Ben to Stay in Renton (again:)

Well, transfers were today (drum roll)..... I am going to be staying in Renton and Elder Carpenter will still be my companion!, Haha., I thought for sure that my time in Renton had come to an end and even told some of the members and investigators that I thought I was leaving.  Renton just can't seem to get rid of me. :)  Another elder form Manti, Elder Walk, has now (in a couple weeks) been in Renton for a year straight.  I have been here just over that with my two times being here, so we are the "old men" in the zone.  I think that it is a little bit uncommon to stay with your trainee for 3 transfers because the training program is only for two and most of them get a different companion right after.  We were both surprised, but glad, when we heard the news.

McKay, you got in a car accident as well!  What are the odds of that?  Hopefully, I don't get any infections now soon.

Well, we had one really good lesson with the man from Puerto Rico this past week.  McDonalds is keeping him busy, but I will mention the LDS employment center to him.  I think we have one here in Renton.  He loves the church and wants to continue to come. The only thing holding him back from baptism right now is he needs to get married.  He wants to get married but his girlfriend doesn't want to at this moment.  Not much we can do about that.  We are only here to teach and invite.  When I told him I may be leaving he said, "I was hoping you would be here when I got baptized."  Uuummm, I hope I am too. We will see what happens.
 

The women and her daughter from Panama are also progressing really well. Satan has been doing a pretty good job making it hard to get a member from the relief society with us in the lessons, but lucky for us she lives at a part member family's home, and so we still have member support.  We have set up multiple lessons and had members coming with us, and then they call last minute and say they can no longer come with us.  One of them will go through though.  She has been to church now 4 times in a row and went to a stake wide Valentine's activity (don't worry, we as missionaries didn't go to a Valentine's activity) this past week.  She also loves the church and is looking forward to being baptized, hopefully on March 2nd.

I have continued to drive around the mission like a crazy man doing baptismal interviews.  Good thing for us that the zone leaders gave us more miles to use this month or we would end up walking.  It looks like this week may be a little more calm as nobody in the Spanish program that I know of yet has a baptism set for this week.  I have absolutely loved it though! 

The meeting with Elder Bowen was awesome!  I don't even think words could explain it.  He is a spiritual giant (as all general authorities are) and we as a mission learned a lot.  I love how after someone like that comes the mission work seems to see a large increase, and this time was no different. Throughout the mission the work seemed to pick up.  Everyone is trying to be the best they can and improve where they need to.  It is amazing to see.  A reference to Robert Bannister came up in his talk, and an elder on a senior couples mission and I were the only ones who knew who he was.  Weird.

 

Everything is great here! Love it!

Elder Seattle