A Week of Barbeques

Summer is most definitely coming here in the Columbia Basin. The winter ended early so it has been warming up extremely fast and as such, the barbeques are starting to come out. Well, I guess, more barbeques are starting to come out. There are a few devoted people who will have a barbeque if its 20 or 120 outside but on the whole there has been a lot of barbecuing this week. Sunday (a week ago) our bishop gave us each half a chicken smoked to perfection, followed on Monday with some carne asada we threw together as a zone for a zone p-day which was a blast. Friday, we had dinner with another couple that gave us some more barbeque (there was sauce dripping off the chicken - it was unbelievable). Sunday (yesterday) followed up with almost a double-whammy of more BBQ when a guy we had tracted into the week prior invited us to his daughter's 1 year old birthday party and more or less commanded us to have some steak with them. It ended up not panning out for one reason or another but it was for the best because that night the bishop's brother had us over for dinner and smoked even more chicken to perfection. We each had a whole chicken and then took two more home for later. It has been a glorious week of sauces and seasonings on the barbeque for Elder Kupferer. He just has to run 5 miles a day now to work it all off.

And in other news, my companion and I got to experience what it was like being on the other side of the door this week. We were sitting there finishing our comp study one morning when we hear a knock on our door and much to our surprise there was an elderly couple from a local church inviting us to their services. If I wasn't on a mission and already had a prior engagement at the time, I think I might actually go. They were super nice. It was a little different on the receiving end of proselyting like that. I just felt bad because there were two more sets of missionaries in the apartment complex the couple would have to knock into.

So in regards to the more spiritual side of things as opposed to the sauces and seasonings of summers' barbeques, this week we had a really cool experience with a guy named Dave (not actually his name.) This past few weeks since the family we were working with got baptized, we didn't have much to do so we have been finding a lot. It was kind of frustrating because we had tried so hard but we weren't seeing much come of it, until this week. Long story short Dave's best friend just got out of jail and they are both looking to turn their lives around and come closer to God. Dave's friend had grown up in the church and so they decided to turn there for some answers and help in leaving the past behind and we had the opportunity to teach them. We saw them twice this week and it was a super inspiring lesson. We did our best to teach simply and were able to watch as Dave made the connections himself and was taught from on high and apply what he was learning. By the end of the lesson, he - for all intents and purposes - invited himself to be baptized on a specific date we had mentioned previously to him. I am so stoked for the chance to meet with him more often and continue working with him. It was a great blessing for us to see that we work hard and do what we can, then the Lord will make up the rest and bless us on His time table with what he deems fitting. I am glad we were deemed fitting enough for such a special opportunity.

Just a side note about the lesson. On the outside looking in, it was a pretty comical sight the night we taught them. They both had rough pasts and looked the part, then there were two missionaries - relatively the same age - dressed in white shirts and ties, and then their grandparents looking on. It was a sight to behold.

And for the quote this week it comes in two parts. Part one is the principle applied from the movie "Field of Dreams" (did I cite that right? I guess I wasn't paying enough attention in English class). The Pasco North Stake has been working very diligently to establish a good system of correlation and unity with the members and the missionaries in hopes of the following:

"If you build it, they will come."

With that system in place, they are showing to the Lord their diligence and desire to have people to teach and more people come unto Christ through baptism. Last night we were meeting with a member so my companion could say goodbye (he is getting transferred Wednesday) and we made a comment about it and in an offhand response he said:

"Who needs a program? Just do it."

Since I respect and admire both of the men with whom these quotes are involved, I will stay out of this one and just do my thing down here in Othello. But may you all leave feeling inspired to try something new and then go out and

"just do it."

Elder Kupferer

An Application in Finding

This was a pretty long week but rather rewarding at the same time. Tuesday we had a zone conference down in Pasco so we had to get up at way-too-early in the morning to drive down for the car inspections at 8 that preceded the conference itself at 9. As per the norm, the conference itself went rather long but it was all great stuff. We received some great instruction of a few new things to try to help take us to the next level of missionary work. I feel as though our mission president is extremely pleased with where the mission is at right now and so he is able to help lift us up out of the basics of missionary work and start showing us what the next step is to continue increasing in our abilities as missionaries and become even more fruitful. We also had a break in the middle for a 30-minute rebuke fest from the mission president's wife essentially telling us all we are getting too fat and need to start eating healthier. I'm sure that’s a bit over exaggerated from what she intended but that’s what I got from it. Maybe I need to lay back on the tacos and start running more....

Anyways afterwards I went on an exchange with one of the assistants and stayed down in his area and since they live with the Kennewick zone leaders I was able to see a lot of my friends from last transfer. That was nice being able to see them all again and reminisce about the fun memories together coupled with how investigators are doing. But the next day we left and went on our way back to Othello for a week of almost solid finding. Since we have had a lot of success with baptisms recently we were busy teaching and not too busy finding so we put our shoulder to the wheel as it were and went to work. We were able to apply the principles we learned the day before and saw tons of small miracles the entire week. We found more investigators than ever before in my entire mission and saw lots of cool miracles in other areas as we were blessed for our diligence. Notably the greatest miracle from that was the lessons with our recent converts. All three of them have taken hold of the gospel and truly begun to apply it in their lives. Their understanding of gospel concepts and principles is astounding. Sweet is the peace the gospel brings into families lives. The most marked difference was found in the family of the 10 year old child baptized a few weeks prior. About 2.5 months ago when the teaching process began, the parents had no testimony whatsoever of the gospel (hence why they weren't going to church and their son didn't get baptized at 8). But as we continued on with the teaching process, the Spirit worked on them like none other. Friday night in a lesson with them, we started off with a scripture about prayer and by the end of the lesson, the mom was talking about how the home felt so much different (in a good way) now and how she is going to fast next week and get sealed as a family one day. It was a great experience for us to see first-hand the amount the restored gospel of Jesus Christ can help families and individuals not only grow closer to each other but with our Heavenly Father as well.

The quote of the week doesn't make any sense to me so I want to toss it out there and see if anyone has any sliver of an idea about what it’s trying to teach. It was on a billboard in town and says this:

"He who throws dirt loses ground."

Still trying to wrap my head around it. I think I might be overthinking it. But anyways here is an actual quote for you from zone conference this week. We were coming back (feeling rather fat might I add) from the lesson from the President's wife about nutrition and regrouping with some other groups that had gone out in breakout sessions and as we were making small talk about it our President said:

"This morning we taught you how to have faith, and she just taught you to feel guilty."

We were able to apply the faith principles, now we just have to get around to throwing away the box of Cap'n Crunch sitting above our fridge and apply those principles....

And with that, I sign off for another week. Hopefully when I write to you again, I will be a few pounds lighter. Until then,

Elder Kupferer

35 Hours

35 hours you ask? What can that even mean? The number of hours Elder Kupferer spent tracting? Or maybe the number hours Elder Kupferer spent reading the Book of Mormon? Possibly contemplating the fact that somehow February is already over and we are 1/4 of the way through March? Sadly, no. 35 hours is the number of hours Elder Kupferer and his companion sat in meetings and planning sessions this past week, not including driving time or pondering time whilst in the car.  Since there was so much that went on, this week will be presented in more of a list style than story mode as I usually do. I apologize if there are any people that get frustrated at the change or can no longer tolerate this blog, but there’s a lot I have to type and not a lot of time to type it so let’s start on Monday shall we?

Monday

• Okay Monday didn't actually have anything going on besides P-Day. Sorry to let you down. We did teach 4 lessons in 3 hours and found a new investigator though. One of the daughters of the family we were supposed to have a lesson with got admitted to the hospital the night before so that freed up our night to do some late night tracting.

Tuesday - now the fun begins.

• Pancake Palooza - If you remember back in October-ish we were asked by the seminary teacher (who gets paid because he is a full time teacher; still amazes me that they have those, and not just poor souls that wake up at o-dark-thirty to teach the class in addition to a regular job) to come make pancakes because all the students were inviting their friends from the high school to come over and eat some pancakes as a good way to get kids familiar with the church a little bit and the concept of seminary. And who doesn't like pancakes?

• Preparing Stake Reports - Once a month we meet with the Stake Leaders of the two stakes in our zone and normally this would have been taken care of Wednesday but the stake presidency asked to change to the correlation night to Tuesday so we had to finish it last second.

• Ward Council Training - This week was our ward conference and so the Stake Presidency took the opportunity to train the ward councils a bit and provide instruction. We were lucky enough to be able to sit in and gain a lot of valuable insight into the council system that we were able to apply the very next day.

• Stake Correlation with the Othello Stake - About what it sounds. We had the time to discuss a new plan of action on things we wanted implemented to help the missionary work. Since it was a late night meeting we didn't end until after curfew. Thankfully a member of the mission presidency was there to approve it.

Wednesday

• Zone Leadership Council - A chance for us do discuss with our District Leaders and our Sister Training Leaders how the zone is doing and things we can do to improve and help others. We applied the principles we had learned the previous night about counseling and it was a great meeting. Hands down the best one I've been a part of. We were able to witness firsthand the revelation that comes in when people truly counsel together on a subject.

• Correlation with one of our bishops and our two Ward Mission Leaders - all at separate times, might I add.

Thursday

• Mission Leadership Council - Where the zone leaders and sister training leaders get together and have a party of the spiritual kind with our mission president while discussing various trainings and ideas he wants taken back to the missionaries. As always, a great opportunity for receiving training and revelation as well as seeing old friends again.

• Dickey's Barbecue Pit - Some of you may remember this restaurant because it was in Irvine some years back and I remember hearing they had one in Kennewick so we went on a hunt to go find it. Totally worth it.

• Blown tire - About 5 miles from the nearest town with no lights and nothing but highway on one side and crops on the other our tire decides to blow out; not slowly leak air but completely blow. So, we got to fix a tire in the dirt in the middle of nowhere at 8:00 at night with another 30 miles before we got home. Made me appreciate my dad forcing me to learn how to change one and the 120 lumen flashlight I had.

Friday

• Zone Training Meeting Planning - My companion and I sat down with the STLs to discuss how we wanted zone meeting (the chance we have to train the missionaries in our zone) to go. It was a long and arduous process and I'll spare you the details but needless to say it ended up being a great learning opportunity for us.

• Les Schwab - Spent 30 minutes getting new tires on our car. I have now planned for meetings in Les Schwab twice.

• A baptism! The highlight of the week. About 2 months ago a single mom with two daughters still living with her walked in the church having recently moved from Moses Lake in need of help and since she was baptized when she was around 9 she remembered the church and how much it help. One of the conditions of her receiving help was that we teach her and her daughters about the church and help them gain fellowship in a new town. Our ward did great. Instantly they had friends everywhere and all kinds of support, but the daughters were still a little hesitant about baptism. That’s when I jump in. They have taught them several times by this point and they weren't progressing much so literally our lesson plan was follow up on the reading (which talked about baptism) and go from there. Well, as evidenced by me writing this, it turned out pretty good. From that point on most of their concerns were resolved and so it was relatively smooth sailing from then on. The daughter getting admitted to the hospital the Sunday before her baptism was a little scary but it turned out to be a great experience. Their testimonies had developed so much and the gospel had really worked on them and helped them change for the better. It was a great experience working with them.

Saturday

• Zone Meeting - The culminating event of the week. A 3 hour meeting to try and help other missionaries develop skills to become better finders and teachers (and therefore baptizers). There was a lot of time spent going into this meeting and thankfully it all paid off.

• Weekly Planning - Normally this takes place on Friday but since we had other business to attend to we had to postpone it until Saturday.

Sunday

• Ward Conference - Awesome to say the least. Both our wards meet in the same building and so the time schedules got changed a bit which meant church for us lasted about 5.5 hours. Lots of great things were learned, but having lost an hour of sleep the night before due to daylight saving time, it was a little rough.

• More Weekly Planning - We didn't finish on Saturday so we did after church.

• Correlation with our other Bishop - Again, about what the name implies.

So that was the week. Probably the longest shortest week of my life. The amazing thing though is that it wasn't as bad as we had thought it was going to be. With such limited time to work in our area we were worried about how we were going to make it all work but the Lord blessed us with miracles proportionate to the amount of meetings we had (I say that in a joking manner since miracles aren't correlated with meetings; that’s just how I felt). We were still able to meet a lot of great people and have lessons that were nothing short of miraculous in the little bit of time we did have. The Lord saw us trying to magnify our callings and He in turn magnified our efforts. Our area came out doing even better than we had hoped by the end of the week and we are excited to see what lays in store this upcoming week with only a zone conference to attend.

The quote of the week comes from our time with our Mission President at MLC on Thursday. He was discussing how the mission is expected to jump from the current 230 missionaries to 400 in the next 6 months in preparation for the mission split. It was at this point he proposed the following question that was quickly followed up by his own answer:

"How young is the mission going to be? Diapers."

And with that, I bid you all a very exhausted farewell until next week.

Elder Kupferer

A Little Bit of Everything

This was a good week. I thoroughly enjoyed all that went on and all that I learned this past week here in Othello. It started Tuesday with an exchange with one of our District Leaders who is serving in Mattawa. He is a young missionary and still learning from experience but it was a wonderful exchange. To give you an idea of Mattawa, think of the most middle of nowhere place you can imagine, multiply it by 2, and that about describes Mattawa. It’s a tiny little town of maybe 1,000 that's set up off a highway that is just kind of there. The only substance for the town is the 1000s of acres of farmland that surround the area. If it weren't for that, the town would disappear. It was a fun experience though. There wasn't much going on in the area at the time so for an hour we put on some gloves, grabbed a trash bag, and started picking up some trash. Two full bags later we continued on with our day but it was great for me to see the strong desire this missionary had to do well with his area. The rest of the night was great and the pool table in their basement just added to it.

The following day we had his district meeting in a place called Royal City in their seminary building (the church building is 10 miles down the road literally just sitting there, nothing around it) which is about as the middle of nowhere as Mattawa but it was a great district meeting. Remember this meeting because the quote of the week comes from it. That night after we went down to North Pasco (all in all I think we spent about 4 hours driving that day) to interview some people that our other district leader and his companion had been teaching. I was able to interview a lady that had only been meeting with the missionaries for maybe a month, 2 at best but had already developed such a strong desire to be baptized. She had church-hopped as a kid and in the recent past but she said she never felt anything or got anything out of it until she went with her boyfriend (now fiancé who was inactive at the time) to his church. She felt something special there and was so excited about all the questions she was getting answered and the opportunity it provided her to learn even more. It was a really special experience for me to be able to meet and talk with someone who had developed such a strong testimony that early in her search.

This weekend was also a great experience with Stake Conference. We were able to attend the Saturday night Adult Session as well as the Sunday morning so we had some great opportunities for learning. Saturday night they talked a lot about Ward Council and what makes effective councils and how to hold them and things of that nature which was great for my companion and me since although we don't run Ward Councils we do have Zone Leadership and Mission Leadership Councils that we run and sit on. The principles for both are the same. Anyways I'll spare you all that I learned but suffice it to say that it was a great experience. My comp and I were able to play a small part as well since we do have a small part in the Ward Council for the English ward we cover and so we were part of a demonstration that talked about the missionaries' role in it all. All we did was stand there but it was still cool. Sunday morning wasn't anything terribly out of the ordinary but it was still a great experience as well. The stake leaders here are great men and did a very good job with their teaching. One of the members of our Mission Presidency also gave a talk and made mention how there are currently 10 missionaries from mainland China, 1 from Syria, and 1 from Lebanon in the MTC learning English to go serve missions. If that isn't the hastening of the work I don't know what is.

So the quote this week came from a meme that was hung up in the seminary building in Royal City. Quick history lesson since it won't make sense to those of you that don't know won't understand this at all. The Book of Mormon is a compilation of prophetic writings much like the Bible (Matthew + Mark + Luke + John +.... = the Bible; Nephi + Jacob + Enos +.... = the Book of Mormon) and the man that compiled most of the Book of Mormon was named Mormon (hence, the Book of Mormon). So there was a picture of Mormon sprawled out over some records as he was compiling all of them together and the caption read thusly:

"Oh you don't have time to read the scriptures do you?”

“That’s cool. I only spent my entire life preparing them for you."

So if you didn't get it, I'm sorry. Ask your nearest Mormon and they'll be happy to answer. If you did get it, I hope I was able to brighten your day just a little.

Either way, enjoy the beginnings of March Madness.

Until next week,

Elder Kupferer

Another Week Goes By

This week was - by the end of it - rather successful. The week started off a little weird since normally Mondays are our P-Days but this week (the first week of the transfer) was temple P-Day so it got shifted to Tuesday in order to let us attend the temple. Temple trips are always fun since, well, we go to the temple, but also we for all intents and purposes get free reign on all of Tri-Cities and the plethora of stores and restaurants it has to offer. So what did we do? We went to Wendy's. Only logical choice. But besides that, it was a rather boring day. We drove the hour back and since we had nothing else to do (all the other missionaries were scattered throughout their areas in varying stages of shopping) we decided to finally finish unpacking all my stuff and clean/organize the apartment. It was extremely mundane but it was well needed.

After that the week was relatively normal. Had exchanges with the Elders in North Pasco and the ward we were working in that day was a ward that covered all the farm country north of Pasco. It was entertaining having to drive 20 minutes between houses in hopes that someone would be there. Apart from that, the week was rather uneventful until Saturday.

Saturday we had the baptismal service of Nick. Let me tell you a little about Nick. Nick's parents joined the church about 3 years ago but soon after fell away when he returned to drinking and since she had only joined in hopes that he would stop drinking, they didn't have much reason to stay and so they stopped coming. Well fast forward to two months ago, when Nick's uncle invites the missionaries over to come meet with him (since he himself was also inactive at the time) and upon arrival at Nick's parents’ house (where his uncle was staying) the missionaries discover that Nick never got baptized at 8 (he is now 9 at this point), so long story short, they start teaching him. From what I understand (I come into the scene only about two weeks before his baptism) it was a little rocky at first seeing as his parents weren't the biggest fans of the church and weren't opposed but weren't actively supporting him either. It took several weeks to finally get them to come to church, and to meet with us on a regular basis, but then a miracle started happening. As the missionaries continued to teach Nick, his parents would listen in and over time became more and more supportive. As Nick was receiving the lessons and keeping the commitments he was left with, the Light of Christ started to work on his parents and slowly but surely they started opening up more and more and started to bring Nick and his younger siblings to church. By the time Nick's baptism rolled around, they were a 100% for it. They started inviting friends and were even defending their son when friends started to throw anti at him and criticize their decision about Nick learning more. It was truly inspiring to see the Light of Christ and the Spirit working within them to help them open up again to the Gospel. They still have a bit to go as a couple but the Dad is super excited to be active in the Gospel again. Unfortunately his work schedule is tough but he asked us repeatedly if he and his son would be able to accompany us to lessons and help share what they have learned on his only day off. We heartily agreed. While it has yet to happen, I am excited to see what it will bring. Anyways - back to Nick. So last Saturday was his service, and it was a combined service with a lady from up in Warden who was also getting baptized (the church in Warden doesn't have a font so they come down to Othello to use ours). Preceding the service was a mad house since my companion and I were tasked with making the programs and long story short couldn't get to the final touches until early Saturday afternoon. It was a pain and a half printing out the music (it was two songs that needed to be on a half-page back-to-back to stuff inside the program) and after 45 minutes of toying with the printer, we finally got it to work right, only to have the printer run out of ink (naturally). So we run across town and find a printer in the other church that was working and get it all printed off. Anyways, with all that said and done, the program itself went great. One of the smoothest and best programs I've been a part of. It was great to see the members of the ward reaching out not only to Nick but the lady from Warden. Our numbers may not be strong, but they are among the best. It was a very emotional moment for everyone. Hopefully it will keep Nick going strong in the Gospel.

Aside from that, that was pretty much the week. The quote comes from exchanges this past week as we were driving around all the fields, and pretty much describes the whole day:

"I feel like we keep redefining the middle of nowhere."

And with that, adios. 

Elder Kupferer

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