Seattle North

The big news that you have all been wanting is here. First off, I have been transfered to the University 2nd ward which is on the Univeristy of Washington campus. My companion is a zone leader also (which is the case now days. If your a zone leader that means your companion is one too). My appartment is on Dexter Ave which is just off of Freemont street where the gay pride parade was held this week. yay. Anyway, my appartment is horribly old and trashed. It looks cool from the outside and is in a nice area of downtown Seattle but is so gross. My companion is NOT a clean person. He is a good companion outside of the appartment though. We pretty much agree on how the work should go and we compliment each other really well. The only negative thing is the cleanliness issue. Another different thing about this building is there are 8 units and one shared washer and dryer. It's $1.00 for a load and 75 cents to dry. So it comes to $5.75 every week for laundry. Not to mention I have to start buying laundry soap and dryer sheets again.

Zone leader council was interesting and we learned a lot about president Larkin. Our mission president said he'll probably change a lot of things but that's okay and to just tell him we'll do it. He arrives on Thursday and we have an interview with him on Saturday. So this transfer we'll have interviews twice and 2 zone leader council meetings. It's going to be the busiest yet. This area is completely different from Federal Way. Really busy, different culture, liberal, and no tracting. Only street contacting because there is no where to tract in my area! And if we did tract we'd be referring most people to the family wards. So everyday we walk to this place on campus called "red square" and contact people while they are walking. It's really a lot more difficult because you have to be so much more bold. Another difference is since this is a student ward you don't really make back-up plans. If a lesson falls thru you go back to campus and talk to people. So it's starting to get old but I'm here for a reason. I've been praying for a lot of help.

I've talked to a lot of really interesting people though. My companion is super bold. He'll run after people or try and stop them while they are jogging and if they don't stop he'll jog with them and then if they keep telling him to go away he slips them a pass-a-long card. I feel soooo weird but it shows that we are serious. I'm not at that level yet nor do I think I'll ever be.

The persecution is a lot harder here. There hasn't been a day gone by I haven't been talked bad about, swore, or had things thrown at me. I had one guy tell me if it was possible he'd kill all the mormons. EEEK! I've been hit on by homosexuals twice (both were on saturday) and had my butt grabbed on red square. I think this change has been happening all too fast. Please pray for me! haha I need all of them.

Okay time to run. My companions is needing his blood drawn. I don't know how were are going to accomplish everything we need today but I'll have to happen. Thanks for everything!

Love,

Elder Bottema