! Elder Anderson and I are pretty happy because we now have a lot more apartments that we can knock! 

Then we had two baptisms on Sunday afternoon! A is a little 9 year old boy who just moved up with his family from Bakersfield, California. His mom and brother are both members but he was not old enough when they were baptized a couple years ago. A couple weeks ago, late in the evening, Elder Fuentes and I had knocked on a little apartment complex and talked to N, the mother, and asked if she would like for A to take the lessons and be baptized. She agreed, so we started seeing them a couple times a week and he was baptized yesterday! It was so cool to see how happy he was for the baptism-- when he got to the church he started running to the doors because he was so excited! haha! And another great thing is that we are going back tonight to teach the father, P, because he was so touched by the baptism. 

The other baptism was for S. S is N's step-daughter and had just moved here from Hawaii. We went to visit N's family one night and S happened to open the door and we started talking and she agreed to take the lessons and meet with us! She was really having a tough time with the new move and all of the stress of finding a job and a house, but she realized the change that was happening in her life when she would meet with us. She said that she noticed a huge difference from when we came and started teaching her and reading the Book of Mormon with her. Eventually this realization resulted in her making the decision to be baptized and to follow her Savior more in life. S was so awesome and accepted everything that we taught her and agreed to start living the commandments more fully before she was baptized! I know that her baptism will be a remarkable step for her new life here in Washington, and her family just got that much bigger! 

--Side story so you can understand our stress on the day of the baptism.. Church started at 10am this Sunday and we got a bunch of people rides to church and everyone was set and ready and all of the T's were crossed and i's were dotted. Well S and her family were all planning on coming to church when they realized J, the daughter, wasn't there... she was stuck in traffic on her way home from her aunt's house. Church ends at 12 so we told them to come and make it for however long they could. Well one hour went by... nothing. An hour and a half goes by... no S. And at the last moment S walks in with the whole family with 5 minutes left to go in the meeting!! Pheww! It was just as stressful as a sports game going down to the wire lol. But we were so happy that she made it! Anyway, better late than never!! 

Well love you all and have a great week!

A's Baptism

S's Baptism

Golfing with Elder Anderson & Brother Price today for P-day

Pictures from the "Central Zones Conference" on calledtoservewa-tac.blogspot.com:

Happy Easter!! 2K17 ~ 4/17/2017

Happy Easter Everyone!! It was a great week here in the Watac! Especially here in the city of Lakewood! We had sunshine and great weather all Saturday and Sunday-- such a blessing! I loved this Easter on my mission and it has been so far one of my favorite days of the mission! Easter is such a great time for families and is traditionally the day that many people go to church to remember the Savior Jesus Christ and his Atonement. Easter is all about our Savior and how He died for us and was Resurrected! I know it's a day late, but if you have not yet seen the short video clip "The Prince of Peace" go watch it! https://www.mormon.org/ 

Update:
E, who we have been working with, was baptized on Saturday and confirmed just yesterday on Easter Sunday. I can't think of a more fitting day to become a member of the church haha! It was apparent that one of the best attributes about E is his meekness and submissive character that allowed him to accept everything that he was taught and to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. E is so awesome and accepted to live every commandment and standard of the church before being baptized, trusting that the Lord will bless him for it! I am certain that he saw some of those blessings almost immediately just by the happiness and the joy that he feels now compared to when we first met him. E was referred to us a couple weeks back, by missionaries who were in a different ward than us, when he decided to go to one of our churches in a nearby city. He had been going through a rough time in his life with a recent divorce and the absence of his daughter in his life. Elder Sutton and I were the first to go over and showed him a video that the church had put out called "Mountains to Climb." The next time we came back E had been watching a few more of the short videos and reading the Book of Mormon. He said to us that he felt a major difference in his life and was once again starting to feel purpose and joy. This new chapter is one that he will cherish, as he continues to learn and live the gospel. 

Elder Anderson, Elder Fuentes, E, Me, & Elder Schmidt

18 Months!! 4/10/2017

This week was good. Recently our mission has been doing a Book of Mormon reading challenge. Because it was April 7th when Joseph Smith started translating the golden plates into the Book of Mormon with Oliver Cowdery until June 30th, we are attempting to read the whole book in that time. I am doing pretty good so far and am on track to finish. I actually have never taken one of these challenges seriously cause I hate being forced to read fast, but since our mission president and his wife go home on that same day that we are supposed to be finished, I am actually doing it. 

This week we had a few of the people that we have been teaching come to church so that was great! It was also testimony meeting because of General Conference last week and one of the testimonies that I really liked was shared by a lady who talked about taking a leap of faith. She said that no matter what, in life we always take leaps of faith whether they are big or small but each time we grow in faith as we take those leaps. Then later yesterday evening, we went to an orchestra performance put on by the church in Lakewood called the Lamb of God. It was way cool and the Spirit was strong like the entire time as the choir sang about the life of Jesus Christ. Both E and S, who we have been teaching about the church, came to the performance and loved it! 

Well that’s all for this week, hope that you all have a great week!

Elder Bullough

Pictures from calledtoservewa-tac.blogspot.com (Mission Leadership Conference): 

General Conference is Down and Sprinting to Easter! 4/3/2017

This past week was great! This weekend, as many of you know, was General Conference. I had a great time watching each session and learned so much. There were a lot of good one-liners that stuck out to me that I wrote down in my study journal. But the thing that stuck out to me most of all was the exactness of each of the speaker's talks. As a church we claim to have prophets and apostles that are able to speak for God. And after this week my testimony is once again affirmed that these people are called of God and that they spend countless hours praying and preparing a message that will best fit the world! There is no doubt in my mind that many of the talks correlated with the Plan of Salvation because these are the questions that the world is facing, "Where did we come from?," "Why are we here?," and "Where are we going?" It was so neat to see that each time I wrote down a question in my notebook it would almost be immediately answered by what the speaker would say! 

Yesterday was Elder Anderson's birthday and on top of all the cake and ice cream we had a pretty sweet miracle happen to us:

Each of us in the companionship had fasted all of yesterday for a miracle. It was pretty hard because we went to a mission lunch with our mission President and his wife and we didn't even cave! Anyway, when we were going to knock at 5pm, we all prayed and picked five spots each on a little piece of paper and then correlated each of the streets and went to the ones that matched. Elder Anderson and I had both picked the street Nyanza Road which was in a wealthier part of our area. Confused but determined, we went and started knocking until 7pm. Well, it just so happens that as we were knocking we seemed to get shut down by everyone except a few nice people that were in the neighborhood and we had gone through the whole neighborhood. Since it curved and turned so much we were unaware of where we were and at about 6:50 we were about done when we knocked on a door and a man answered with his small pit bull. We started talking with him and taught him the restoration and he accepted everything and told us he would read and pray about the book of Mormon! He also committed to be baptized on the 28th which was awesome so we are excited to go back to him and help him progress. As we were taking down his address he told us the name of the road and he said that he lived on "Nyanza Road." Immediately, I got a big smile on my face knowing that he was the one that we were there for! And then we turned around to leave and find where we had parked and we noticed that we had parked right in front of his house!?! 

Afternoon Session of General Conference at President Blatter's home: