Good News!

Yes! Good News again! I guess technically the good news is the gospel which we talk about all the time BUT we have a couple exciting things happening this weekend. The first being that we have three baptisms scheduled on Saturday! Two in the family ward and one in the YSA ward. It'll be a lot of fun.

Second, Elder Perry is coming to our mission again! He came my first transfer and he is coming 2 days before my last transfer! Its another combined mission meeting as well. He is speaking to the Tacoma and Seattle Missions. 500 Missionaries will be attending at the Federal Way Stake Center, I believe. He is coming August 19th (the day after my birthday) and then Elder Keith R Edwards is coming to speak to our mission September 15th and 16th. I have a feeling we will be increasing in convert baptisms even more. =)

I would like to ask you all again to be praying for our yearly goals. 12 convert baptisms in the 1st ward and 12 in the YSA ward. We have a goal of 2 in July, 2 in August in the family ward and 1 in July, 2 in August in the YSA ward. We need all the prayers we can get! We have invited the wards to do it with us each week, especially the ward council and have had the stake president pray for it as well.

This past week was busy as usual but this week is even busier! We are completely booked from 9am-9:30pm tomorrow and 10am-9pm on Wednesday and our Thursday is mostly filled. Saturday is completely booked already too and its only Monday. There are tons of good things happening in the land of Money. Thank you for your constant prayers. We have been fasting and praying to achieve what the Lord wants. I wake up everyday pretending its my last day and think to myself, "If I ended my mission after today's work would I feel accomplished? Would I feel like I did what I should have done?" It keeps me diligently moving forward and working hard. If I could do my mission over I would've asked my self this question everyday. However, I just thought of it this week. Oh well. These last two months will be epic!

I love life. Thank you as always. I'll be alive 21 years as of August 18th 2011. These past two have been the quickest. I wish it would slow down just a little bit. Every week Sunday comes and it just makes me twinge. Where did the week go?

I love you all,

Elder Bottema

Transfer Council?

This upcoming transfer is going to be so crazy and hectic. I am so excited I only have to be a small part of it. I have been asked to help the Assistants in preparing transfers... A.K.A all the paper work. So I will be getting a sneak peak one more time and then I'm almost positive all my Assistant privileges will be revoked. We will also be helping with departing missionaries again on Monday and then transfers next Tuesday. I'm excited to completely have the Assistant burden lifted off my shoulders. I am so close I can taste it! The New Assistants have done great at transitioning. I only had to help them full time the first week. The second week I just had a lot of phone calls.

This past week was good. We challenged Jennifer Johnson to baptism for July 30th. She is an awesome lady who is 71 years old! She is wonderful and we now call her grandma Johnson when we visit her. She loves it. We love teaching her and when we taught the first couple lessons she never felt so much power in her heart. She loves the concept that we are all literally brothers and sisters and that she has a ward family anywhere she goes in the world. We are making great progress there. Our other investigators are progressing well. One of them is on-date this weekend but she may be pushed back to next week because of scheduling conflicts. Hopefully that doesn't happen though. I am focusing a lot of my prayers on Brianna and know that this is what she needs. She is 17 years old, soon to be 18 and loves how she feels at church. She is already in the ward choir. I'm not too worried.

As far as the Bellevue stake we had a goal of 7 baptized in June and we only had 6. We have 5 people on-date for baptism in July and our zone goal is 6 baptisms. This week is a make or break week. We have one Spanish couple in the Spanish branch that just need their marriage license. They were supposed to get it 3 weeks ago but when they went in to obtain it she realized her name was spelled wrong on her license. Therefore, she had to get a new drivers license and had to restart the marriage license process. What a burden. Luckily we have a wonderful missionary who is going home next week who really, really wants to baptize them before he heads home. Pray for Angela and Marco! We need all the prayers we can get. Also pray for this:

A) Two baptisms in the Bellevue 1st ward in July and 12 baptisms for the year.

B) One baptism in the YSA ward in the month of July and 12 baptisms for the year.

C) Six baptisms for the Bellevue Stake/Zone.

D) Pray for these names: Angela, Marco, Brianna, pray that they can be baptized on their baptismal dates.

E) Pray for my personal goal of 9 more baptisms before my mission is over.

I would very much appreciate your prayers and I will be following up with all of you next week to make sure you did it! Lets be united and I know we can accomplish anything. I love you all and thank you for participating.

Love,

Elder Bottema