Feb. 12th, 2018 update

"This week has been another very interesting experience, like all of them are. 

On Monday, a couple of us missionaries checked out the Navy Museum that is here in my area, and it was very fun. One of the other Elders likes airplanes and is familiar with them, so him and I were having fun in the gift shop which had some tiny model airplanes like the Blackbird or the P-51. We were having a grand ol' time. I ended up trying to read everything in the museum but everyone else was not, so I had to speed up my reading in order to keep up with them. 

Tuesday, we tried to visit a list of people that are members of our church, but don't ever come to church, just to make sure that they still live in this area. We ended up only talking to one person, and it was not the person that we were looking for. Later, we had our weekly Book of Mormon class with the missionaries in the Manette area. They had this family from Nigeria that came. As we read the scriptures and talked about what it meant to us, the mother was really into it and contributed a lot to the discussion. During the entire time, I was so excited for this family because of the changes that they are making in their lives and how they are seeing it bless them as well.

Wednesday, we had a different district meeting as it was combined with the other district and our stake president was there as well as the first counselor in our mission presidency. Later, our mission president arrived and we had interviews with him. And I will be getting transfered to a different area next week. He told me that it was time to get me somewhere else.:)

Thursday, not much. Although reading the scriptures was a plus. I suggest a daily dose to all. 

Friday, I found a dead raccoon and saw a tiny possum in some ones yard. Not in the same place though. 

Saturday, just a bunch of knocking. 

Sunday, met a really cool recent convert with an amazing testimony. So share your belief of Jesus Christ with everyone you can and be thou and example of the believers!!! 

The pictures are of a very old calculator. And of a ferry ride from Port Orchard to Bremerton. 

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

[Note that there isn't an update for the 19th, as Elder Reed didn't have much time.]

Feb. 5th, 2018 update

[Pictures first this week!]

"Let me see......

This week started with helping someone move. I thought that meant boxes, but it ended up being a couch, a bed and some cabinets. It was not that bad really and did not take too long. Got to get that exercise in somehow right? 

On Wednesday, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Seattle Temple as half of a mission, and that was once again a wonderful time. For the ride there, we were all singing songs. It is interesting because an Elder Rose and I were singing by ourselves for fun, and then somehow everyone else was wanting to sing as well. We sang a bunch of hymns and some children's hymns as well, and the bus driver was really feeling it as well. It was way cool because he isn't a member so it was a good missionary experience. 

Fun Fact: The Seattle Temple is one of five Temples that has the angel Moroni on the top that is holding the golden plates. Way cool stuff. 

Friday, a Sister got back from her mission in Japan and her mother had been talking about it since I got here and I never thought that I would actually get to meet her, so when she got home, it was way cool to get to see her and say that I have been here since her year mark. That is way interesting in missionary time, because you see everything differently. It is quite fun.

That is pretty much it for right now. Hope you all do great in whatever it is that you are doing!

And some pics of the bus ride!

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Jan. 22nd and 29th, 2018 update

[From the Jan 22nd update, there wasn't a lot, so I just put them both together...]

From Elder Reed's Jan 22nd update:

"Sorry folks, I got preoccupied with other things that needed to get done and I was not really able to write a very long letter this week. Besides getting sick and taking our bikes to get fixed, nothing else too exciting happened.

Oh, the First Presidency message was very good though.

I love you all!!!"

From Elder Reed's Jan 29th update:

 "Finally, I think that I will be able to get out a relatively normal length email out!

This week in review:

We had a Mission wide cleaning day because there have been some missionary apartments that really needed some cleaning. Ours has been kept pretty clean, but still, we had some stuff to remove. The fireplace in our apartment looks like it has never been cleaned so I ended up doing that. And we had three bags of ash that we took out. Very gross. We had apartment inspections a couple days later so that was good. 

This Sunday was our regional broadcast from the church, so every building in the northwest and west watched the same thing. We were privileged to hear from Elder Nattress of the Seventy, Sister France of the Primary Presidency, President Kearon of the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Christofferson of the Quarom of the Twelve Apostles. It was way cool because I have met President Kearon when he came to our mission, so I got to hear from him again, and all of the other talks were way good as well.

This weeks weather has been very interesting. There have been a couple of days in which it was rained a bunch and one that was particularly bad. I ended up changing my pants four times because they got soaked every time that I went out. My feet however have remained very dry, which I am continually grateful for. I hope to be able to keep it that way.

Today is about halfway through the transfer and we will be doing an activity with all of the missionaries in the zone, which will be fun. It will not involve flour this time, only some volleyball and some other games. It will still be fun though. It has been interesting spending so long in one zone and getting to see how everyone moves in and out and how quickly new friendships can be made as we are all unified in the purpose of spreading the message of the Gospel to anyone that we can. Way awesome. 

I hope that you all have a fantastic week and find some awesome new truth that you did not know about before!

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Jan. 16th, 2018 update

[Time is flying by! Here we are in 2018 already!!.... The following is from Elder Reed - pictures first this week. :) ]

"So because of another holiday, the libraries here try to close their doors for whatever reason they can, so another short letter here. 

let me just describe some of these pictures for you...

The first two are of me, after the flour fight that we had as a zone, very white. and fun :)

Then of some of the other missionaries, lots of more fun.

Then of a pig that I found on someones front porch. It had a water bowl and a food bowl as well. Interesting......

A leaf that I found. Very spiky and dangerous looking.

And the two missionaries with our zone leaders now that are temporarily reassigned to this mission as their mission is closed right now due to the resent storms that were over Puerto Rico. (that was there mission) 

Also, last night I got to knock in the Southworth area, and we knocked for an hour, and only knocked on 7 houses. A very spread out neighborhood, and it was quite fun. 

I will try to get more for next week! just hold tight!

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Jan. 8th, 2018 update

From Elder Reed:

"Hello to you all!!!

I am sorry that I did not email last week, most libraries were closed Monday do to the New Year. So we got to email on Tuesday for only a hour and I did not have too much time to email, and this week again, we are running short on time so I will just keep it pretty basic.

Transfers are this week, and (drum roll please)

I am staying in the Bremerton area for a fifth transfer! (oh! awe!)

Here are some pics!

Just some missionaries making blankets! 

And more shoes!

-- 

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Dec 26th, 2017 update

[These are some pictures I was able to receive from Elder Reed - thought I'd share! The descriptions are his words... Enjoy!]

"Star wars socks!!

here are some pics

that sign. bikes got power baby. 

floating leaf.

zone fam at christmas party

just some fire.

and a Christmas tree."

 

Dec. 18th, 2017 update

[Pictures first this week...]

From Elder Reed:
"Because Elder Atchley and I have begun biking every day, we end up having to bike when it gets dark as well. This is an exciting adventure as it has also begun to rain the past couple of days. After we lock our bikes up and then go around the neighborhood for a couple of hours, the bikes are now wet. This makes another adventure as we then have wet seats and we bike home without sitting down at all. Kinda hard but also kinda fun. One of the really fun things that I have been able to do on bike is break the speed limit a little. As we were going down this one big hill, we got to about 30 MPH. The speed limit on this particular road was only 25 MPH. opps. Though one limitation that comes from these hills is that I can only successfully make it up one of them per day, but that will hopefully change as I become more used to the demand of the hills. 

Well, the first picture that we have here is something that one of the members put into a stocking that they gave us. It is a Stormtrooper PEZ. Which I must say, is pretty cool. The little bar of soap was from the ward Christmas party that we had here and they were giving those out and it smells quite good. The last picture that I put on here today is of a pair of shoes on some power lines. Again. I actually saw another pair on Saturday, but I was in a car and we were moving too fast for me to capture it. 

Lets see........... This past week did not have that many other things happen that were too exciting other than that. One of the things that we have been doing recently is going through the ward directory and trying to visit all of the members on the records. It is interesting to find that most of the people that we try to visit have moved away from those addresses and we have no clue as to where they are now. Although when we do find someone, they usually let us in and we get to talk with them for a while and get to know them a little better, so that is always fun. 

For Christmas next week, it is going to be our P-Day, so I will probably not get to email next week so do not be concerned when you get no message from me of this upcoming week. Because of this, we are going to have to buy our groceries for two weeks this week, another adventure. Life is just full of them.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and etc etc etc...... :)

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Dec. 11th, 2017 update

From Elder Reed:

Alrighty then, lets talk about some of these pictures real quick. So the first one is a picture of the mainest (not a real word) street in my area, 11th street. It is a pretty steep hill and I just felt like taking a picture. The second one is a pair of shoes tied by the laces and thrown over a power or telephone line. Interesting. The next one is of the outside of my apartment at night. Pretty cool looking. The next two are just a clear day that we had. Then, while out and about one day, I saw that someone had some Star Wars decorations, and a Yoda of all things. I laughed. One morning there was a ton of fog and after a while it fell into the lower parts of the area and so that looked very cool as well. Then some Ducks. At a park. Sleeping Ducks. Hmmmm. At the same park, there was a 9/11 memorial with some cool artifacts on it. Very cool. 

So this week, the most exciting thing that was going on was the ward Christmas party. Which we ended up spending more time setting it up and taking it down then we did actually attending the event. Kinda ironic. It was still quite fun. The Bremerton and the Manette wards both combined because they were celebrating the 100th year of the Church being in this area. It was fun because our 1st counselor in the Mission presidency is in the Manette ward, so we got to spends some more time with him, and he is a pretty cool guy. Way smart and way fun, he ended up shooting some hoops with Elder Atchley and some of his kids. 

Something else this week that occurred that was definitely worth taking note of was the weather. This week, there were almost no clouds in the sky at all. Like at all. It was pretty sunny and after walking around for a while in a black-ish coat, it absorbed a lot of the rays from the sun. It caused me to sweat a little and that is very uncomfortable in 40 degree weather. 

Well, that is about it for this week, more interesting sorta things to come next week. 

Light the World today is Matthew 25:35! Check it out and Light the World!!!!

-- 

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152