Contacting on University of Washington Campus

This week was an interesting week to talk to people. I had a lot of crazies this week or should I say, those who "accept everyone" execpt those who are LDS. Yeah some guy ran up to us at a bus stop, screaming, which by the way was filled with people, and was telling us that we are so lucky jesus saved us because we should all be going to hell, mormons have killed society and murdered millions. I'm not even typing everything he said. It was a long awkward moment.

However, the same day in the evening we were walking back to the institute for an appointement and we found this investigator who is awesome! We set-up an appointment for the next day and she already belives that Joseph Smith is a prophet and reads the Book of Mormon more than we assign her. We teach her Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and then have her come to church on Sunday. It's so awesome and it works out perfect. She is from Venezuela and she is a chemistry graduate student. She plans on moving back to her country to be a professor. She is catholic and yet soaking it all up. She's really fun to teach.

Last Monday we actually did something fun and postponed our laundry because we didn't really have a working washer and dryer. We had to call the apartment maintenance. Especially since all 8 apartments share one washer and dryer.

Anyway, we went and drove downtown which is only 5 min or less from our apartment and decided to see the space Needle and the farmers market. Even though I had already done that it was fun to do it with Elder Grover, a missionary in my zone. The thing I had never done before was I went to the Troll under the Aurora bridge next to our house. Its right off of Freemont. Probably a 2.2 min drive from the apartment.

This week we are having zone leader council with President Larkin, again, because he wants to discuss some things. It's tomorrow in Bellevue and I'm quite nervous since we only have 2 on-date in our entire zone. EEEK!

Other than that I have no new news. Hope you are enjoying summer. I know I am! I love July in Seattle and I'm sure August will be just as nice. I heard September is also a great weather month so I'll be in my disappointed mood when October arrives again.

Thanks as always for everything! Enjoy this summer season.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Productive Week

Hello my fellow readers! This week was awesome as far as finding people to teach AND my companion cleaned the bathroom. It was great. We get along pretty good. The only bad thing is he's extremely messy and dirty but I convinced him to clean the bathroom so now the two most important rooms in the appartment (kitchen and bathroom) are clean. YAY!

Okay back to the important things in life, we found 3 new investigators this week up on campus and they are all awesome new investigators. Finally! I am so sick of contacting people all day. I want people to teach! My prayers have been answered. We have a lesson with one of them tonight at 7:00 so thats pretty exciting and wednesday our schedule is crazy. We will contact for probably 35 min in the morning and then we have a lesson at 11, district meeting from 12-2, lesson at 2:30, lesson at 4,5,6 and our meeting with the stake president at 8 for RMA's which stands for report mission activity. Its basically a bunch of key indicators and what the ward needs to improve on, what their strengths are, ect. Our stake presidnet is probably the coolest guy ever. He has been the stake president for 8 years and he is 67 years old. He looks like he's 55 though and he lives in magnolia which is right outside downtown Seattle.

Oh speaking of downtown Seattle, we actually had a dinner last night which is a rare occasion in the singles ward and it wasn't even with the single students. It was with the Strongs (brother strong is the 2nd counsler) and they live in the heart of downtown Seattle in these really cool appartments. She made the best dinner ever and just made it up. It was a mixture between lasuana and enchiladas with chips and homemade salsa. Oh geez it was delicious.

As far as other news goes I don't really have anything to report on except that I love my new mission president and we are all getting new cell phones the first week of August. This is big news for us since our routines are so robotic. Especially since you hear the same alarm and ringtones everyday all day this will be new entertainment to missionaries. Good luck with your home affairs. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Bottema

Change, Resposibility, and Work

Yeah I'm too busy to E-mail on my mission I decided. I really do think they should have preperation day all day. 8 hours would seem like enough but we NEVER get everything accomplished. Especailly since the zone leaders are the hospital service missionaries. We get calls for people who need blessings at least once a day. And if it's monday that seems to take an hour or two. Last week we didn't get to E-mail because the 4th was observed on the 5th and we had zone leader council on tuesday then interviews with out new president wednesday, then exchanges thursday and saturday and weekly planning on friday so I never had a lunch break to E-mail the family. I've been trying to write letters but I honestly have no time. They are turning into 3 X 5 card letters.

So to start off this is the new change our mission president came out with. This is church wide, not in our mission alone. The church wants the mission president and the missionaries to spend more time prosolyting so they are changing some meetings. We used to have interviews, zone conference, and leadership training every transfer. Mission presidents were spending 50% of the month interviewing missionaries. That is changing. They are now rotating meetings every other transfer cycle. For example, Interviews was this transfer, so zone conference will be next transfer and leadership training will be quarterly but will be from 10-4 instead of 10-12. The church is also displeased with how missionaries are teaching and most missions are teaching too similar to the preach my gospel lessons. So we are being re-trained on how to teach by the spirit. "Teach people, not lessons."

So we are practicing different types of investigators and how to plan for them and also if they have questions to answer them instead of giving them a quick one that doesn't satisfy their needs and then continuing on with your lesson plan. They want us to be able and ready to throw our plan out the window if a question arises. The only meeting that increased is zone leader council which is monthly instead of each transfer. Our mission president isn't going to change anything until our next meeting which is August 2nd. So we are still on the regular schedule. 10-12 contacting/finding. 12-2 lessons with RCLA's potentials, formers, ect. 2-4 Break time or lunch/dinner. 4-5 lessons. 5-7 tracting/contacting time, 7-9 lessons. 9-9:30 planning. 9:30- 10:20 nightly calls. 10:30 bed time - which never happens. We ALWAYS get to bed at 11 or later and then on sundays have to get up earlier because of meetings. I sleep really well when I crawl into bed sunday night. So I assume the schedule will change in August because our mission president isn't the biggest fan, but as for now not too much has changed.

President Larkin so so awesome though! He is going to be all the zone leaders companions to drive around the zone to see what needs to be done different. We have him scheduled on Tuesday July 27th to go street contacting with us and then after the 10-12 street contacting we are driving him to each area from 12-2. He is the best. I will love him just as much as my old mission president.

As for the ward I'm serving in, the University 2nd ward, the summer is slow. Sacrament attendence is mostly visitors and it's harder to find investigators to teach because no as many students are on campus. You'd think "why not go contacting down by the space needle?" It's pointless. We are looking for 18-30 year olds in the university boundries. Not tourists or families. It's a very different area.

Thanks for the letters. I love them! If you ever feel like you want to help a missionary send me quarters for the laundry mat or poppyseed muffins from costco. haha those are soo good! alright I'll write next week.

Love,

Elder Bottema

*Note from Elaine: If you really want to send the Costco muffins, a half dozen package fits perfectly into a medium sized flat rate box at USPS.*

Seattle North

The big news that you have all been wanting is here. First off, I have been transfered to the University 2nd ward which is on the Univeristy of Washington campus. My companion is a zone leader also (which is the case now days. If your a zone leader that means your companion is one too). My appartment is on Dexter Ave which is just off of Freemont street where the gay pride parade was held this week. yay. Anyway, my appartment is horribly old and trashed. It looks cool from the outside and is in a nice area of downtown Seattle but is so gross. My companion is NOT a clean person. He is a good companion outside of the appartment though. We pretty much agree on how the work should go and we compliment each other really well. The only negative thing is the cleanliness issue. Another different thing about this building is there are 8 units and one shared washer and dryer. It's $1.00 for a load and 75 cents to dry. So it comes to $5.75 every week for laundry. Not to mention I have to start buying laundry soap and dryer sheets again.

Zone leader council was interesting and we learned a lot about president Larkin. Our mission president said he'll probably change a lot of things but that's okay and to just tell him we'll do it. He arrives on Thursday and we have an interview with him on Saturday. So this transfer we'll have interviews twice and 2 zone leader council meetings. It's going to be the busiest yet. This area is completely different from Federal Way. Really busy, different culture, liberal, and no tracting. Only street contacting because there is no where to tract in my area! And if we did tract we'd be referring most people to the family wards. So everyday we walk to this place on campus called "red square" and contact people while they are walking. It's really a lot more difficult because you have to be so much more bold. Another difference is since this is a student ward you don't really make back-up plans. If a lesson falls thru you go back to campus and talk to people. So it's starting to get old but I'm here for a reason. I've been praying for a lot of help.

I've talked to a lot of really interesting people though. My companion is super bold. He'll run after people or try and stop them while they are jogging and if they don't stop he'll jog with them and then if they keep telling him to go away he slips them a pass-a-long card. I feel soooo weird but it shows that we are serious. I'm not at that level yet nor do I think I'll ever be.

The persecution is a lot harder here. There hasn't been a day gone by I haven't been talked bad about, swore, or had things thrown at me. I had one guy tell me if it was possible he'd kill all the mormons. EEEK! I've been hit on by homosexuals twice (both were on saturday) and had my butt grabbed on red square. I think this change has been happening all too fast. Please pray for me! haha I need all of them.

Okay time to run. My companions is needing his blood drawn. I don't know how were are going to accomplish everything we need today but I'll have to happen. Thanks for everything!

Love,

Elder Bottema