Elder Klossner my new companion (week 88)

We had ourselves a pretty good week here in Quincy Washington. Transfers were Wednesday and now I'm with Elder Klossner. I also found out that Elder Enderton got transferred up to Oroville and is in a tri-pan. His second area. Elder Bergman got transferred to Moses Lake and Elder Sanchez got transferred to Yakima. It's cool being able to see everyone at the transfer site and hear where everyone is getting moved to. A cool fact while we are at it is that Elder Klossner and Elder Enderton went to the same High School. This is going to be a great transfer.

Elder Klossner is a work horse and I am glad to work along side him. Elder Klossner is from Holiday Utah, which is a suburb of Salt Lake city. He loves to play rugby and is hoping to play in college. He has been out for 6 months now and is doing great. 

So we had zone conference this past Friday and it was great. We had the opportunity to learn From Elder Uceda of the 70. One thing that he taught about was the meaning in Matthew 28:19-20:

19 ¶ Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

He taught about the meaning of the words teach in these two verses. He taught us that in verse 19 the word teach comes from the Greek word Matheteuo which mean make disciples. So that verse of scripture is teaching us that we need to go forth and make disciples of the people we meet. The word teach in verse 20 comes from the Greek word Didasko which means to instill. So there is a lot more than just teaching people. We need to make disciples and instill the gospel in their lives. A large part of the conference was Elder Uceda giving deeper meaning to scriptures that we use frequently as missionaries. He taught us that our invitations need to be exhortations. He told us that we need to Talk less and Do more. In conference we also made a list of tools to use in scripture study to give the verses more meaning. Here is the list from our conference:

Di-sect/Define/Analyze words -> Dig Deeper.

Cross Reference

Ask, "What were things like back then?"

Give yourself examples

Notice your feelings

Apply it to yourself

Look for words of action

Stop frequently

Ask why there is a specific word

Be worthy to receive revelation

Find repetition

Ask others, get their input

Be passionate

Don't Be Satisfied with the first answer

Find something you can do now

Read over again

Stop and Ponder

Have real intent

Love what you learn

Find ways to repent

It was a great conference and now we get to go and apply all those teachings to our missionary work. 

Something I forgot to write about last week is how this cool Mexican guy made Elder Wright and I fish tacos. They were really good. And yesterday investigators of the other elders made us some goat for breakfast. That was pretty good as well. 

We have had a great week and we look forward to having another great week. Hope everyone back home does as well. 

Love Y'all

Elder Boren

Baptism and Transfer week (week 87)

I don't know how but, Washington threw even more snow at us. And then it all melted in a couple days. Almost as weird as the snow in Texas. The weather here has been rather good other than that freak snow. It has been off and on cold. What comes next is the crazy wind that the members are telling us we need to watch out for. 

I almost forgot to tell y'all about transfers. So Elder Wright is going to be transferred to the Mission Ridge Spanish area. My old area. He is going to be replacing Elder Enderton and serving with Elder Palacios. I'm going to be recieving Elder Klossner who is coming from Othello 3rd and 4th. My first area. Other than that there aren't really any changes. I'm looking forward to another transfer. 

So before I move on I want to extend a shout out to the awesome sisters serving in the Melissa 1st and 2nd wards. They sent me an email asking me who I knew that they could invite to learn about the gospel. You have some great missionaries serving back home. 

I am so grateful for the ability I have to serve as a missionary. There may be days where it is harder than most but, it is all worth it when we get to see the difference it makes in the lives of others. I am so thankful for the opportunity we had to see that this past Saturday at the baptism of the Williamson family. I was able to see that change in Derek and it was great. As we met with them I could see the repentance process working in him and ultimately the great joy he felt at his baptism. The baptism went really well. When everyone was first showing up the bishop didn't think we'd all fit in the relief society room where the font was so we went to the chapel. Then we moved back to the same room and like magic we all fit although it was a little more cozy than the chapel. It was such a great baptism and it is really going to bless the lives of that family and the many more people they influence. They are already shooting for a goal of getting sealed in the temple and it is exciting to hear. I love being able to see that change. 

We have been doing really well here in Quincy and we are working on finding more way to get more involved with the members and help them become more involved in missionary work. We have been thinking up ways to work more with the youth and we have seen some success already. We are going to continue doing so and we hope to see the Lord's hand in it.

This week is going to be awesome. We have transfers Wednesday and zone conference with Elder Uceda Friday. I hope y'all have a great week as well.

Con Amor,

Elder Boren

 The Williamson Baptism Saturday (Left to right; Me, Derek, Sylvia, Dave, Ken, Elder Wright)

                                         Dinner at the Hodge family farm. They have horses.

                We went and walked dogs at the animal shelter. Elder Davis loved this dog.

Slowly warming up (week 86)

Quincy has been doing great. It is ever so slowly getting warmer. Although every once in a while it gets cold as a good amount of wind blows through. I'm ready for when I'm able to just have a short sleeve shirt on. 

We have been able to find some wonderful people that have great potential and we look forward to being able to help them move towards a lasting conversion. With our recent zone conferences I have been able to see that the mission is being greatly affected by the increased focus on our purpose as missionaries and the importance of teaching repentance and baptizing converts. We have been able to see more people progressing towards conversion and we are doing better at reaching our goals for helping people to enter the waters of baptism. I am looking forward to the many more blessings that are in store for us and we keep that focus through out the mission. I have noticed that I have been able to understand at a greater level the importance of our purpose and how it drives us to do what we do as missionaries. Everything we do as missionaries should and needs to be focused around our purpose to help others. We need to ask our selves what we can do to help those we are teaching to progress. Then that affects our studies and how we prepare to teach. It can also greatly affect how we teach. When we understand our purpose we will better be able to discern the needs of our investigators. We will be able to see what it is that we need to teach so they can feel the spirit and be guided through that repentance process.

This week has been pretty great. Lets see if I can think some of the highlights or at least some of the things I can share with all y'all. 

Tuesday is usually a day with lots of service for us. We go to the food bank for a couple hours and we usually help bag things that they have there. This week was a lot of fun there. We went an hour earlier than the other companionship and we started talking to one of the other volunteers as we worked. He started to show a great interest in knowing more about our church and we were able to share with him the answers to his questions. His wife is also very interested in doing family history so we are going to hook here up with the family history consultant here in Quincy. After we had some lunch and tried by some investigators we went and did some service at an assisted living center. We usually play a board game with them and get to know them. Later that day we got to visit a wonderful member family and talk about missionary work with them. It went really well. Then we went with another member to visit some members that live out a little far. It was a good day. 

Wednesday we had district council which was great as well. Thursday we did service at Habitat 4 Humanity. We many did some cleaning and helped bag some clothing. Later that day we visited the Williamson family and they are doing great. They are all ready for this Saturday and have their interview this Thursday. It is going to be great since he has a lot of family in the area and just about all of them are members. It helps a lot with getting fellowship for them. 

Saturday we had the adult session of Stake conference. We didn't have a dinner set up that night so we decided to go to a burger place in Euphrata before the meeting. 

                                           Doing some service at the local Habitat 4 Humanity

 Sister Williamson is from Indonesia and she gave us some cools shirts from over there

                                   Driving our to George, Washington on a nice sunny day

A beautiful day and a nice field with almost no snow. (From Left to right; Elder Bown, Elder Davis and Elder Wright)

tentive baptism set for "w" family March 11th (week 85)

So this week has been pretty good out in Quincy. It may have snowed for a large part of Sunday but, thankfully it didn't stick to the ground. We are also ever so slowly moving towards the warmer weather which I will be thankful to have again.

This past Saturday we had a great ward Fiesta. The turn out was phenomenal. We had 147 people show up for it and we still had more than enough food. Although I don't think we would have been able to fit too many more people in our little gym. It was a great activity as we were able to get a lot of the Spanish speaking members there. There were many people who came who hadn't been to church in many years. We were also able to get a good amount of left overs to enjoy. 

Elder Wright and I have decided that we are going to work with Elder Bown and Elder Davis to try and do a weekly family home evening at the church to extend some fellowship to the members that haven't been to church for a while. So any ideas of things to do for family home evening would be appreciated. 

So update on the Williamson family. They are the ones that we have been working with towards baptism. As of this past week we set a baptismal date with them. We are shooting for the 11th of march. It is really exciting and the whole ward is looking forward to it. I'll make sure to keep you updated.

Sadly we weren't able to find any new investigators this week. We've been having trouble being able to return to teach these people we meet. It is a little rough but we have plans to get back in with them and find even more people to work with. I know there are plenty here in Quincy even though it may seem like a little town. This week I thought a little about how missionaries at times will say that they have knocked out an entire area. I don't really think someone can knock out an entire area. There is just too many people to talk to. Even if we talk to someone at every house we still haven't talked to the other people who happen to live there. I think once we understand that it makes it a whole lot easier to go and knock doors that have already been knocked.

 I really enjoyed the zone conference we had. This time around we talked a lot about the importance of teaching repentance and baptizing converts. It seems as if there is some sort of theme in all the meetings we have been having lately. I can see the need we have to learn more about the importance of teaching repentance and baptizing converts and also our purpose as missionaries. When we understand that we will better be able to see where we can improve personally and how we can better help those we teach progress. This past zone conference made me see the importance of Chapter 1 of preach my gospel. No wonder it is at the beginning. I look forward to being able to learn even more and applying it to our missionary work. We already decided that we need to be better at helping people know our purpose so we are going to do that. There was lots to learn in our zone conference as there almost always is. One thought that I loved was this "Changing behavior without involving the Savior is not repentance". That was a thought that really made me think about the importance of our purpose as missionaries. That being to invite others to come unto Christ through his gospel. We can invite people to change but, when we don't help them involve the Savior it doesn't have as much of a lasting effect on them. Another comment that was made is that, "we need to record the things that have not been said but, that we've felt". That is an important part of taking notes during meetings. We can get a lot more out of our meetings when we do so. 

After this zone conference I thought a little about what someone would need to do to be prepared for their mission. I know that I've suggested reading and studying the scriptures but, there is much more that we can do to be ready. The one thing I though about was the importance of understanding the gospel and applying it in life. And more specifically understanding repentance and working to do so every day. It helps having a better grasp of that as we go and invite others to repent and involve the savior more in their lives. Another thing that I think is important for being prepared is gaining a testimony of the gospel and its restoration in the latter days. We need to go through the same process that we invite others to go through. That being read, ponder and pray. With that greater conviction it is a lot easier to share the gospel. 

Also this past Friday after our missionary correlation with Brother Erickson, our ward mission leaders, he loaded us up with a bunch of little toys from the dollar store. Now we have pop guns, lots of metal puzzles and some candles. Who knew you could have so much fun with the stuff you can buy at the local dollar store. We will never be short of things to do in our apartment. 

I have one request from everyone who reads my weekly email. I'd like for everyone to send their favorite scripture. It would also be appreciated if you add why it is your favorite. If you can't pick one send many. 

I hope everyone has a great week and we will be working to make sure ours is as well.

Love Ya'll

-Elder Boren

Look at all the oats

                                     We filled up bags of oatmeal at the food bank this week

working with the williams family (week 84)

Our week has gone by really well. Thankfully we haven't gotten any more snow. IT has all been melting and now we have pools of water where a lot of the snow used to be. It makes it fun when I go to park the car. Half the time I end up putting Elder Wright in a puddle. The other half I put his door pretty close to a wall of snow. Any the lucky few times I park in a spot where there are no hazards. The winter weather in not for me. I just looked at the weather for our week here and we have two full days of sunshine! What a blessing.

We have been having a great time here in Quincy. This little town is a bunch of fun and I'm glad I get to serve here. It makes me realize how much I really like living in a small town. It is so much more fun although it does mean having to take a drive to get to the store. I'd tell you a little about Quincy but, I haven't learned all that much about the town. I will however share some random facts that I do know. The city of Quincy is about 70% Hispanic. Thats quite the ratio. It means we have more people to practice our Spanish with. Honestly that is all I can think on terms of facts about this place. 

Something we love to do here is have lunch at Time Out Pizza on Fridays. It is owned by members and we can eat there free once a week. We usually go and get the buffet. All you can eat pizza is always welcomed. It also makes it easier for lunch of Fridays since our lunch time is now 30 minutes instead of an hour. Which brings me to talking about how the new schedule has been going for us. Usually in the morning we get up at 6:30 as usual and then we have breakfast. Then we do our planning for the day at 7 and then go to the church to work out in the gym. There is a bit more room to run around in the gym than there is in our little apartment. Then we come back and I usually get ready for the day and start my personal study around 8:30. Then after I study I make sure everything is ready and take some time to relax. We don't really have a regular time for doing companionship and language studies. Those usually fall into a place where it best fits with what we want to do that day. So far the new schedule has been great and we are really enjoying it.

Elder Wright and I have made some goals to improve the use of our time and how we work with the members and so far it has been great. We wanted to make sure that dinner was more focused and was made so the time after dinner was more effective. Although It can be hard at times when dinner lives way out in the middle of the country. Elder Wright and I want to start working more with the members and help them do missionary work. I had just read through the Susan Fulcher papers again and it sparked a desire in me to do those same things here in Quincy. For those of you that haven't heard of that study it just shows a bunch of things a sister missionary did to work with the members in her area and the results that came of it. The members here are perfect for it and I know that we will be able to find more people to teach through them. I looking forward to implementing it and working with the members.

I hope everyone has a great week. I know we are. We have Zone Conference and it is going to be a blast. 

Love Y'all

-Elder Boren

P.S I think I have a copy of the Susan Fulcher case in my binders I brought home from my mission in Mexico. 

                                A lady we talked to Valentines day gave us boxes of chocolate

We had some killer omelettes for dinner on valentines day

We played some Rumicube while we waited for our laundry.