Another Babtism!

Hello! This week was crazy because of the leadership training but all in all it went over pretty well. We had some really good trainings and I must say that I did a fairly decent job. I love getting all the wonderful comments from missionaries who look up to me. I feel so inadequate at pretty much all times but it's all worth it when you can be a good/righteous example to others. I didn't feel like my training was that spectacular but apparently it was. Even though I get all this attention and confidence boosting comments I still want to be a regular missionary so bad! This week wasn't bad in the sense of dealing with President and any of his emotions, mainly because our mission had such a great week. We put 50 people on-date as a mission this week! Can you believe it? We even put someone on-date for baptism over the phone on the way up here to Bellevue. It was a fun experience and a great story to tell in person, perhaps in my homecoming talk eh? I still have 8 full months of proselyting and I'm using it fully and squeezing ever last minute in there.

We had another baptism this week. It was Andrea Lole and I actually taught her last year when I was serving in the Jovita Creek ward! She was being taught be the zone leaders and I was a District Leader at the time so I went on an exchange with them to the Federal Way ward I taught her. Well she is still here and I came back to find out she was put on-date for baptism! She had such a great baptism and was overcome with the feelings she felt there. She felt so "clean and forgiven" and felt like she could move onto a new spiritual path and journey, It was cool to come back and she recognized me. It is still surreal I am back in Federal Way. If I could move back to Seattle Washington I would move back to Federal Way and live in one of these wards. Especially the Jovita Creek ward but perhaps after 6 months of serving in the Federal Way ward I'll have the same love I do for Jovita Creek. The only difference is we don't get nearly the same type of experience as other missionaries because we have so many other responsibilities. For example, we have Zone Conference not this week but the next which means 5 out of the 7 days are taken. We also have to wake up at 5 to get to all the zones in time for leadership training and conference. Not to mention coming back to our area to have 2 essential lessons with on-date investigators and then crashing into bed at home to wake up early and start over. We haven't even got close to preparing for Zone Conference. We have a meeting with President Larkin tomorrow at the mission office and we'll have a nice long chat with him about everything. We usually talk to him every night but it's just to get all the people's names who were put on-date for baptism in the mission field. We announce those names on a voice blast ( A voice mail sent out to all the missionaries phones in our mission) every morning. It really helps boost faith in the mission. Especially weeks like this where we put 50 people on-date for baptism! It was awesome! This mission is growing so much and so fast. I love you all!

Keep in touch,

Elder Bottema