Sept 13th, 2017 update

[So you know, the title of his email was "Another One"... :) And we'll put lots of pictures first this time!]

[who would have thought Neil would ever don a cowboy hat?!]

"So, it is actually quite hard to come up with an interesting subject line on these emails, so please, do not judge too hard. Thank you. 

For those of you that were wondering, this week's P-Day is on Wednesday. That is because we had a mission tour this week. What this means is that a general authority came and gave a training for the missionaries. He probably did other important somethings, but I just don't know what they are. Elder De Hoyos of the Seventy was the one that came, and the first time I saw him he reminded me of an actor. Look him up and see for yourself. But anyway, the instruction that he gave was very enlightening. They would ask questions and wanted the missionaries to answer. Sometimes, no one would put their hands up, so I kinda ended up giving a lot of answers, thought I let other people go before I would try. It was very cool as I believe that the answers that I gave were alright. So some of the stuff that I have been studying has talked about how knowledge is light or something like that, and so I have really been clinging to that, how our light increases whenever we learn something. Going in back to when I said 'enlightened', make sense? I have been seeing a lot around me as to how light is something that we must continually look for. Super cool. I hope you all don't mind the way in which I write, spontaneously switching from subject to subject. I think I will now separate my thoughts by paragraphs. (probably should have done this earlier)

On P-Day last week, we had a zone activity that was a hike. For about 4 hours. It was fun, till we realized that we didn't really know we were going, or how far down the trial that we were. So that was super exciting. Those are the pictures below. Some of them are from Elder Struble's camera. He is going home this transfer, I'm going to miss him, he is pretty awesome. He is the one in the blue shorts that is not me. 

Transfers was this past week as well, only one of the sisters in my district got moved, but the other district in my zone, all of them are training a new missionary. All of the new Elders are pretty awesome. I have already been able to knock with one of them. 

Well, I am now to the point where I don't really know what else to write so I guess that means this is the end of it. :)

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Sept 4th, 2017 update

"So, I tried to make some eggs one day, and I used an aluminium pan, and I forgot how quickly that heat transfers..... Sooooo...... Yeah, did not have to test whether or not the smoke alarm works when the apartment inspectors came over. :) it was a good thing that we have a fan, otherwise it would have smelled bad for a lot longer. At least I know that I will wake up if there is a fire right? 

Anyway, this week, let me try to remember.... There was a 'Why I Believe' fireside in which recent converts from around the area come and bear their testimonies and share their conversion stories, and it was a really cool experience. A lot of missionaries were invited and we made up the missionary choir. It was awesome because it was the most singing that I had done in a while and I loved it a bunch! 

Oh, and real quick, I want to address a serious problem that has been brought to my attention. I need to send more pictures with me in them. I will try to do better, and for this week I only have a few pictures. 

In fact some of them were taken in the room that I am sending this email (the library is closed due to labor day so we are using the family history center in the church). The fuzzy picture is of me and Elder Baird. It is fuzzy because I forgot to put the focus back on the farther setting (my camera is kinda weird). And shout out to my Aunt Bonnie who sent this great tie with the sunstones from the Nauvoo Temple on it. I do love my ties. 

Oh, and at the fireside, there was a box of ties that were ties that other Elders had donated that you could just take and I wanted to take the whole box, but that was probably like 150 ties or something and I resisted the temptation to take too many of them, so I only took one. I should have taken a picture of that one as well. I will try to remember. It is kinda ugly, which is why I took it :) . 

Anyway, I send my love to all and pray for those in Houston, my companion is from that area and his family is fine but a lot of other people in that area are not. 

Till next time

--

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

August 28, 2017 update

~ This week, there are lots of pictures, but first the letter from Elder Reed, which he titled "Almost a transfer"... [Note: I'm not sure I got all the pictures in the right order, but that is ok :) ] ~

"A transfer is a six week period that the missionaries have to stay in one area, and after it is over, the Mission President could move them to another area or keep them there. in an elders mission there are a total of about seventeen and one third [of these transfer periods]. That is if you do the math. It is a little weird because you have to take into account how long you are at the MTC. Needless to say, time has flown by. 

Apparently, there is this thing called Seattle Saturday (we do not go to Seattle) and it is just when the missionaries do something fun for a couple of hours as they wait for their transfer calls from the Pres. 

So for this past week, it went particularly fast. On Tuesday, there were interviews with the Pres. which went really well, we laughed a little about the music policy because lots of missionaries were asking if certain artists and songs were proved, and a lot were surprisingly asking if they were allowed to have conference talks on their flash drives. He was really confused as to why they would ask that. It was funny. 

On Wednesday, we had District meeting (see first photo). Us Elders got there first, then some of the sisters got there (see second and third photo). One of the Zone Leaders [ZLs] made a lot of pasta for his lunch (see forth photo), and then the other sisters showed up (see fifth photo). We had a great meeting, and I had to do a role play of a door approach with the lady holding a can of dehydrated water, that was fun. Thursday was weekly planing, yay.... Then we had exchanges with the ZL's. That was super fun because I got to learn from each of them. And we say some cool stuff like a house that a guy made in the southern colonial style. Really cool. We visited a family who's child is past eight and he wants to get baptized, we reactivated them, which is awesome. On Sunday, when we where out knocking, we met a Catholic dude who appreciated what we were doing and gave us some girl scout cookies! Blessings of missionary work right! (see sixth photo). 

Well that was pretty much my week, with some more walking and biking in there. Interested to see what next week will hold!
-- Love from Elder ReedHymn 152
P.S. the cup i found in the cabinet, it is the mission name in Washington, with a baptismal swoosh :) , plus I cleaned the oven a couple of days ago and replaced the foil stuff. now it looks really nice"

August 21, 2017 update

With love from Elder Reed, here is this week's update:

"Well, another week gone. It seems like time has been flying, every Monday when I look back over the week, I am surprised at how fast that it has gone. 

This week has been very interesting as we had a North Conference Zone Conference. So in the WA-TAC, there are three conferences, the north, central and south, and each of them had their own zone conference. It was super inspirational and there were a lot of cool things brought up. But President also chastised the mission and is cracking down a little on the music policy. It is kinda funny, because when he later stated what artists were not very kosher with the mission, some elders had almost no music to listen to anymore. Though it was interesting that I had not heard of most of them. But he also wanted to make it clear that jamesthemormon was not ok to listen to. :) Apparently jamesthemormon is a rapper that raps about different spiritual things, but the fact that he raps it is mostly the reason he shouldn't be listened to on a mission. He even raps the missionary lessons apparently, which I find kinda funny, he was even the top rapper on iTunes for a while. Funny. 

Anyway, in other news, this week was full of no one wanting to talk. There were a few people that were grateful of what we were doing, but still not interested. One guy even said that if there was one type of person to save this country, it would be Mormon young men. I don't know if I completely agree with that but it was very interesting to hear from someone that didn't want to listen to what we had to say. 

The ward that I am in here is very interesting. Most of the people are converts so they all have interesting stories as to how they became members. And a lot of the people in this area have some form of contact with the Navy, so that just makes it all the more interesting. 

The terrain is something I will probably never get used to out here because this is said to be the second most difficult area to bike, but hey, at least my legs will be ready for whatever area that I have next. 

For some reason, my camera will not conect to the computer, so I regret to inform you all that I can not send any pictures this week. sorry"

Elder Reed's family thanks you all for your continued love and prayers in his behalf! Until next update, remember to take time to see the blessings around you - they are there!

August 14, 2017 update

From Elder Reed this week:

"So this is an end to my third week out here in the WA-TAC, and it is just going up from here (metaphorically and literally, because the hills here in Bremerton are absolutely insane at moments, it is very tiring on the legs, whether on bikes or walking). 

But thankfully, the smoke from Canada has begun to disappear, and I am able to see without a haze in the distance. That could probably be seen in some religious context and be used in a lesson or something *wink wink* but I will leave that to you all to figure out. 

Anyway, so for those of you that don't know, a missionaries apartment is a very interesting place because sometimes missionaries just leave things there when they are moved to a different area, so in my closet area and in a drawer of a cabinet, my companion and I found a bunch of ties that had been left behind, and being someone who loves almost all ties, I have added some of them into my collection, I just realized that maybe I should take a picture of some of them and send those next week. I think that I will do that. 

Oh, something else that just came to mind, in The District, which is like a show of missionaries first using the Preach My Gospel resource, one of the sister missionaries names is Sister Myers, and one of the missionaries that was my roomy in the MTC was Elder Myers, turns out that they are cousins. It's a small world after all (don't sing it). In other news, the plant life here is very different than back in the great O-H! (I-O!). te he :) .  

So those that are from Ohio know how big of a problem that honeysuckle is and how it is everywhere right? Well, in the area that I am in right now, blackberry bushes are kinda like the same thing. They are everywhere. And they have some wicked thorns on them as well, so they are a real hazard for people that walk on the sidewalk a lot *cough* missionaries *cough*. But if you can find a good bush, the berries are quite nice and yummy. We actually came across a lady that was collecting them for a pie! It was kinda funny. Well, I believe that I have come to that time in the letter where I end it, so ........ yeah

-- 

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152

P.S. I can't believe that I keep forgetting to explain the picture, well we found about six ping pong paddles in our apt. and a net, but we don't have a table at all. We ended up breaking the one ball that we had as we hit it back and forth. But as we were looking for the church hymns on cd we ended up finding another one. cool"

August 7, 2017 update

From Elder Reed this week (enjoy the letter and photos!) -

"Hello again,
Wow, seems like only yesterday that I came to this library and sent out a weekly email. Time flies whenever you look back on it. Just try it sometime. 

So this whole week kinda seemed like a blur as we would go knocking from 5-7 each day. It is interesting to see that more often then not, people do not want to talk to us really, but they would be nice about it. Some times they would even offer us water or something else to drink. It is very cool to see that people are generally nice no matter who they are or where they have come from. But because we get to see a LOT of different people, we were bound to find those that were not the nicest. I would be interested to know why they don't like seeing us or what they have against Mormon Missionaries. There was this one guy who thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses. That was more than a little funny to my companion and me. 

On Saturday I went knocking with one of Zone Leaders instead of my companion, and he kinda showed to me how enthusiastic a missionary should be about sharing the message of the restored Gospel. We actually got invited into someones backyard while they were having a little party and Elder Sadler was able to teach the restoration as an answer to some questions that they had and when he was talking, all of them were very quiet. It was super cool. 

Oh, and I don't know if all of you keep up with the news, but apparently a lot of British Columbia caught on fire again, and so a bunch of the smoke ended up floating down into Washington and so we could see that smoke for a couple days after. It was hazy and smelled funny. There must have been a lot burning. 

I am going to need to write things down to share here because I can't really remember all that happened this week, oh yeah. So we were going to McDonald's for dinner because it was close to the persons house that we were talking to and it was just that time of day, and some members from Utah saw us and payed for our meal. It was super cool. Apparently they do that a lot in Utah and it was kinda unexpected because no one does that in Washington. 

Well, I think that is about it for today, 

Just remember to be nice to everyone!

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152

P.S. I almost forgot to talk about the pics, there is a carrier in a dock and the grey sky from my apartment."

July 31st, 2017 update

Elder Reed had his first in-the-mission-field preparation day (also known as "p-day" in missionary lingo). This is the day the missionaries get to do laundry, write letters and/or email home, etc. His mom was very excited to get to "chat" through email for a few minutes. :) Here is Elder Reed's update this week -

"Well, my first preparation day out in the WA-TAC, and my first area is in Bremerton. It turns out that in this city grew up around a shipyard as it was a great place to have a port. So the Navy set up a couple of bases here and a lot of people here either are in the Navy or work at the shipyards. It is really cool because they decommission ships here and there are some battle cruisers, subs and an air craft carrier. I'm not sure which are being fixed or decommissioned. 

I would send pictures but the schedule this morning was weird and I didn't bring my camera. Sorry. 

This area originally had a car, but because the replaced one of the companionship's of Elders with a companionship of Sisters, the Sisters got the car. So in missionary lingo, I've been born on a bike. Thankfully the area is not too big, but one of the first things that I noticed when I got here was that there are sooo MANY HILLS. And not just like the ones we have in Ohio, these are some steep and recurring hills. It is kinda painful to ride up some of them. But after a while I will most likely get used to it and have very powerful legs. Hopefully. 

Just another thing to think about, the west side of Washington doesn't seem to believe in air conditioning. No houses over here have it. It is very hard sometimes because right now the weather is hot and riding a bike makes it hotter. Well, I have tried to write as much as I could but the time on this library computer is running out so until next time,

Love from Elder Reed

Hymn 152"

Enjoy the update amd remember that every small act of kindness makes a difference is someone's life...