Feliz Dia de Pacua

Friends and Family, 

Happy Day after Easter! Hopefully you all had a great Easter weekend. 

We had Zone Conference this past week, and it was centered primarily on Easter and what Easter means. It was really nice getting to see Elder Favila and Elder Wunderlich again. I haven't seen Elder Favila since that first day in the field and I have now officially made contact with all 5 members of the Yak Pak since we parted ways after being stranded in the Yakima Airport. 

Earlier in the week we went to go and contact some of the formers in our area and this one couple asked us to come back in 15 minutes. We decided that we'd go and knock a couple doors and try and share the #Hallelujah video with some people. The first door we knocked we found a family sitting around a table dying Easter eggs. We introduced ourselves and took some time to get to know them, and explained what we do as missionaries. We asked if we could come in and share an Easter message with the family, and the wife happily let us in. 

We sat around the table as the three children decorated their eggs with pirate hats, and asked what Easter meant to them as a family. As we all discussed the feelings we had towards Easter, we transitioned into the message of the Restoration of the Gospel. The father mentioned that many years ago, an LDS family he had known shared a copy of the Book of Mormon with him and invited him to read and pray about it. He had read a large portion of it, but never prayed. They were such a cool family, and it was great getting to share some of the happiness that comes from the gospel with them. 

Earlier today some guy came up to us as we were buying groceries and told us that he didn't know why but he wanted to give us a $30 gift card to help us pay for groceries. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers for us, they are being answered! 

Con Mucho Amor, 

Elder King

Happy St. Patricks Day

Hola Todos! 

There has been all sorts of adventures this past week. We spend a couple hours two days a week doing service for the city of East Wenatchee. Recently they have asked us to pick up trash off of this trail in the area. There are a ton of little spots where homeless people leave tons of pillows and blankets and trash, so we find some interesting things every now and then. On Tuesday, we found a bone and some heroin! We called the city and they called the police and they came out and asked us some questions and were very grateful for what we found. Missionary by day, detective by night. 

On Friday we drove up to this town about a half an hour north of where we live and as we were walking around we heard some Mexican Polka music playing in the distance. We followed the 'oompas' and found a man named Pablo trying to dig up a tree in his front yard. We asked if we could help him, and he said he didn't want us to get dirty in our shirts and ties. We started helping him out anyways, and got to know him as we dug and dug. His family started coming out to help as well, and at the end of it we knew them pretty well and they asked if we could come back the next week! Despite Elder West's slacks getting covered in dirt, it was great service. 

We've been teaching this less-active and her boyfriend over the past 2 transfers, and working on getting them married and helping Rafael (the boyfriend) progress towards baptism. It has been an up and down cycle, and we really decided to crank down and figure out what we needed to teach them to put Rafael back on date and get them a wedding date. We were using our Daily Planning time to find out what we needed to teach them the next day, and said a prayer asking for direction from Heavenly Father as to what we needed to teach. We sat in reflection, striving to recognize the promptings of the Spirit for guidance and direction. I felt impressed to look into the 12 Week Booklet, and saw that the lesson to learn for the next week was Lesson 5. Since neither of us had any other impressions, we decided to go with it and planned to teach about Missionary Work and Service. 

The next day, we showed up at their home and taught about the blessings that come as we share the gospel and serve others. Hermana Villa was reminded of the feelings that she felt when she was first baptized and how much she loved going out with the sister missionaries and doing home teaching. It all helped it click in her head, and is moving and planning her wedding and soon Rafael's baptism!

I hope you all had a riverdancin' St. Patrick's Day! I attached some pictures of our District Council we had on St. Patrick's day with our green ties and green everything. 

Con Mucho Amor, 

Elder King

Spanish Humor and Service

Friends and Family, 

Life in East Wenatchee has been extra peachy and extra keen this past week. We were able to do lots of cool things and meet lots of great people. One of our investigators, Abel, is one of the funniest guys I know. He and his wife Guadalupe have been meeting with us for a little while now, and every time we go over he always gives me a hard time and asks if I have a girlfriend. After every little joke he makes, he always says "I'm just teaching you!" because he's trying to say "I'm just teasing you!". I promised him that I'd invite him to my wedding someday. He has a little son named Pablo, who we have nicknamed Pablito. During our lesson, Pablito was playing with a clementine and banging it on the table. Elder West asked why the clementine was so squished, and Lupe told him "Pablito jugo" which translates to Pablo played. There is supposed to be an accent on the o, but my computer lacks the ability to do that. Jugo without the accent means juice, so Abel made the joke "Jugo de Pablito" which means Pablito Juice. It was hilarious, and I know that humor is hard to convey through email, especially in spanish, but I tried my best. 

Our recent convert Miguel had a broken sink that he was trying to work on this past week, but couldn't figure out what was going wrong. He said after 3 days of trying, he decided that he'd just try and read in the Book of Mormon for a little, say a prayer, and then try again. Right after he did that he told us that it took him 15 minutes before he was able to fix the sink. Cool mini-miracle! 

We did a TON of service this week. We walked some of the trails in the area, picking up trash for the city and played games at the assisted living center with the old folks again. Some of the ladies asked if any of us knew how to play Pinochle, and I was the only one who knew. Pinochle has always been the game to play in my family, and these ladies were pretty impressed with my Pinochle skills. One of them got a double pinochle which was cool to see! 

We also did some service for the Special Olympics that was held here. We set up a lot of decorations and helped do all sorts of miscellaneous jobs. We needed to hang something up on the ceiling but we didn't have a ladder, so I was volunteered to become the ladder. Elder Haymond, the second tallest missionary got on my shoulders and we walked around and every time we needed to hang something from the ceiling I would lift up on my tippy toes and he would stretch and put it in. It was a killer calf workout. 

I love you all, and leave you with the last 4 lines of one of my favorite poems, Invictus. 

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll.

I am the master of my fate, 

I am the captain of my soul. 

Con Mucho Amor, 

Elder King

"Tacos" and Bingo

Aloha friends and family, 

Happy Leap Year! I will be spending my extra day of the year playing basketball and knocking doors. I hope you all have an extra good extra day today. 

Lots of cool things have happened this week. There was one night where we didn't have a dinner appointment and we were out tracting walking through the Sunset Trailers when we saw this guy and started talking to him when he suddenly asked us if we've already eaten yet. We told him no, and then he asked if we wanted a taco. I told him por supesto, and he walked into his little trailer and started making us a sandwich. I guess Hispanics here just refer to all food as tacos? I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it was just him. Either way, he made us this really nice sandwich with avocados and chiles. It was cool to see how we are provided for in small and simple ways. 

One of my favorite investigators, Josue, had to drop us this week. It was sad. He works as a semi truck driver and works 8 months of the year and is on break the other 4 months, and his time to go back to work started again. He loved meeting with us and we loved meeting with him. He asked the best questions. Some of his questions from our last lesson included, 

"Where did Cain's wife come from, if it was only Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel on the earth?" 

"Why isn't the tribe of Dan mentioned in the book of Revelations?"

"Where will the telestial kingdom be?"

He told us that he is going to keep reading and studying, and that he'll call us if he ever has any questions. He was one of the sharpest guys I've ever met. 

We also had a lot of service opportunities this past week. We had the opportunity to do service for this assisted living facility where we went and played games with all of the old folks who lived there. I played this game called King's Corner with these 3 ladies, and one of them had a stroke in the past and could only communicate through "uh-huh"s and "uh-uh"s and she was one of the funniest people. I also got to be a bingo announcer for everyone there! I got a lot of hecklers who gave me a hard time for not calling out the numbers that they wanted, but it was a blast. 

Spring is finally here, the weather is so nice. I love it. It still gets pretty frosty at night, but during the day it is so beautiful. I want to leave you all with a quote that has been on my mind these past couple of weeks. I love you all, stay tinsel!

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times. If one only remembers to turn on the light." -Dumbledore

Con Mucho Amor, 

Elder King