Assistant to President

Yes, Hell as been released on me as a missionary, I was called to the worst position in the mission... my mission president frequently reminds me, not that he needed to though. I already knew this was a horrible calling! Ha Ha! I received transfer calls last Saturday and was reassured that I was staying in Seattle North. Little did I know that President had a different thought in mind. The Assistant is never announced on transfer calls so when I left to take a missionary home in my zone I arrived at the mission home with President Larkin greeting me and asking to come into his office. "Oh great" I thought. "I'm going to have to deal with some type of horribly disobedient missionary in my zone or something." Nope. Even worse. He sat me down in his office before he interviewed the departing missionaries and asked me to be his next Assistant for the next 6 months. Therefore I have had less than 5 hours of sleep each night. Thursday nights are the worst because we have on-date updates which take 2 hours at the least. Bed time is around 1. Not to mention we still have a full proselyting area so whatever trainings we don't finish before bed, we finish in the late hours.

So far I have picked up the new missionaries at the airport, dropped off the missionaries going home, dealt with some emotionally draining situations that I have no business discussing on this blog, and eating, maybe 1 good meal a day. It's pretty common for the Assistants to only eat 1 meal because we are so busy. We no longer have preparation days and according to Elder Bunton (my old companion in Seattle North who is my new companion!) we shop after 10:00 Monday evenings. Tuesday we have trainings for new missionaries and trainings for zone leaders on Friday not to mention a baptism on Saturday. PHEW!

To finish what happened in Seattle North, I ended my week with a baptism and I missed Brett's which was this past Saturday. It was horribly disappointing but all in all I feel very accomplished of what I did while serving as a zone leader in that area.

I am scared to death of what these next four transfers bring as the assistant but I'm here to learn something valuable. The assistants area is the Federal Way Ward in the Federal Way Stake. The ward that borders Jovita Creek. I've only served on the west side of the mission. I-5 goes through all my areas! Ha Ha! I only have 2 transfers left after this assignment (a.k.a 12 weeks) and that weirds me out.

I love you all and I will try my hardest to keep you updated. Stay strong and work hard! Bring people into the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have found in my service as a missionary and my split second week as an assistant that it's all based on love. The atonement, the Earth, God, and the people called to serve. The ward leaders, the mission president, and stake presidents all love the people whom they serve so much,

I love you all x 10,000! Take care.

Elder Bottema

Interviews

Yes this past week was interviews week and it was fun herding sheep as usual. The missionaries did really well at not hanging out and getting right back to work. Our mission is on a constant improvement and we are seeing wonderful things in the Seattle Washington Mission! We have another General Authority coming this week (Elder Kearon) which always gets the missionaries excited and faith built, 2nd Elder Clayton will be giving us a training this Saturday as well AND we have a baptism! Perfect.

This past week was quite busy and stressful and we had freezing temperatures and snow AGAIN! Oh here is the funny part, we were on exchanges with the assistants last time it snowed and again this time. It wasn't as bad though because over night the temperature changed to 37 F which pelted the four inch snow storm so by the morning it was all slush. We found 4 new investigators again and we are going to keep committing people to baptism. Our Chinese investigator Jieping is excited for her baptism this week and we are as well. She has become so much happier and really got involved with the Chinese group at church.

This brings me to the next exciting part of this blog. We have organized a Chinese gospel discussion group and we are preparing to start a Chinese gospel principles class on Sundays where all the Chinese members from the 3 University wards can attend. This could be the start or foundation of a Chinese branch coming to the North Seattle Stake. Branches are hard to get going but there are some very strong leaders here who speak Chinese and are well educated in the church. One of the teachers for this group was in the former stake presidency of the Redmond Stake which is just outside our mission (It's in the Everett mission) and he is stoked to teach the class. This will be a perfect finding opportunity for us as missionaries. The Chinese culture is ready to hear about the church. I await the day when missionaries are sent there.

I love hearing of the news and I never get sick or tired of letters. =) I love all of you back home and where ever else you may be.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Success!

What an amazing week of hard work and bringing people to the gospel. We found 6 new investigators and put 3 people on-date! We had to pass off 2 because they lived in the other ward boundaries but we have a new one for our area and we still have Jieping for the 22nd of January from the previous week. She is doing amazing! She has already grown so much and they are willing to commit to anything. It's teaching investigators with no concerns. Fun!

We also but Brett on-date for the 29th of January and he is a pretty cool kid. He is a sophomore from UW and he was born in 1990... the best year ever to be born in. We talked to him during finals week and had to wait for him to come back. We had little time and left him a Book of Mormon and committed him to pray about it as he was in Chicago for the Christmas break. He came back and had all sorts of questions that were loads of fun to answer. We've taught him the restoration and the Plan of Salvation and he is progressing wonderfully. Both of our investigators came to church on Sunday and both came to the Friday friendship feast ( a cheap lunch at the institute every Friday) and the opening social at 7 Friday night. He was fellow shipped out of his mind and Jipeing was befriended by the other Chinese students/recent converts. We had such a good week! Everything seemed to run so smoothly and perfect.

We also found out that Elders Clayton and Kearon are coming to our mission to speak on the 22nd but I'm not sure if we'll be able to attend because of our baptisms. Baptisms are much more fun anyway so I wont be that disappointed if I have to miss out. Because of this all the zone leaders are meeting today in Renton to pick up flyers to place in all the chapels in our areas. So this cuts out p-day time. We also are having a lesson mid-day because they couldn't meet any other time. I love this ward/area and gospel!

Thank you for the prayers and wishes. They worked well this week.

Love,

Elder Bottema