I Know That My Redeemer Lives

It's currently raining here in the Seattle Washington Mission.  It's feels like a kiss goodbye as this is how it was when I arrived.  It's not the usual sprinkle rain either because I can hear big drops of water hitting the glass in the library.  The rain has become so normal to me now... It's something I expect to hear in the early hours of the morning.  Rain, clouds, wet, cold, hungry (always), irate individuals, knocking doors, etc.  This formula = happiness, joy, miracles, changed lives, accomplishment, trainings, learning opportunities, the consequence of sin, blessings I have, more education than I thought I'd ever be given, a chance to change, a chance to become better than who I was.

 

I LOVED MY MISSION!!!!! I understand so clearly now why they want every worthy and able young man to serve a mission.  It changes you more than those you serve.  We should leave with the attitude of not "what can this church do for me?"  but instead, "What can I do for God?"  However, even when you leave with the better attitude God still blesses you.

 

The most valuable things I've learned on my mission is 1) That my Redeemer lives.  Wow.  Have I felt and seen his power. 2) I can choose to become something better and defeat the natural man. 3) Sin brings negative consequences, righteousness brings blessings.  4) I have so much in my life to be grateful for. 5) I am a son of God and he does answer my prayers. 6)This really isn't my work, it's His. 7) Overall, the church is totally true!

 

Thank you for everything that you have done for me.  I loved the packages, the letters of support, the prayers, and the charity.

 

Love you and see you next week.

 

Elder John Paul Bottema

Washington Seattle Mission

September 2009 - October 2011.

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

Transfer 17

What a weird number. My last transfer. I don't feel any different and I don't think I will until I start planning lessons and weekly planning past my departure date. This is good because I want to work till the end of my mission. I am so excited to be here in Bellevue for my last transfer. Things seem to be on the up rise again after a two week scare. I believe since we gloried in our tribulations we were able to make it through and prove to the Lord that this is his work and not ours. Therefore we are seeing success again and we have an awesome zone! two of our district leaders were just released from being zone leaders and they are GOOD! I was shocked to see I got them in our zone. We have a stacked zone which is awesome because the last two transfers we have stomped disobedience out of our zone and now that it's gone we just got something even better!

This past week we were able to hear from our beloved apostle Elder L. Tom Perry. I learned a lot in this meeting. He basically told us that we all need to make our mormon.org profiles and use the Book of Mormon Broadway to our advantage! He said he wasn't expecting it to be such a big hit but it was. He had a meeting with Brother Marriott who said,

"We have a problem. I have hotel managers calling all the time and reporting that all the copies of the Book of Mormon are being stolen out of the hotel drawers. We need more copies of the Book of Mormon!"

I would say this is a good problem and now that the media blitz is moving our way we are going to see the same thing happen here. Everyone is WANTING a Book of Mormon to know what's really inside because of Broadway. Lets give them out and show them what they want, peace and satisfaction in those pages. Stories that can help us learn and relate to.

As far as an update in the zone:

I stayed (obviously) and so did my companion Elder Welch from Oklahoma. We took 3 Elders home this week and I was asked by President Larkin to help with departures and arrivals at the airport again. We haven't had time to do anything! This is our p-day. E-mailing.... THAT'S IT!! This is so similar to being the Assistant all over again. ha ha

Last but not least I love what I am doing and I feel no different as far as "trunky" goes. I am continuing to do what I have always done and that is serve to the end. It doesn't seem real anyway so don't worry about me too much. There is too much work to do.

I love you!

Elder Bottema

Week 6

This Week always seems to be the most hectic. Week 6 of the transfer and Week 1. Usually because you have to get all the departing missionaries things ready and as a zone leader make preparations for transfers and then Week 1 is departures, transfers, Zone meetings etc.

Everyone from the singles ward either left today or is leaving next Monday to head back to school. It was weird saying goodbye to everyone. It was even funnier talking with those who will be going to BYU -I the same time I do. I already have a small network going here in Bellevue. I love the Mormon world. So many connections.

It looks like we will also be training which means new missionary orientations. It'll be busy for the next two weeks. I will be excited to train again. I feel like I've been doing that all my mission but I've only trained two new missionaries and two new zone leaders but because of all the trainings I've done all over the mission and new missionary exchanges/ trainings I feel like I've done it the past 15 months. I realized that by the time I go home I will have served 21 months of my mission in a leadership assignment. A.K.A I am really tired. But I am moving forward wonderfully wasting and wearing out my life for missionary work. I will be tired all the way to the end!

Everyone around me (including members) keep reminding me, "This is your last transfer, " This is your last cycle meeting, "this is your last departure before you go home." It was funny the first 5 min... but now it's just annoying.

This week we ended up moving Sally's baptism to the 16th instead of the 19th of August. Her mom was leaving town and she wanted to be there so we decided to move it up before her mom left town. I am excited to have another baptism this week. I need five more in two months. Two more this month and three more next month. I can do it! Please pray for me! I am so close. I want to be the best tool I could be for the savior and to do so I need to "ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you."

Oh yeah! it's President and Sister Larkin's birthday today! I forgot! They are turning 51. I hope they have something planned. They are probably too busy though. I love that man so much. We had zone conference this week and he came to our lesson right after the conference.

Alright, we are off on another preparation day. Keep up your own missionary work!

Love,

Elder Bottema

Blue Angel Miracles

Yes, the blue angels were in town this weekend and since I was in Bellevue AND Mercer Island on Friday for zone leader council we did see a little bit of their air show. It was pretty exciting/fun.

This week really had to have been a week where literal angels were following us.

Reason 1) We almost died on I-90 traveling to a lesson. We were driving when a diesel had a tire explode, then as we tried to swerve out of the way the diesel looked as though it were about to roll in front of us. It all happened so fast. For some bizarre reason it began to correct itself and pulled to the side. While all this was happening everyone was slamming on their brakes and there was smoke everywhere. We almost slammed into the car in front of us and a Audi almost slammed into the back of us. We prayed!

Reason 2) We had a baptism again! We met someone on Sunday who walked into the church. His name was Bruce and he had a lot of questions about life. As of Friday night he wasn't committed to baptism. On Saturday night we took him to the Bellevue South Stake Center (The building behind the temple) and showed him a temple tour. After that we went into the church and showed him the baptismal font. We talked about the promised blessings and told him he qualified for baptism. He had been to church enough times and been living all the required commandments. We said at 5pm, "Bruce, you still have the opportunity to be baptized this evening at 7pm, what do you say?" He said, 'Well.... I guess I don't see the reason why not. I really want those blessings." WHOA!! We began filling the font, took him to the chapel to pray and called a member of the bishopric. The baptism consisted of Elder Flygare (My MTC companion who is now with us because of transfer complications) Elder Welch, myself, our recent convert Brittany, and Brother Marcia.

Reason 3) Saturday was Elder Flygare's birthday and I told him to find someone to baptize for me on my birthday. Well on Sunday while he was attending Church a part-member family walked up to him and asked, "I'd like to be taught and join the church. I'm ready now. Can you teach me?" WHAT! I thought you were a member?!?! She was put on-date for August 19th. The day after my birthday. I am so excited! I love baptisms! I need 6 more baptisms to reach my goal. Please continue to pray for me. I can see the miracles daily.

This week we set a goal for ourselves to challenge 5 people to baptism and be successful. We need to really fill our teaching pool as well as the Bellevue zone. We have fallen to 5 people on-date for baptism. Half were baptized and the other half dropped the missionaries. I would love all the help I could get.

Reason 4) Starting this week our mission is making our mormon.org profiles. We will be spending an hour each week on mormon.org becoming more familiar with the website and making profiles. We have been instructed to NOT wear missionary clothing and to NOT call ourselves Elders or Sisters but to use our full real name. Weird. Also, we are each receiving portal DVD players for each companionship to use in our morning studies. We will also be receiving the mormon.org DVDs showing the current videos on the website. The church is going all out with technology. If we don't abuse the privilege of the DVD players we will all be issued IPads for each area/unit in the mission. I never thought the church would allow this for missionaries but we need to accept the fact that this is the way the world is moving and door to door approaching is becoming less socially acceptable.

Great and exciting things are taking place in our mission. Not only do we have Elder L. Tom Perry coming on the 19th, we have the missionary department from mormon.org coming to our mission August 29th-31st to train us on the website even more and prepare us for the amazing results that will begin to happen. Then Kieth R. Edwards of the seventy is coming September 15th and 16th to do a mission tour. Then the missionary department is coming one more time the end of September to make sure we understand the mormon.org training completely. Starting October 1st is the media blitz and I will be going on my way home just as the fun begins. I am grateful to be the foundation of such a great cause though. I'm still trying to extend one transfer so I can be a part of this great work and excitement. Thank you for the prayers.

Love,

Elder Bottema