Meetings, Meetings and More Meetings

That's pretty much all we have done all week. Monday and Tuesday were relatively normal days taking care of this and that in preparation for the missionaries returning home and the incoming missionaries. Monday night since we drive the giant van we were tasked with picking up all the missionaries who were going home the following day and took them to our townhome so they would have a place to lay their head. It was pretty entertaining watching all these missionaries walk around the house like zombies, conscious of their imminent doom of returning home. That night when we tried to go to bed they mostly just spent time tossing war stories back and forth from their two years of experience under their belt. Eventually we got to bed around midnight only to have the alarm go off at 5 the following morning so people could start taking showers since they had to leave around 7 that morning. My companion and I stayed behind and cleaned up around the house in preparation for the incoming missionaries that night so they had a good example of what missionary housing is to look like (not to say that we don't clean throughout the other six weeks because we do). We finally finish that afternoon and after sharing some pizza with some fellow missionaries one last time we took off walking the 4 miles to our area. Since the van is technically the transfer van and transfers were now upon us we were sore out of luck in terms of transportation. Having not walked that far at one given time in a very long time (I can't remember the last time to be honest) it was surprisingly strenuous and made me extremely grateful for the car we drove. The weather was on our side though as it has been consistently getting warmer (we are into the 50's now – it’s awesome) so it was overall a pleasant afternoon. We (slowly) made our way over to the mission home to look over the missionaries that had arrived earlier in the day from the Provo MTC as the President and the assistants took off to pick up the incoming group from the Mexico MTC. So for two hours we showed them the church and how to properly give a church tour in addition to a walk around the temple grounds as well. Upon the return of the Spanish missionaries from Mexico we (thankfully) took the van back to head to dinner and then make the rounds of goodbyes that night only to return and repeat the process of the night before. The new missionaries all piled into Megatron (our affectionately named van) and headed with us to our humble abode to spend the night. Thankfully since most of them were running on little to no sleep we were able to make it to bed on time and since the numbers were fewer than the preceding night the alarm went off at 6 instead of 5. So we repeated a similar process of short showers and dropping people off Wednesday morning in time for transfers. It was tough saying goodbye to an area and zone after only 6 weeks but I was glad to be going back to the basin.

Upon arrival Othello we still got to sit around for a few hours waiting for people to come and go so that transfers would be finished and were able to go out to work that night but that work came to an abrupt halt Thursday morning. The day started with a trip to Basin City to coordinate with some other missionaries about the upcoming Zone Meeting we would be having and that was finished in time for us to head back down to the very area I had come from not even 24 hours prior for a trainer trainee meeting. There are four companionships out of the 12 in our zone where one is a brand new missionary and so we were invited to attend the meeting that explains to them a little about missionary work. It was a fun meeting to be a part of and enjoy the presence of all the excitement the new missionaries brought to the field. After the meeting we had some dinner and then worked our way over to North Pasco to correlate with a member of the Stake Presidency about the missionary work in that stake. It was a rather inspiring meeting since as we discussed it on the way home, my companion and I - both 19 years of age - are tasked with working with these men that have had twice our age in experience in the church and life. They trust us enough to work closely with these men and I was privileged with this opportunity to learn from some of the finest in the area. After an hour road trip home we made it back in time for a lesson with a recent convert before heading home that night. And then Friday happened.

Friday started off with what's called District Leader Orientation. About what the name implies. There are three District leaders in the zone that have been district leaders for 0, 1, or 2 transfers previous and so we took a few hours to sit them down and tell them what was going on (in a nice way). It was a surprisingly inspiring meeting given that we only had 30 minutes to plan for it between dinner and correlation the previous night. The district leaders were all super young but they have a huge desire to do a good job and so my companion and I are extremely excited for what is going to happen this transfer in working with them. After some pizza we headed home to sit down and plan for another 2 hours in preparation for the Zone Meeting that would occur the following day and despite the limited amount of time the trainings came together super well. We spent a few minutes finally starting the weekly planning that normally occurs on Friday before heading to dinner and then going to work that night since we were both sick of our apartment and wanted to actually do something, not just plan for it.

Saturday started off with what I think was one of the best Zone Meetings I have been to (me running it has nothing to do with it by the way). It was great to see how even though we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to put more thought into the training (our last training was planned for at 6 AM the morning of) the Lord was able to magnify our efforts and carry the spirit of what we wanted to get across to the members of the zone. Once the meeting had concluded and lunch was finished and goodbyes were had, we drove to Les Schwab to fix a flat tire we discovered that morning (when it rains it pours right) and started the weekly planning that was supposed to have occurred the previous day and upon completion of the tire fix we returned home to plan for the upcoming week until dinner and just left all the planning for a later time (we finally finished it Sunday night).

Throughout this whole process of meetings and correlation and planning it’s been interesting to note how the Lord recognizes the time and effort we have to put into the various matters of the zone and since it detracts from our proselyting time He makes the time we do have to go out and work that much more effective. For example, Friday night we only had three hours to work. We were supposed to meet with a kid that is getting baptized soon but for one reason or another it ended up not panning out so we went and tried by a house we felt inspired to try by. We talked with the kid that answered the door for about 15 minutes and left having taught the Restoration, inviting him to be baptized, and a return appointment. That was followed by a lesson where we were finally able to put two kids on date for baptism (just realized I use the word 'kids' a lot - it is referring to people under the age 18, not just like 9 year old kids) that had been needing to happen for a few weeks now.

Overall this past week has been exhausting to say the least but it really has been great to be working with the people I am with and to be back in Othello. The blessings just keep coming and I am super excited to be where I am at right now and the opportunities that are lying just around the corner.

The quote this week comes from our mission president a few weeks ago when he had come to pick up a missionary who had some medical problems. He walked into our house to pick up the luggage and say a prayer with us before departing and came into the main room where we all were. After the prayer, he stands up, looks around, and then remarks:

"I have been into that hallway hundreds of times but I have never been into the inner sanctum before."

It warmed my heart knowing that I lived in the inner sanctum of something. Haven't decided what yet, but it’s the inner sanctum of something.

And with that I wish you all a good week and a happy post-Single's Awareness Day.

Elder Kupferer

Back to the Basin

So for those of you that are following a little too close you might have realized that this week would be the week transfers come around again, and man have they come around. This transfer call caught everyone off guard in the zone (myself included) because I am headed back to Othello. I'm going back to the other half of Othello but I'll still cover the Spanish ward, just this time instead of the Mixteco language I'll be covering one of the English wards as well. It’s a little bitter sweet as after 6 weeks I was starting to get close to the members and the area and the missionaries I was serving with but on Wednesday I head back up to the Basin.

Probably the interesting story for the week (besides the transfer call I was going back to Othello) was Tuesday morning when we got a call from our recent convert who had given a Book of Mormon to a homeless man outside of Albertson's and told him we could get him in contact with someone to help him out with housing and a job and what not so we go and stop by to follow up with him about 15 minutes after we get off the phone. As we go up and start conversing with him and identify ourselves as the Mormon Missionaries he replies "Wow that was fast." We Mormons mean business. But we talk with him for a bit getting to know him and then as we are conversing another lady comes up and motions to a girl who's car hood was up and asked if we could go help her (apparently we are mechanics?? I barely know how to change a tire) so after the conversation finished with our new homeless friend comes to an end we go over to help the damsel in distress and stare at the car with a relatively blank expression since neither me nor my companion knew anything about cars. Interestingly enough though, our homeless friend did and evaluated the situation and identified the problem and since there wasn't anything we could do she says she will worry about it later since she only has to go across the street, we say our goodbyes, and then we head back home, all before companionship study is done.

And that really is about it for the week. A whole lot of nothing interesting. Next week though. That’s gonna be good. The quote for this week comes from a lesson we received yesterday during Gospel Principles class on The Fall [of Adam] and the question was proposed about how life had changed after having kids and someone responded back with:

"I started to pray more because I needed hard core help."

Can't wait to have kids. Sounds like a blast. But in the meantime, I'm just gonna go back to missionary work. It’s simple enough right?

Until next week,

Elder Kupferer

A Little Bit of Everything

It’s approximately 7:10 Sunday night, Pacific Time. My companion and I just finished our (second) dinner with a recent convert family after church (this is what happens when church doesn't get out until 5:30). We step outside and pause. We are at the bottom of the driveway of a house on a hill overlooking most of the Tri-Cities. It’s dark out, and there are lights shining throughout the horizon. The air is surprisingly still. Not much to be heard. Around the corner the Angel Moroni atop the Columbia River Temple is shining. There is a feeling that permeated everything. We look around. It’s a feeling we hadn't felt in a while. We look at each other, and come to a silent agreement. The state of Washington in its entirety is lamenting the loss of the Seahawks at the Super Bowl.

And in other news, our week, despite the loss of the Seahawks, managed to be pretty good this week. Tuesday and Wednesday was a pretty exciting experience for us. The JustServe project I had mentioned something about last week happened on those two days and ended up being super successful. There was a giant section at an intersection of previously empty dirt. Just dirt. Not terribly pleasing to the eye. So the City of Kennewick bought tons of rocks to spread out over the area to help in weed control and make it look nicer. The rock showed up in approximately 12 piles of rock that needed to be spread out, and who better to do it than 10 18-24 year old missionaries who would do anything to not have to tract in the rain? The project itself was pretty labor intensive and we are still exhausted from it 5 days later but it turned out to be really beneficial, not only to the City of Kennewick but for the relationship we are beginning to build between the City and the Church. My companion and I are the go-between the High Councilor assigned to JustServe and the missionaries so we have been able to see all the behind the scenes stuff and how it all gets worked out. I’m excited to see where this goes later on.

So just a random side note I thought of the other day. You know your area is awesome when you park outside of your Mission President's house to try by some potentials and look over and see the temple (which is still in your area). Anyways moving on.

Cool story from church yesterday. We were in Gospel Principles class when our phone goes off and my companion checks it to find a text from one of the bishopric, requesting that we go to the bishop's office quick if we are still in the building. So we do and as we get there, a man named Justin (not his name) was sitting there and by the looks of his clothes (namely not being in a suit) we knew something was up. Come to find out that Justin has just been left by his girlfriend who took his daughter and another one away and was battling with an addiction to alcohol which he wanted to overcome. He felt super alone and destitute in life and was looking for direction. At this point the bishopric has to go start a meeting (we are still in the middle of church at this point) so they leave us with him and we talk to him for a bit trying to find out more and teaching him a little bit to help reassure him there is hope. We ask him what made him come into the church and he relates to us the story of how he was driving down the road to go up the hill and look out over the city (the church/temple is backed up onto a hill) to ponder what he wanted to do with his life and he said that as he drove by he saw people coming in and out of the church building and felt like he should go in and was like "Why not?" So he did. It was at that point when he was sitting on the couch in the foyer and the bishopric member saw him and invited him into the office to talk with him. We had to get going to an appointment at this point so we left him with a Book of Mormon and a copy of the Restoration pamphlet with a link to LDS.org (he said that since he was changing his life around he might as well go all the way so he asked if we had any music since the stuff on the radio was not the best stuff to be listening to) and gave him our contact info and told him the missionaries that pertain to the ward he would normally attend would contact him in the next few days. If that wasn't a miracle I don't know what is.

So for the quote this week, it comes from an experience we had Thursday night. The Activity Days girls (which up until Thursday night I had little to no knowledge about; I just knew it existed) were having an activity and they asked us to come and talk to them about the joy in missionary service. That in and of itself was a suprisingly spiritual experience seeing how excited they all were to serve missions and share the gospel, but the quote comes from the question and answer session they had at the end. One of the girls up front was raising her hand so high she was about to fall out of her seat so we call on her and she asks us both how old we are to which we reply 19. She gets super excited and then responds back with:

"You can marry my sister! And so can you!"

The look of shock and alarm on the leaders' faces was almost as hilarious as the answer itself.

Anyways, that's all she wrote for this week so I'll see you again next week. Happy February to all!

Elder Kupferer

Just One of Those Kind of Weeks

Looking back on this past week, I feel more like a glorified secretary than a missionary. Tuesday we spent 2 hours trying to fix a report we got from the office to give to the Stake President here in Kennewick (he's the man over all the members in the city of Kennewick; there are bishops – most similar to a pastor – that’s over a congregation of about 150 members and then the Stake President is over 8 of those congregations) in a meeting we have once a month to let him know how the missionary efforts are going here in this zone. The meeting went well but it was just a pain and a half trying to fix the report. Thursday was pretty cool. There was a set of sisters in the next stake over (Kennewick East - we are very original in our naming protocols) who wanted to get baptized, but they speak Spanish, and since there wasn't anyone that could speak Spanish and was allowed to do the interview, they normally default to our APs, the only problem is they were on exchanges with some zone leaders up in Othello so they asked us to do it, since my companion and I both happened to speak Spanish. It was a neat experience going back to Spanish mode (haven't completely lost it yet) and helping these people make the last step towards getting baptized.

Friday is when the true craziness began. That morning my companion and I spent two hours planning for a meeting we had to give with all the District Leaders in the zone the following day before going to an appointment that fell through, only to return home and start our weekly planning (where we discuss what we are going to do the following week and the needs of the people we are working with) just in time to get a phone call from some missionaries that needed a ride somewhere for something (we give a lot of rides seeing as we don't have a mile limit; they all just fade into a giant blur), and then return home and start planning again only to turn around and head to an early dinner to be able to be on the road down to Umatilla, Oregon. There was a similar situation happening down in another zone across the way where they were in need of another Spanish interview and since the APs were in Moses Lake this time we got to make the trip down across the river into Oregon to make this interview happen. There was some intense fog on the way down but we made the hour drive safely and relatively uneventful only to come back up for yet another meeting, this time for the high councilor over missionary work and the JustServe committee. JustServe is the new initiative that the church is starting to get members and missionaries more involved in the community so each stake has a representative called to that position to be in charge of making things happen. The representative for our stake has done a good job thus far in making things happen so we met with him to discuss the finer points of a project coming up this week. It’s gonna be cool. Anyways by the end of the night my companion and I were dead tired (sitting in a car is surprisingly exhausting) so we decided the only logical solution was to go get a shake.

And then Saturday started. We had the aforementioned meeting with the District Leaders followed by lunch at a mexican restaurant (trying to curb my need for handmade tortillas; it didn't work) followed by even more planning since we weren't able to get to all of it on Friday like we were supposed to. We had a baptism to attend a few hours after we started planning for some of the missionaries in our zone which was a good problem to have and afterwards we were so sick of planning and sitting around we gave up trying and just went to work. From there it was a relatively normal night. We had correlation with our Ward Mission Leader and then a lesson with our recent converts and then came home to finally catch a breath. If nothing else, I've been sleeping really well the past few days.

So the quote for this week I think originally came from John Bytheway but a missionary - who had got it from the member he lives with - handed it to us as we picked him up for a meeting this past week, and I think it is known as the unofficial '14th Article of Faith' but is very fitting to the events of this past week. Just a little background really quick for those of you who may not know: Back when the Church was first reorganized in the early 1800s a newspaper asked Joseph Smith to write a quick article summarizing the beliefs of the Latter Day Saint faith. The article - 13 points stating our beliefs - then came to be known as the 13 Articles of Faith, which do a very good job at describing in simple terms the basics of our beliefs. And with that in mind, this is the very unofficial (like so unofficial this is a joke; don't take this seriously) 14th Article of Faith:

"We believe in meetings - all that have been scheduled, all that now are scheduled, and we believe that there yet will be many more great and important meetings. We have endured many meetings and hope to be able to endure all meetings. If there is a meeting, we seek after it."

And with that, I wish you all a very tired goodbye until next week.

Elder Kupferer

A Surprisingly Eventful Week

Well first off I would like to note that church attendance yesterday was a little lower than normal. Rumor has it that the Seahawks game had something to do with it. Either way they're going to the Super Bowl so in a few weeks we are going to have a very low church attendance seeing as we have 12:30 and 2:30 church sessions. Anyways moving on.

This week was a pretty awesome week. I guess the overarching thing is that since we live in a town house with 14 beds in it we become the housing squadron for misplaced missionaries. So for the past 2 weeks we have been housing an extra set of a missionaries who got kicked to the wayside due to a plumbing problem in the house so there is now six of us living together. It gets pretty hectic.They finally got another place so they will be moving out this Friday. It’s gonna be strange having the house to ourselves again.

But in other news, let me tell you the story about Joe and Sally (not their actual names). Flashback 10 years ago to Idaho Falls. Joe and Sally get in contact with the church and go through the lessons and get baptized, but before getting confirmed, they move away for some reason or another to Yakima, WA (about an hour and a half north of Tri-Cities) and fall away from the church. They fell onto some hard times and make their way over to Kennewick to escape the whole Yakima scene (just so you know, Yakima is supposedly the 3rd scariest place to live in in the States). Fast forward to a few months ago and they run into some missionaries on the street and talk to them and said that they had actually been baptized and wanted to start meeting with the missionaries again, recognizing how much easier life is within the bounds of the gospel, so the missionaries grab their name, and just their name. No address. So they all shake their head in dismay but as luck (or the plan of God) would have it they run into the same missionaries again a month later and this time they remembered to grab the address. The only problem this time is that the missionaries can never find them at home and so after a few weeks they give up but one night at 8 with nothing to do they say what the heck and try by them again, and find them home. That night Joe and Sally had actually called the Family History Center attached to the church building in search of the missionaries when to their surprise they knocked on the door. After that the rest is history.

Now flash forward to3 weeks ago when I show up. We had set the date of the 17th for the baptism and all was on track for that until we came to the interview. For one reason or another, the interview kept getting postponed later and later and so we thought we were going to have to postpone the baptism and disappoint the whole ward but late Tuesday night we got a call from the person that performed the interview giving the go-ahead. "And there was much rejoicing." Monty Python references aside, there was a lot of celebrating that night. Everything got set into motion and the baptism went off with few problems (there can never be a problem-free baptismal service) and ended up being a great night. One of the neatest parts about the baptism is that a man who had been baptized in November and was part of the teaching process was able to perform the baptism and be a part of that moment with them. They came to church the next day and were able to be confirmed which was especially miraculous since they had to go to the ER immediately after Sacrament Meeting. The Lord really does have His hand in all things. Even though I hopped on the train at the tail end of the journey it was still a great experience to work with them and see the change that the Gospel has brought into their lives.

So with that in mind, let me set the stage for Thursday night and the quote of the week. The area my companion and I are in is a particularly challenging area due to the rather affluent nature of the community so we don't teach a lot of lessons but the lessons we do have are super solid. As of that night we hadn't taught a lesson since Sunday night and had had doors slammed (like actually slammed on several occasions, I'm not being melodramatic on this one) for four days straight and so in a bit of a sarcastic rage this conversation went down:

Elder 1: "Elder what am I even doing with my life?"

Elder 2: "You're finding, teaching, and baptizing."

Elder 1: "Well I feel like we are doing lots of baptizing, but not so much finding and teaching."

Elder 2: "Elder, that's a good problem to have."

If you don't find that funny, then just chalk it up to a had-to-be-there kind of moment because we thought it was hilarious.

And with that, adios.

Elder Kupferer

Finally a Normal Week

So this week’s post is going to be kind of short and rather boring. But in all honestly it has been nice. Finally had a normal week with only a minimal number of miscellaneous errands to run. Tuesday we had to make a trip out to Sunnyside (it’s about an hour away) to pick up a missionary that was getting transferred to fill a spot that got opened up over in Pasco (we live with the APs and since our van that we drive doesn't have a miles limit we are the Assistants to the President's assistants). Mini roadtrips always keep things entertaining. I'm still amazed at how tiring roadtrips can be. You sit in a car for two hours and don't move and somehow come away exhausted. Not cool.

Speaking of the van, I watched an hour long video made before I was born on how to properly drive a van. In case you were wondering, vans have higher centers of gravity so you need to slow down on turns so as to not tip the van. Just so you all know.

The other cool thing this week was something called MLC - Mission Leadership Council. It is where the senior leadership in the mission all comes down for a seven hour party with President and the APs. We receive training and policies to take back to all the missionaries to help the work move along and take the mission where President envisions it going. It was a pretty cool experience. Lots of relatively simple stuff but I am excited to see where it takes the mission. By small and simple means right? It was also pretty nifty to see old companions and missionaries I'd served around in the past and catch up with them. Always fun.

So that's pretty much it for this week. Nothing terribly exciting. Next week is lined up to be errand and meeting free so naturally I'll probably have something crazy to write about next week.

The following quote is how my companion described MLC and having now experienced it, I can assure you that it is true.

"It’s a spiritual party."

Hope you all have a spiritual party this week in some way or other. And until next week,

Elder Kupferer

A Krazy Week in Kennewick

Man. This week was so jam packed full of stuff and things to take care of and just all around craziness I don't even know where to begin. I guess where I left off from last week will work. Monday night/Tuesday wasn't anything too spectacular. Filled with the usual saying goodbye to converts and members. Some sad moments for sure but everything will work out okay. Tuesday night we got a call from our zone leaders who share the ward with us that they needed to have us come on a split so they could get to a few appointments they had set up so instead of packing my things (which I have way too much of) we went out and had a couple of lessons. Ours was super. Our bishop and his wife accompanied us and we went and taught this family that is doing really well. They were asking a lot of good questions and were making tons of connections all over the place with various members they know in the area. It was a great lesson. Afterwards, I went home and stayed up till too late packing stuff only to wake up too early the next morning to get down to the transfer site on time. That's when the craziness started happening. 

Random fact about my new area. My companion and I, for our mission vehicle, drive a Ford E-350, a giant 12-passenger van nicknamed Megatron (if you saw a picture it is pretty fitting). 

As such, we are tasked with driving missionaries around in our zone whenever they need to get to a meeting as most companionships don't have a car in this zone. Unfortunately, Wednesday, they needed Megatron to shuttle missionaries around the mission so we were stranded without a car for a while. Thankfully another companionship has a car so they were able to take us around to drop our stuff off and then as we were waiting for our car to get back (which came back 3 hours late -- pretty standard delay for transfer day) we just planned for a meeting we had. That night nothing spectacular happened since we had to come in early due to it being New Year's Eve so we just planned for 2 hours (still made time for some Martinelli's) and then I started the 4 day process of unpacking my stuff (that's how much stuff I have. And I was just so tired I never felt like getting around to it). 

Thursday was pretty insane as well. We had interviews with our mission president that day and as per the norm, wound up going 2 hours long so what started at 9 didn't finish until 4:30. And since we have the one and only Megatron we got to drive missionaries around that entire day to and from the interviews so that made for another very long day. That night was pretty normal but then Friday was another long day of planning. We had weekly planning combined with having to prep for another meeting the following day so in 12 hours we spent 10 of those planning for one thing or another. That was tough. Saturday was a rough start because we had 3.5 hours of meetings to conduct since there was no other time to do them. 

Sunday was shaping up to be pretty nice as well but we woke up and saw a nice blanket of snow on the ground. Being from Southern California I was freaking out and couldn't wait to go play in it. But church didn't start until 12:30 so we had to stay inside for our studies. But afterwards when we stopped by some people before church I made my fair share of snowballs. Church itself was good but since we cover two wards WE DIDN'T GET OUT OF CHURCH UNTIL IT WAS DARK OUTSIDE!! That was not kosher. What happened to the days of church that started at 10 and got home in time for Sunday nap... but it was cool because (another cool fact about this area) it shares the parking lot with the Columbia River Temple. That's right. The temple is smack dab in the middle of my area. It is pretty cool. Driving up and seeing the temple all lit up at night from pretty much anywhere in my area. It’s pretty awesome. Anyways so we went to dinner with a recent convert family that is cooler than the snow that was outside had us over for dinner but on our way out to go back to work we got a text from the APs saying that since all the roads were frozen over it was too dangerous for the missionaries to be driving mission vehicles so we had to go home and park the Megatron. So four days later I've gotten maybe 12 hours of proselyting. It’s a weird sensation since simultaneously this has been the longest and shortest week of my mission. But alas the meetings have subsided and this upcoming week should be better. 

Probably the most applicable quote running through my mind right now was something a previous zone leader had said to someone (I forgot the context) but said:

"Fake it till you make it." 

Pretty cliché but it works. Acting like you've been there before fools everyone. Nobody has to know that I've actually just been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. 

And with that I bid thee all farewell and wish you a Happy 2015!

Elder Kupferer