Christmas

Hello fellow blog readers! It was a treat calling home on Christmas as usual and quite strange to think I only call home one more time before I see them face to face. This call home was much different. It didn't feel strange at all and it felt like I hadn't been away from my family for a long period of time. It really helped me refocus on my purpose and to remember that our time as missionaries is short. I heard on the phone from several family members "only 9 more months..." It made my heart sink. Only 9 months left? That's only a school year of time? I get attached to people far more than the average Joe. Its one reason transfers is so hard for me. I don't like all the change of companions and areas all the time.

I like getting to know everyone in my area. It's fun to contact on campus when you see people you talked to back in August and they smile and wave. I hope to see them again because maybe something has been stirring inside them since we've last spoke. I guess to make my statement clear: I do miss my family and will be excited to see them, but my mission is sinking deeper and deeper into my soul. I like the way I'm living and helping others. It is most exciting.

For Christmas this year it was fun opening presents, making a breakfast, and staying in our sleepwear longer than usual. It felt so weird but it was fun for a day. Now that the Christmas holiday is over it's back to work as usual. Last year we didn't do the same proselyting on New Year's as this year. This year our mission president wants New Years day to be a regular finding day in the mission with lessons, church tours, and tracting. I think it's weird but what president says goes. I'm very loyal to my mission president and have realized I have a lot more flexibility when I am. Similar to obeying the commandments and feeling more free.

Thank you for all who sent a Christmas cards. I loved it! Thank you for all the prayers and support you give to me. It helps my mission be more positive. Have a wonderful New Year!

Love,

Elder Bottema

Merry Christmas!

Hello fellow family and friends!

The mission has been quite stressful lately and very rewarding at the same time. We have found so many miracle people here in the University wards. Some of which who'll be baptized in January and some who just got baptized Saturday! Another surprise baptism! These are the most fun baptisms to have. We still have one more for December 31st. We might even have two on that day. Bai (the Chinese guy in the photo) brought his sister to the baptisms and we have a lesson with her on Wednesday at 10:00. We are going to commit her to be baptized on the 31st as well. How cool to be baptized one year and confirmed the next? I think it's cool.


This week is going to be horribly slow in finding considering campus looks like a ghost town. We are trying some unique finding ideas such as posting fliers around campus and bus stops, Christmas caroling, hot chocolate stand with church supplies, and the good ol tracting. I haven't tracked forever because street contacting is so much more effective in these high density populated areas.

This past week was transfers and I stayed so that means I will be in this area at least until January 25th. I'm hoping to stay until Spring because that would mean my next area would most likely be my last. Only four areas in two years would be pleasant. I get too attached to people so I don't want to have to transfer any more than I have to.

On Thursday we had a half mission activity for Christmas and we watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" the animated version (which is my favorite one.. the Jim Carry one is really annoying in my opinion). We then ate a ham dinner that the Bellevue Stake relief society made us. It was really good and the funeral potatoes tasted like Gladys Hamilton's. It was very much a treat.

Saturday was our surprise baptism that just fell into our laps. We are going to have two more before the end of the year! We really want to hit our mission goal of 720 and if we do that it'll be a lot easier to get 1000 next year because we'll get referrals from those baptized this year.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Merry Christmas! Thanks for your continual support.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Zone Conference & Zone Leader Council

Hello my friends. This week was a big deal for my mission. We are coming up to then end of the year and our baptismal goal is 720. Last year it was 610 and we hit 555. This year we are now just over our last year actual which means we have a long way to go to hit our 720. We are praying and fasting to find more people to teach. There is a really unified feeling in our mission right now and we've seen some pretty amazing miracles of families being found and accepting baptismal dates for December.

This brings us to our next point of conversation. We had Zone Conference this weekend on Friday and we discussed that if each of us could achieve 2 baptisms per companionship we will hit our stake goal and our mission goal. We have one on-date and most everyone else does too but we need to find one more person! It's quite a challenge with school coming to a close but there has to be some students staying over the holiday. After zone conference we had a zone leader council that was only 3 hours instead of the usual day on Friday and we had it at the Seattle North Stake Center instead because we held the meeting right after zone conference. We discussed our goal for next year and you could feel a pretty powerful feeling in the room.

After much prayer and council we set our new goal for the 2011 year. Our new goal is 1000 baptisms for the Washington Seattle Mission. This is amazing! Our mission is improving more and more and it's interesting to see why mission presidents are called at certain times. Our mission goal in 2008 was 416 and they hit 446. Only three years ago the goal was 416 and now it's 1000 with a Stake in our mission preparing to split. We may have a new zone within the next year. If we were to get 416 this year we would have all felt like failures as missionaries and yet... that was a big deal just three years ago.

I love seeing the mission become more unified and teach the doctrine better. Especially the doctrine of baptism. I thought baptisms were always a huge thing and expected investigators to be perfect. The opposite is true. After baptism the Holy Ghost is what gives people the drive to stay worthy. After they have done all they can the holy ghost will help them along the path.

Transfers are next week which means I may not have the opportunity to e-mail. We have transfer calls this Saturday and I am extremely nervous as always. I hate transfers! It's the worst. I've never had one where I felt completely confident or at ease. I'll for sure let you all know within the next few weeks what happens. As far as how my companions and I get along... Elder Frogley and I are unified and for Elder Jordan... lets just say we have a difference in opinion.

Thanks for the encouragement. Keep it up and live your life righteously!

Love,

Elder Bottema

Thanksgiving Week

This week was one that was defiantly out of the ordinary. It started with all the snow which, by the way, is all gone now. Phew! Thank goodness. Then it escalated it school being cancelled, us getting permission to leave the mission boundaries for thanksgiving dinner, and ending the week with a new investigator who was a self referral. YAY!

Thanksgiving was really tasty. We went to our bishops house in Redmond which is right outside our mission and in the hands of the Everett Mission. Sister Jenkins made this amazing stuffing. Mmmm... she gave us two gallon bags to take home and they are already gone. It was that good. So I've basically eaten left overs since Thursday evening. As far as missionary work it was pretty slow this week due to school canceled and being in a singles ward over Thanksgiving. This new week of school will be a blast though for a couple reasons. 1) We had a self referral come to Church this Sunday. Her name is Brittney and we have a lesson with her this evening at 6:00 @ the institute and then at 7:00 for FHE we are making blankets with the ward to give to the children's hospital. I don't have the entire story on Brittney yet but we shall find out tonight!

The only negative thing that happened this week was pushing back Henry's baptismal date due to weather and family circumstances. He is a really sincere guy. He just graduated in architecture and is currently searching for a job. He is only 22 years old. WOW! In Utah, no one graduates till they are older because half the state leaves on LDS missions.

I'm excited to see what the University 2nd ward does this next week. Thanks for the support from home.

Enjoy the holidays. :)

Snow in Seattle!

Yes that's right everyone. Snow in Seattle. I was on an assistant exchange in Federal Way again with my last companion Elder Bunton and it started snowing harder and harder. Snow in Seattle is very unusual. They have no snow plows or anything so the roads are crazy. We were informed by our mission president to head home early and park our cars. We started our drive up interstate 5 when BAM! Traffic! It took 4 hours to drive from Federal Way to Seattle. This is half the distance of Cedar City to Saint George and it took four hours. We had a giant sleep over at our 1 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment with 5 missionaries on Dexter Ave in Seattle. ha ha We then were stuck inside (luckily it was P-day) and our temple trip was postponed. We are driving again today but our cars will most likely have to be parked at 7:00 P.M before it freezes too much again. The High the last couple days has been in between 22 F and 38F. So basically its freezing cold. People forget its moist here so it feels a lot colder. People are babies about driving though. ha ha That's how Suzanne put it anyway (Suzanne from Jersey who was just baptized). We have a half mission activity this week but it might have to be postponed or cancelled as well. We also had to move back our investigators baptismal dates due to lack of teaching them because of weather conditions. Life in Seattle is cold, SNOWY, and full of out of the ordinary news. As much as I want to write more events about this week I must go. I'll have to make it up to everyone. Let me know what I can do. I love you all and keep up the good spirits,,, even when it's freezing.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Fast & Finding Week

Oh my heck this week was so awesome! We fasted and prayed and now have four people on -date for baptism! Here is the cool thing. Two of them are member referrals, the first I've had since being in this area and they are solid. One of them is super excited to get baptized on the 27th of November while another is shaky but has excellent fellowship. Her name is Ghee-hee and get this; she is from Federal Way and was really good friends with Alex Elder. Alex was baptized back in June in the Jovita Creek ward and she sent me a letter a couple weeks ago giving me Ghee-hee's number because she lives up here on the UW campus... better yet in our ward boundaries. So I called Ghee-hee and she remembered me from some of the ward activities. She is a really sweet girl who would be a really good addition to our ward/ the church in general. Alex wrote me again and told me she is coming up here this Friday and will be on the UW campus Saturday to visit Ghee-hee but it gets better. She is bringing up 4 people of Ghee-hee's friends that are all members of the church who I know from Federal way and they are all coming to church and are going to sit with Ghee-hee. She is already being surrounded by these church members who are her best friends and she is going to be meeting even more people from our ward when we have lessons with her this week. Alex will be here for 8 days starting Friday.

I'm stoked to see a Alex as well. This rarely happens on the mission. Don't you love when you have recent converts who move to BYU-I who send you referrals in the mail who you get to see after you've been transferred? I know I do. ha ha

The rest of the week was really good and this Friday I get to be companions with Elder Bunton again because its our zone leader/assistant exchange. YAY! I am setting up a lot of lessons with our favorite people and leaving prime contacting time open to find more people. This week looks like another great week in the WA SEA Mission. Despite the dark days (the sun is completely gone by 4:30 P.M) and the constant drizzle of rain, life here is good. Just as a reminder next week is temple day so I wont be E-mailing until Tuesday. I love you all! Thanks
for everything you do for me.

Your missionary,

Elder Bottema

Texting is Back!

Yay!! Our mission was finally re-approved for texting for zone leaders, assistants and University wards. I've been trying to text everyday since our mission president told us. He doesn't know when we have it again but he's just waiting for the "switch to be flipped." It's on our new phone plan but we are just waiting in anticipation. We had it last year but obviously I wasn't a zone leader so therefore I never got to enjoy the benefits. We had an interesting zone leader council about some of the disobedience that went on last transfer but come to find out our mission is 90% diligent and obedient. We just have a small fraction or handful of missionaries who are not the most obedient.

Our mission is still improving and doing better. We had an awesome day yesterday. We had two non-members who just showed up at church who we are now teaching. We are going to have 3 people on-date for baptism by the end of this week. I prayed and fasted for this goal and I feel really comforted by it. My new zone leader companion is doing great! It's a lot different than training a new missionary. It's really just making a few adjustments here and there and handling sticky situations. He's great though. Our third companion, to say the least, doesn't really have the same opinion as us. Fun times, fun times.

The weather here is starting to get bitter cold. Not horrible but cold and it sure is raining a lot more. Most days start out rainy and then we'll have a hour break of sun and then it just leaves and the rain comes back. Because of daylight savings time it's pretty dark by 5:00 P.M. When December 15th - January 15th comes the sun is completely gone by 4:00. It's so werid. It's a lot darker here in the winter compared to Utah, however, its not as cold so I can't complain too much. As far as news that happened this week it wasn't too eventful. I hope all is well at home. Be safe and stay strong!

Love,

Elder Bottema