Jones, Talmage T

Hello all! I have to admit—mission time really does go by so fast. As I train Elder Townsend, I remember my days as a new missionary and feel like I was just being trained. This time last year, I was in those shoes. It's humbling to know where God has gotten me since then. We keep so busy here in Auburn! I love the work and the people we're working with. They are so humble. We are working to find new people to teach through English class, volleyball, and soccer. We printed some flyers for these and we're going to post them around the area. We're praying that people will find interest in one or more of these and come. We are meeting so many new people! We have to be prayerful about who is committed and interested in the Lord's covenant path, and who is not. Right now, we are teaching Raúl, Ivan, Epifanio, and Jose. They are friends that are showing signs of following through on our invitations. Thankfully, we have a lot of faith within our companionship. Elder Townse...

Some alliteration for you all. Hope you enjoy. In all seriousness, Auburn is wonderful! We keep making miracle videos because there have been so many extraordinary things happening. Elder Townsend is the best! He and I get along so well. We have many inside jokes and laugh a lot. At the same time, we are working to speak Spanish as much as we can and get to know our investigators and members really well. This past week was packed with amazing things, so I'm a little jealous of Elder Townsend that his first week in the mission field was so amazing. It gets me excited to continue in this area! Our most progressing friend is Raúl. He and his brother meet at the church on Wednesdays at 7 pm where we have lessons. Raúl has a few questions about certain things, but he's been taught almost everything! On Wednesday, we taught the 2 Great Commandments, as well as the 10 Commandments. He and our members have brought up baptism a couple of times, so he's aware of where he wants to be....

Woo hoo! What a week! We finished this transfer strong, but my predictions for changes were way different than I thought. I really thought my companion would stay in Enumclaw and I'd leave. However, we both left! We only got 6 weeks in the spectacular zone of Enumclaw; I'm sad to leave it. I am whitewashing into Auburn, and it's pretty cool so far! I am training once again! It's already bringing back memories of when I trained Elder Miller in December. My trainee's name is Elder Townsend, and he's great! He's so willing to try new things and get out of his comfort zone. I like him a lot already! We're excited to make progress in Auburn. During my last week in Enumclaw, we met with Sergio and played pool and basketball. He is so funny and has a desire to continue attending church, which is awesome! I definitely teared up when I had to say bye to him. We bonded with him a lot over these several weeks as we've testified of the miracles Christ creates in...

This was a better week. Let's start with that. We've been meeting with our recent convert, Sergio, some more, and he's doing a little better. He knows we're all good friends, so he's always okay to meet when he's available. We had a silent lesson with him on Thursday, where we watched videos about things like the First Vision and Jesus' calming of the stormy waters. We even wrote down thoughts and prayed during it too. Sergio said he enjoyed it. We hope that he does personal studies and prays when we're not there. What's awesome is that he came to church for a bit! This was the first time he came since I've been here. An awesome member named Samuel Portillo sat with him, and we were thrilled by this. Although Sergio left halfway through the sacrament meeting, it was huge that he came in general. He's been struggling, and now he's made the effort. We have two friends who are making signs of progress as of this week: Javier Bejar and Roland...