Family

So it looked like I was going to be 3 short of reaching my goal for baptism... but not anymore!  We had the cherry on top for the end of my mission.  It started like this....

 

My companion and I were packed busy on Saturday.  We ended up getting out of a lesson late (around 1:10pm).  We didn't have time for dinner so this was our only chance to eat and we had a lesson at 2pm on Mercer Island which means we had 10-15 min for lunch.  So we rushed home and RAN to the top floor, because we live on the top floor farthest away from our parking spot... how convenient, and as we throw food out of the fridge we receive a text from the office elders that says,

 

"Hey can you let the Federal Way Zone Leaders into the mission office? They need some supplies and we wont make it there on time.  They are going to be there by 1:45pm."

 

GREAT!  We have no time for lunch and now we are defiantly going to be late to our 2pm appointment.  So we head over to the mission office to let them in. On our way we receive a text from the Federal Way Zone Leaders that says, "we got here a little early and are tracting in your area, let us know when you are close."  So when we are 5min away we send a text.  We drive to the side of the church where the mission office is located and we see their car but they are not there... but we know they are close by.

 

We then get a text message from our 2pm appointment who says, "Hey I got stuck at work... can we reschedule for 8pm tonight?"

 

YES YOU CAN! Phew! So we sit and wait and still... no Federal Way Zone Leaders.  Right after thinking this thought the phone rings.  I answer and they replied, "There is someone on the other side of the church that would like a tour.  They just moved from China and speak little English.

 

We are excited and meet them there, and direct them inside the church for a tour.  It is a married couple with their only daughter, Gaby, who is 12 years old, soon to be 13.  After getting to know them a little she went on to explain that she visited Seattle about 3 years ago and wanted to know more about Christianity.  She found our church, went to a service, not understanding anything, and left.  Over the past 3 years she hasn't forgotten and has been to many other Christian churches when on vacation from China.  She said that she and her husband would be coming to church the following day.  We wanted to extend the baptismal commitment right then and there but they wouldn't have understood because of the language barrier.  We waited till Sunday when we had a Chinese speaking member translate for us. 

 

They showed up to church 10min early as promised.  They sat in a seat we saved for them (right behind us) and had the Chinese speaking member sit next to them with is wife and daughter.... this is too perfect.  He was able to explain many things to them in Chinese as the service continued.  Afterwords, as we are headed to class, they repeated FOUR TIMES that they were going to join this church.  It was the best!  We have a return appointment Tuesday at 8pm, and they are bringing Gaby to Young Women's Wednesday evening which happens to be the same time as the English class at the same building.  We also invited them to "join our church" on September 30th. Two exact years after I began my mission. They will be confirmed the same day due to general conference.

 

I have prayed to baptize a family my entire mission, I have prayed to reach my goal of 45 convert baptisms, I have prayed diligently while doing my best to be the best missionary i could be.  I am so grateful for this tender mercy.  I will leave my mission exactly how I wanted to leave.  Thank you so much for your prayers.  I have indeed received them.

 

Love,

Elder Bottema

Fruits of Labors

Wow! I will finally get to see what I've been longing for my whole mission. We are seeing incredible things happen here in the Washington Seattle Mission! We have hit a record high for people who have accepted a baptismal date. 151 people as of last night are progressing towards baptism. It looks like the end of September and first week in October are going to be the highest baptizing weekends we've ever had. WHOO!!! Our zone is running along right next to the rest of the mission. I saw miracle after miracle in our own area as well. We have continued to teach our mormon.org referral and she is set and ready to go and be baptized on October 1st. We also have 3 other in our area who are progressing well. One for September 24th and the other two for October 1st as well. HOW GREAT IS MY MISSION!!! I am ending with my goal in reach and I am leaving when our mission is at it's highest peak. Not only will all these baptisms be happening and people filling our chapels but I will be watching the apostles and prophets the weekend I go home and then when I arrive I will be at the highest spiritual peak of my life. How exciting.

I have my exit interview scheduled for October 2nd and I am excited for that. President Larkin gives each missionary 30 min for his interview and a special blessing before we leave his office. I wish you could all see the events happening here. The stake and ward leadership is just as excited as we are and this Sunday we are presenting a two hour meeting in each ward that we cover [Bellevue 1st and Bellevue 8th(YSA)] for the mormon.org campaign. These videos are so inspiring and we have the greatest leaders/members/missionaries here to get the job done.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, September 14th 2011) we are being visited by the apostle Keith R Edwards and tomorrow evening we have an investigator fireside that he will be presiding in. We are just on FIRE. Our goal of a 1000 convert baptisms is reachable for the end of the year. If we reach this we will be the second highest baptizing mission in the northwest region! Imagine what could happen next year! I love seeing the progression of this mission. Only 3 years ago in 2008 we baptized 446 people. What a miraculous improvement.

I love this mission and I am becoming busier and busier for this last 3 weeks. I'll keep running (literally... we run while we tract) until I run onto the plane. I love you all!

Elder Bottema

Onward and Upward

I am so excited for this week because the Mormon.org media companion is coming to train us on Wednesday! WHOO!!! I am really excited. We also have Zone Leader Council this Friday again (bummer... my last one.. I hate that) and someone that we could potentially baptize! Details to be announced next week.

We did find someone new and awesome but she lived just outside our ward boundaries and so we passed her off to the Bellevue 6th ward (Office Elders). She is in her 70's as well and she LOVES the people in the LDS church. She has always been watching and she said she can't take it anymore! She needs to learn more about this message! We had a really good lesson and on Tuesday we will be passing her off. It's sad but good because the office Elders work so hard and this will be one of their hard working baptisms.

This past week was so crazy busy with departures, arrivals, airport drama, and transfer mania. I can't explain it all, but lets just say everything that could have gone wrong at transfers went wrong. It was so stressful. We managed to get everyone back in their area and then the next day we ran a bunch of errands and took all the apartment keys that got transferred into our area that were not supposed to be there back to the mission office and back to Seattle (which was kind of fun since that was one of my previous areas). What wasn't fun was all of the miles that we have a limited use on vanished away and we had to cancel a lot of really important appointments.

We found a lot of really good potential investigators this week and new investigators. We are challenging them to baptism this week so I am pretty excited to see what happens. Our zone really needed new on-dates and baptisms and things are looking on the up rise. I want to end my mission strong and it appears as though the Lord is providing the way. I am grateful for the opportunities and the people that have been placed in my path. I love sharing this message.

Till next week!

Elder Bottema