Week of Miracles, Faith & Hope

Belen Baker, Tine Attari, Tiah Attari

Tine and Tiah were found through our recent converts and are so spiritually prepared. They actually took all the lessons in Portland, moved to Seattle and didn't know where the church was so never came. When we originally talked to Tine and Tiah and set their baptismal dates for April 9th they said they just wanted a refresh of the lessons and then they'd be baptized. When we had a lesson with them Thursday evening around 7:00 pm they were so receptive to our message. We were teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ (lesson 3 in Preach My Gospel) Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, Enduring to the End. When we were talking about baptism we asked, "Are you still working toward your goal of April 9th? They looked at us and said, "is it too late to be baptized this weekend with Belen Baker? We were talking about it earlier and we thought, what are we waiting for?"

Belen Baker was contacted the end of February or beginning of March. She was a self referral through Mormon.org. She went to Church In Mexico with a friend 20 years ago and still remembered to this day the feeling of being part of a family. Her date was also originally set for April 9th and she asked to be baptized sooner. She said, "I love this church and I want to be in it forever! I love my family! I want to serve and hold babies and make Mexican food for everyone... and i make my food by scratch!"

These three individuals have been huge testimony builders for me. I gave the most heartfelt prayer of gratitude to God and have made promises with him to do better in my personal life. I want to develop a greater relationship through prayer with him and overcome my final temptations of Pride and patience.

This will give me a greater Hope and a greater faith in Jesus Christ. I have felt so many powerful emotions this week, good and bad, but when the Lord takes something away from you, its because he wants to give you something better. Not only am I growing and changing my life forever, I am on a perfect unification with my companion accomplishing great things. Although we had a couple bad weeks in a transfer we are the best of missionaries. It'll be hard to see him go at the end of this transfer. His time as an assistant is up and he will be called to labor somewhere else for the last six months of his mission. I still have two transfers left of this assignment and I am honestly not looking forward of doing it without the help of Elder Bunton. However, I will be learning something new and more challenging... I just know it. I dislike those growing opportunities but it's the only way we come closer to God and strengthen ourselves in eternal progression.

I am in my mind frame of I never want to go home but I can't wait for summer and being released. Ha Ha. I am having too many great experiences out here as a missionary and it seems to be going by faster and faster. Everyday I keep telling my self and more so today, "Elder Bottema, enjoy this moment, because ever too quickly it'll be gone." I've said that to myself over and over because I am trying to enjoy every moment and not miss a single event or opportunity. I love my mission, I love Seattle, and most of all I love God. God be with you till we meet again.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Week of Miracles

This week (I'll just start with the meat because its more fun to talk about) we had a wonderful woman who was a self referral come to church the last couple of weeks. She entered in her information on mormon.org and asked for missionaries. She was on-date for baptism for the 9th of April but is now being baptized on the 26th of this month! She and the ward wanted her to be baptized sooner because she is so amazing. So this week we will be having a very long lesson teaching all the lessons (basically) and then having her interview, then baptizing her! She is from Mexico and is an outstanding person. She called us on the phone this morning telling us she wanted to be in this church forever and she wants to serve and love others. She walked up to the Relief Society President and asked for assignments and who needed help in the ward. She will be a blessing and asset to this ward. Oh how I love Federal Way.

We also found many more Marshallese people and have dug in our heels a little deeper with that community. Today we conferred the Aaronic priesthood to a couple of our recent converts and some who were baptized a few years earlier. It was the first time doing it for me and I did a 100% perfect job. I remembered all the key phrases and everything. It's not like it's all that hard. There are only five steps but I feel more comfortable doing anything in the church now. I don't get nervous about anything really. I've been called on enough times in sacrament meeting now, prayers, blessing, confirming, etc etc. Especially calling all those around me to be baptized. Ha Ha! Oh missionary work. No wonder the world thinks we are crazy Mormons.

This week we will be going on split exchanges with the Bellevue zones and Renton zones. I'll be going to Bellevue and the zone leaders are Spanish speaking so I'll be practicing my gift of tongues in this exchange. I'm in Bellevue all the time anyway so its nothing special. I do love this city though. So clean and neat and organized. I love it! Way to rich for me! Maybe one day.

I love the miracles that have happened this week and the things I've been witnessing and learning as a missionary. I had my first 'vision' this week when I was sleeping. I had a dream so clear come to me and my testimony of the Church has grown more. I feel so strong and steadfast. I feel like nothing can stop me in my tracks and I am so greatful for the confidence I have. I love this work and I love being a missionary. Stay safe and strong!

Love,

Elder Bottema

Depatures/Arrivals

What an amazing and busy transfer it was. We had 5 baptisms, changes to the mission rules, zone conference, leadership training, disobedience problems, 2 zone leader councils and lots of driving. I still don't know how we accomplished all of that. This transfer is already on such a great start since the disobedience has pretty much dissolved and is unpopular in our mission now. We are able to focus much more on our area because this transfer is interviews instead of Zone conference which is much less stressful. Elder Bunton and I are now in our third transfer together but it was split up. One in Seattle North and two in Federal Way.

This transfer was also much better because we were able to get all the departing missionaries to the airport and greet the new missionaries whose airplane arrived on time. We have a great group and our compliment on missionaries rose so we now have 101 companionship's in our mission and this is not including senior couples. We were able to split a couple more areas and our ward now has two sets of missionaries. Elder Bunton and I and the sisters. Sister Furugen from Japan (who served on UW with me) and sister Mohammad from Utah (whose dad is Muslim and from Pakistan). Her dad was never a member but her mom is and she is here serving a valiant mission. Good luck doing family history!

Our ward is loving the attention of two sets of missionaries and especially that one of the companionship's is sisters. The Federal Way ward is great. They just get it when it comes to missionary work. That is why this ward is so blessed and runs so smoothly because missionary work is the number one priority. We continued to put people on-date for baptism this week and find new investigators.

I love seeing the work unfold here. Most of our baptisms are coming from the Marshallese culture and there are many families here. I think one of the reasons they are so interested in the gospel is because families are so important to their culture and since the church is so strongly for families that rings true to them and attracts them to learn more. Basically, once one family gets baptized, they all get baptized because they bring everyone to church. If we help with the process then it gets accomplished.

This upcoming week is new missionary orientation and it's going to be a lot of fun because this is such a good group. Thank you for all the help and support. I've come to accept that I will no longer be getting any more letters and packages. I've noticed the longer you are out on your mission, the less the letters come. ;) Stay warm, safe.... and DRY!

Love,

Elder Bottema