Happy Holidays!

Hello everyone! I hope you are enjoying the holidays. I sure am and still managing to get members out of thier homes to help us teach. They sure do sacrafice a lot. A ton actually! Especially after this story your about to hear. If it wasn't for great members willing to sacrafice our baptism would've been cancelled.

So are baptism was the baptism from hell. Santan loves me for some reason. Oh my gosh everything went wrong that could've gone wrong. After I got off the phone we had more phone calls of bad news. So we had to find another member to conduct since our ward mission leader couldn't be there, then we had to find someone to fill the font which takes about 3 hours. After finding out that the highline missionaries had a baptisim at the same time as ours (news to us) they said they'd fill up the font since they have a car. So we get to the church at 10:15 and highline isnt there. They forgot. We need white baptisimal clothing... they changed the locks on the doors and we no longer had a key. Do you want to know how we eventually got into the doors? With a butter knife from the kitchen and two credit cards. I was so estatic when that baptism was over. Thanks to members being willing to wake up early the day after christmas we were able to have a baptism.

There were many other things that didn't go as planned such as the person performing the baptism was late!! Oh and the person giving the opening prayer arrived at 12:10. My watch died too at 11:34. So I no longer have a working watch. But the important thing is they made a covenant which was the main goal. This friday will be much much better and far more planned out considering WE will be filling the font and WE will be the only missionaries having a baptism. What a great way to start out the new year? First baptism in the mission! Elder Bottema and Elder Smith.Well as usaul have many things to do. Thanks for being such great influences in my life! Thank you for all the packages and gifts on chirstmas.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Christmas

So Thanks for all the support and love from back home. Just so everyone knows... I did get two packages. One from Cedar and one from Saint George. I haven't got any letters yet so I wonder what will happen untill the mission office figures out this whole mess. I'm sure Elder Wilson is having a much more stressful time sorting out this mess. He's the office manager. Oops!

Anyway, this past week is so werid! It hasn't really felt at all like christmas until last night. Everyday here is the same so when something like christmas comes up where you aren't trackting and only have 3 lessons.... you have spare time. Wait, what did I just say? Spare time on christmas?! It's a miracle! haha This past week was zone conference and I LOVE zone conference because you get really good food, its spirtually uplifting, and you get to see a lot of missionaries in other area's. The stake center we had lunch at for zone conference all gave us stockings! I was one of the few who didn't look thru mine because I want it to be a surprise on christmas. =)One last note before I go. I never thought I'd be happy to see grey clouds again but it's not as freezing cold! I'm thrilled that I only have to dress in one sweater and two jackets now instead of one sweater, three jackets, a scarf, mittens, gloves, and a beanie.

P.S I found all these items in the apartment which all smelled like nasty moldy crap but I didn't care at the moment because I was so cold so thanks for the warm gifts! I'll be excited to write about next week since I get to call home in a couple days. Thanks for all the continual support and letters from home.

Love,

Elder Bottema

P.S I got Kim's Christmas card

MISTAKE!

So remember last week when I informed the world we had a new mission address? Well come to find out we were given the wrong address. What a great time to be confused where to send packages. It's been quite frustrating. Okay so this is my NEW mission address. Be aware it is very very similar to the fake new address.

Elder John Bottema
Washington Seattle Mission
10675 NE. 20th St.
Bellevue, WA 98004(one digit changed... )

So now that we have taken care of that here is what my week was like. It has continued to be freezing cold and today it is rainy. I never thought I'd say this but I'm so happy it's rainy. The clouds keep the warm air trapped. So even though it's been unusually sunny the freezing cold weather came with it. So choose your battles. Sunny and freezing. Cloudy and cold. Hmmm... such great options.This past week wasn't the best finding week for investigators so my companion and I have decided to read Chapter nine out of preach my gospel. It's about having the faith to find people. Our goal this week is to re-fil our pool of investigators. However, our teaching appointments went better this week. We bet or goal of 20 lessons a week and had 21. Do you know how hard it is to get 20 lessons a week? Especially since the new rule has been put in place that a lesson doesn't even count as a lesson unless a member is present. Trying to find a male member of the ward 20 times is quite challenging. Thank goodness for the great members we have in the Des Monies ward in the Seattle Stake... the best stake in the zone! They sacrafice so much. So my favorite recent convert is getting her patriarchal blessing this week and going to perform baptisms for the dead for the first time. I am so excited and wish I could go but at least I get to go to her endowment in a year. I already have been thinking about that and how excited I'll be. Especially since I had the oppertunity to work on the seattle temple. We drove past it for a christmas party for the whole mission and I instantly felt home sick. That hasn't happned to me yet on my mission. But when I saw the temple that I haven't seen since being here last summer all it did was remind me of the family and our fun vacation in Seattle. However, it went away the next day so overall I'm still doing fine when it comes to being homesick! Well I have many things to do as you know. Thanks for being such great friends and family! I LOVE and ENJOY the letters. Be safe and warm. :)

Love,

Elder Bottema

ICE FREEZING COLD! - Des Moines Area, Week 6

So I am freezing up here. No matter what I do I cannot stay warm. Not to mention the fact that my appartment heaters are dying. The appartment coordinators are coming Saturday so I can tell them they need to be serviced since they don't really work and I'm about to see snow fall from my ceiling.

On the upside however December is going excellent! My new companion is another hard worker and we have 3 scheduled baptisms and 6 on-date for december. Oh yeah... fruitful Seattle. It's been super stressful this week trying to hit our goal of 20 lessons/weekly. But we did it on a shim. Everything was falling through but we did it because we are amazing and the lord answers our prayers so HA! But anyway, we found this one lady virgina tracting and we have taught her the first two lessons. She is engaged but doesn't have a scheduled wedding date. However, after teaching the law of chasity her and her husband are getting married next week and having a formal cerimony next year when they have the money! I was shocked to see the dedication that some people have to want to be baptized and such. Her husband is actually an inactive member but has stressed he has wanted to go back for a while. The blessing of tracting.

Other than that this week has just been a busy running around (litteraly) trying to teach people ... oh and I only had two doors slammed! :)

Thanks for being such a good influence in my life.

I love you all

Elder Bottema

Des Moines Area - Week 5

So another week zooms on by. Preperation day is acutally today (tuesday) because it's transfer week. My companion is leaving me and I am getting a new companion. This is extrememly rare because I am a new missionary but the mission president told me he trusts me to keep the area moving forward so that's a plus! However this doens't help the fact that im now extrememly nervous that I have to take over the area and know what is to be done. I still don't understand the street system at all. If anyone feels like being generous a GPS would be appreciated. Oh and it's an acceptable electronic piece of equipment approved by the first presidency so don't feel guilty sending one. haha

So this week we took an investigator on a church tour. His name is Alvin and he is solid. He has been prepared by the lord indefinatly. He said a prayer for the first time at the end of the lesson/church tour and it was one of the most powerful prayers I have ever felt in my life. The spirit was so strong and we were able to point that out to him. I wish you could have seen the glow in the face as he was coming to realize the "fruits of the spirit" Galations 5:22-23.

Thanksgiving was really fun as well. We went to a members house (the tophams) and ate a delicious thanksgiving dinner that was made from scratch. Mmm mmm mmm... We also had a mission wide activity in the morning to play whatever sport we wanted. I played volleyball for the most part and then talked to some companions from the MTC for the last little bit. It was awesome to get to see so many faces and have little bit of "me" time. We only taught 3 lessons on thanksgiving and all of them were member lessons. It was hard considering everyone was out of town or with their family. I can't say I blame them.

Well that's all the news I really have for this week. I'll keep you in my prayers as always.

Love,

Elder Bottema

Des Moines Area - Week 4

Hello! It's thanksgiving this week can you believe it? Thanksgiving for missionaries is really just like any other day. We get to eat at members houses but we'll still be going from lesson to lesson till 9 at night. The only real day we get half off is Christmas. That's because we get to call our families. Missionaries don't really get Holidays.

As for work that is happening here in Seattle, we had five investigators at church this sunday and 2 more baptisms scheduled. Even my recent convert to the church of 3 weeks is already bringing friends to church with her and get this, they are interested! It's probably just because she's cute but hey, you do what you gotta do. I think I might take a picture of my planner and post it on my blog within the next month so you can see how crazy it looks when the day is over. Rarely are there no scratch marks. As for new spiritual experiences, so I had this dream that I was talking to this guy in our ward (Brother Nelson). He is the stake patriarch (ignore the spelling) and I had this dream about sharing some scriptures with him and how my recent convert should meet with him. Remember... this is a dream. Well the next day after waking up, one of our appointments fell through so we ended up knocking on bro. Nelsons door to teach a lesson. I had completely forgot about the dream I had at his point. Well we ended up talking about church things of course because duh.. we're missionaries. We talked about patriarchal blessings and how we should talk to our recent convert about them. Well after that lesson with brother Nelson we went to the church with another member to teach this recent convert. After talking for a bit and praying, the first thing she says is "I have a couple questions" (It's about 8 at night). We answered her with some scriptures that I had previously dreamed about. Soon there after she also asked "What is a patriarchal blessing? We were talking about it in relief society and I wanted to ask you?" Okay by this point I totally remembered the dream I had. We shared the same scriptures with her that I shared with patriarch Nelson in my dream and on top of that we actually went to patriarch Nelson's house! None of this was planned. That might sound totally confusing but read it a couple times and maybe It'll make sense. =)

As for the rest of the week it was the same thing I do everyday. Wake-up, shower, eat breakfast, study, knock doors, go to lessons, have a two hour break, knock doors again, have more lessons, go home, plan, sleep. Repeat for two years.

Stay safe and know I love you all,

Elder Bottema

Des Moines Area - Week 3

Hello everyone! I hope all is well back home or where ever you reside. Seattle is a great mission. We have a goal of 610 baptisms this year and we are just a smidge behind. I am serving in the Des Monines area and I am already half way thru my first transfer. The time is going by so fast I don't know what to do with myself. For those of you who thought you had time to take naps... think again. Oh and Sunday's are the busiest days of the week. So much for resting on the sabbath.Yesterday was my first baptism of the mission. Her name is Kiethly and she was an amazing convert with a strong testimony. Although she has zero family support for her desicion, the ward is doing an excellent job at making her feel welcome. We had 42 people at her baptism and only 4 of those were those of her family. Other than that all I can really say is I am extremely busy and P-days are one of those busy days.So far I haven't had anything thrown at me. I have only had one person tell me I'm going to hell and only one satanic experience. Harry Potter witchcraft = Okay. REAL Witchcraft = not okay. As far as rain goes I'm pretty sick of it. I have only seen the sun for one day since I've been here in beautiful Seattle. My umbrella is hammered too because I use it so often. Well off to grocery shopping. Luckily this week I only have 6 items on my list. Heck yes.

I love you all!

Elder Bottema

MTC here I come!

So today is the last day of normal civilization for me (although my family isn't really normal as you can see above). It's very surreal, exciting, depressing, and a variety of other emotions. I wont have internet access for three weeks but once I get to Seattle I will update my blog on my first P-day. Oh and my address of course! So I guess this is goodbye for two years! I hope life continues to become better with vast improvements!

Missionary Picture

Hello! Welcome to my first blog post. I'm excited to start blogging about my mission. I decided to start my blog one week before my mission farewell and all I can say is.. I'M SO FREAKING BUSY MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE!! The packing, the driving, the promises I'm trying to keep, the cleaning, the selling, giving away, throwing away, the list could go on forever. So if you happen to so see me this week with bags under my eyes and my hair torn out, just look past all that. =)