New Mission President!! 7/3/2017

This last week was awesome!! I can't really remember much of the beginning of the week because on Friday we went to go pick up the new mission president and his wife from the airport. It was definitely a neat experience! Our new mission presidents are the Leishmans, they are from Bountiful Utah, where they raised their family and are proud grandparents now, and he is a successful business man. Overall they are very excited and grateful to be here. It was pretty sad to see the Blatters leave but at the same time I am just as excited and happy to start working closely with the Leishmans. And it is definitely true that the work goes on even with the whole switch.

Here is a picture of us and them:

President & Sister Blatter, President & Sister Leishman, Elders Sutton, Lund & Bullough

Tender Mercy— Practically right off of the plane when we drove back with the Blatters and the Leishmans to take a picture at one of the parks that has a view of the Puget Sound, we talked to this man named E who was sitting at one of the benches eating some lunch. While talking with him we set up a time to give him a tour of our church for a couple hours later. The coolest part of it all is that the Leishmans came on the church tour with us and E. We talked to him all about the church and invited him to be baptized, and he accepted!! What a tender mercy within like 4 hours the Leishmans were able to find someone with us and now he is on date to be baptized! I have no doubt that God orchestrated that E would be eating at the same park as us at the same time we have the new mission president and his wife.

Another great thing that happened this week is that a lady who I had taught in Lakewood got baptized yesterday. L has a pretty neat story and definitely had her struggles before getting baptized. A couple months ago, Elder Turley and I were split knocking and the last door we knocked into was L’s. She mentioned that she was having a hard time and had been to our church before and knew the bishop. It was a great lesson and we told her that we were going to help her get baptized. Well a couple days after that she came to church and then that week I got transferred out, but luckily Elder Turley got transferred into Lakewood. So he continued to work with her and after a few weeks she finally was able to quit smoking!— To make a long story short, she was no longer allowed to live with her mom and was on the streets and in between places. Well she went to meet with the bishop and his counselors for some guidance and in the meeting they gave her a priesthood blessing and blessed her not to have the craving or urge to smoke and it worked! She said that now she walks down the road and smells the smoke and wants to gag because it is so bad. All in all, it was a great baptism and you could tell that she was touched by the love and support from the ward!

Well that's all for now and hope that you all have a great week! Love you!

—Elder Bullough