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