Albert came to church!!!! The crowd went wild!

Wow this week has been really quite slow. Nobody seem to be wanting to have the door open! 

This continued until Thursday where we found this really nice lady named Jen Wilkerson. She is awesome and told us that she is looking for a church right now. We said,  "Awesome! We excel in that area of things!"  We were able to set up a time to meet with her on Wednesday, yeah for the gospel! What she does not realize is that she is about to learn the true and everlasting gospel that is the only true church in existence. To be continued!

We did some service with Bro. Stokes.  We put 4 panels of his fence up. It is looking really good and they just started his gate the other day. Fence building is a blast.  Super love service.

We met with Albert 4 times this weekend! Oh yeah! We taught the Restoration on Friday and he prayed to God at the end, which has previously been a struggle. His prayer was so genuine! The spirit was vibrant! He is a funny guy though because he knew he was feeling the spirit and wasn't sure what to do about it.  On Saturday we went to his house and we gave him a church tour of our building! That so good! He asked us a lot of great questions. We read him one of the sacrament prayers, and explained how church would work. So good!  On Sunday......................Albert came to church!!!!!!!!! The crowd went wild! It was awesome to see him at church and listen to the speakers. Man it was good to see someone progressing again.

On Monday we went by again and we taught him the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome. He asks such good questions. You can truly see his real intent as he ponders what we teach. That is literally the best thing to see in someone.

Monday we also did a lot of service for people. That was basically how we spent our memorial day.

Also I have been reading Jesus the Christ every night before I go to bed! It is now one of my favorite books. If you have not read it then you are missing out and need to read it. I also have discovered my deep love for the ancient Apostles and all that they did after Christ's death.

I love you all.

Elder R.K. Northrup

Wow!  I must be pretty holy!

Me and Elder Mitton.  Probs the best of pals!

These pictures are of a destroyed lightsaber.  That is a sad day!

This is a chalk drawing of someone getting cut in half with a lightsaber.

Let go of the NUT!

Happy 20th Birthday Elder Northrup.  (Pictures compliments of Brother T.K. Stokes)
Thanks for feeding him Yakisoba!

Zone Conference (birthday) Lunch

Man this week was super good!  We worked hard to visit less actives and potential investigators. People are so exhausting!

We were finally able to teach Kurt this week.... except it was totally stupid!  He decided that he wanted to go straight into deep doctrine and ask us why we believe we think we can be Gods when there is nothing about it in the Bible that says that.  Well because, Kurt, being a God would be awesome and this church only has awesome things!  Just kidding, that's not what we said, but we tried to quickly address his concern by trying to get him to understand that God wants us to become like him.  He was having none of it though, so we then decided to redirect the focus on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  We invited him to read and ponder the Book of Mormon.

Bible reference that says we will be Gods someday:  Psalms 82:6 (and many others).

On Saturday we had my last "Festival of Finding" day.  For the first part of it we went to Elk Plain with Elder Fullmer.  The first house we knocked on was this super annoying lady.  This is how the conversation went:

Lady:  You do not want to get into mormonism with me, I have already researched it.

Me:  Have you read the Book of Mormon?

Lady:  Nope, I refuse to read it!

Me:  Well then, you haven't researched it!

Lady:  Yes I have!

Me:  Nope! And you have a nice day.

Brothers and Sisters, the only way to receive a testimony and to continue the testimony you already have is by STUDYING the Book of Mormon.  Otherwise you will never come to know the truth or you will fall of the straight and narrow path.  Read your scriptures EVERYDAY!

The rest of the finding day was pretty slow from there.

On Sunday we had invited Albert to come to stake conference but he bailed at the last minute because he had to finish some paperwork from his job that had to be done!  Dang it again!

Stake Conference was so goo though.  It all evolved around missionary work.  Elder Dube' also spoke to us about this one time where a man wanted to catch a monkey.  He decided to put nuts in a box and put hole big enough for the monkey to slip it's hand through and grab one. However when the monkey tried to pull out his hand, having the nuts in his fist would kept him from being able to remove his hand from the box.  This made the capture of the monkey very easy!

Elder Dube' then exclaimed to the entire stake, while raising his fist into the air and pounding the podium, "LET GO OF THE NUT!"  He told us that our nuts in our lives are personal to us and it is up to us to let go of them before Satan captures us.  He then held up his phone and said, "This is a nut for some of you!  You need to get in, get what you need and get out!"

I love Elder Dube'.  He is one of my favorite General Authorities now.

That night we had my pre-day bday dinner at the Stutz home.  It was very good!  I love the Stutz family, they are awesome!  After dinner they then took us to the Federal Way Devotional, which was just as good as always.

On Monday we had a zone conference with Elder Dube'.  He taught so many good things.  I even got to practice teaching along side him.  It was an awesome experience to be with Elder Dube'.  He has a really great testimony and a wonderful personality.  I wish he could have actually come out with us, that would have been so cool!

That was our week.  Hope you feel my enjoyment of it!  I love the leaders of the church!

Elder R.K. Northrup

Only the 3rd time I cooked!

Sawyer Stutz on the left and Kylie one the right.  (we are teaching her, sorta.) We gave her a Book of Mormon.

I wish I could see what this frog looks like.

Yeah, we're cool!

Hail Mary, Full Court Press, Grand Slam!

The District

Man this week has been real good. We had our last district meeting with Hermana Huhem. She was a very good missionary and served with all her might, mind, and strength!

Anyways, we didn't quite make our goal for people committed for baptism, in fact we were 11 people off. However, it was really cool to see the whole Zone really focusing on baptism and bringing people into the fold. Keep those prayers a rollin' in for those prepared people, we definitely still need them.

We had exchanges this week. I was able to go over to Spanaway this week with Elder Oliva! I love that Elder. Anyways we worked really hard and we even got to go teach their super awesome investigator named Alla Marshall. I got to be there for her first lesson. It was a pass off lesson so we taught along side a senior missionary couple from Tacoma. Alla talked a lot about the struggles in her life and the hardships she has been through. In fact I think she talked most of the time we were there. We were able to slip in a few scriptures to bring the spirit more fully. Elder Oliva shared one and then I shared one. My scripture was on baptism. Found in 2 Nephi 31:17 after we read the scripture we invited her to be baptized right at that moment. She said she would and committed to a date! After we taught her she said the closing prayer she prayed to for God to help her be ready for her baptism! That was such a cool experience.

On the Firgrove side of things! We have an investigator commited for baptism! Albert is committed for June 24th. Amazing, he is a pretty difficult investigator but we were finally able to bring the spirit and get him on date! Wahoo! We also invited him to come to church this Sunday as well.

We also had dinner with the Martin's this week we invited them to come to Church, but they completely flopped on coming to church. Dang it again!

On Sunday we were super excited for Albert to attend church! We even waited outside for him, and freaking table flip he didn't come! Ugh what the crap. Albert just come to church it will be so good! We stopped at his later in the day but no one was home. I hope he makes it next week.

Lastly skyping the family this week was super sweet! It was so fun to see so many of you again! Especially with a bunch of my cousins there. Thanks a bunch Thayne fam, and both Grandma's and Grandpa's. Love all of you!

Have a wonder filled week! With many blessings to yuh all.

Elder R.K. Northrup

The drink that TRUE AMERICAN's drink.

I forgot to tell you guys but we are trying to teach this Iraqian, except he speaks very basic english so we are trying to learn Arabic... or find a translator. From what we understand though is he really likes the Book of Mormon and has been taking notes on it. He even fed us some Iraqian food....which then proceeded to wreck my system for the rest of the day. His name is Salih and he is a very prepared man! 

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Elder Northrup's FINAL mission Skype.

We were able to gather together with family on this Mother's Day Sunday.  Grandpa and Grandma Northrup, Grandpa and Grandma Thayne, Roxanne, Mitchell, Talmage, Grayson, Afton and Halsten Thayne, as well as the Rod Northrup family were there to skype!

We started the call of by having Karter ordained an Elder.  How cool is that??  Can't believe this is the last time we will be skyping from this mission.

Go to Church, Go to Church, Go to Church Church Church!

This week has been grand! I'm really enjoying my time here!  Still hoping to go to Puyallup though, that would be sweet! Whatever happens, happens. I will just have to roll with it.

We have been doing a lot of thinking this week on how we can get the members to do missionary work themselves. They seem to be struggling with that. We came up with starting a Preach My Gospel class! Bishop said he would think about which I am hoping he says yes to it, because it would be great!

We did service like always.  We seem to be the masters at that! This time we helped Bro. Johnson do yard work.  We also gave a hand to Sister Hixson and we helped one of our investigators stack wood. 

Albert was the one we helped stack wood with! I also killed many spiders during the service because I am pretty sure Satan has a mighty hold on there minds. I took care of them with this ax that I was using! Take that you disgusting creatures!

After we helped Albert we taught him more about the Book of Mormon and invited him to be baptized! He said that that seemed like the most logical thing to do. I was like was so happy with that answer. We also invited him to church.

Thursday we were walking along minding our own business when the rain started dumping! We were soaked but this time I wasn't upset because it was a warm rain and it stopped soon after it started! That how the rain should always work! Go ahead and take notes Washington. We also had a thunder and lightning storm that night is was so awesome! I haven't heard the sky mumble in so long!

Saturday was our main proselyting day and we went every where inviting people to church! We invited Darren Moss, Jerry, the Martins, Albert, and Adam. 

Sunday came around and guess what!  Nobody flippin' came to church! This is the bane of a missionaries existence! Come on people its really not hard, plus its not even that far away! The sacrament was still good though and we had a great rest of the day!

I love you all and you all a wonderful week!

Elder R.K. Northrup

The Spirit... it is an energy. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” (A slight change to a quote from Star Wars)

This week has been so good! I have been basically pumped with Spirit-roids! I'm not sure why but I have been crying tears of joy, as well as ones of Sadness. Luckily more joyful ones though.

We were able to teach this awesome black guy named Darren Moss! He is so cool! He has a lot of faith. He is a Detective for the Tacoma area. We taught him a lot about the Book of Mormon. He said he would read it! The Spirit was testifying so hard, he just needs to listen more intently. We being the bogus missionaries we are, we totally didn't invite him to baptism. Thank goodness we can repent and try again!

Sister Martinez is doing really well. She is happier and happier the more we see her. She even made it to church this Sunday! Putting that as a win in the books!

We weren't able to see Jerry this week, which was sad, but he was busy. Slightly understandable.

We also had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Tripp in Firgrove. Guess what we found???  A family! They are the West family and they are super good!  Brother West just retired from the Army. (He did Artillery and Hazmat.) He is a really open guy. Please pray super hard for this family!

The spirit has been so strong with this week. I have been kind of a baby! I finally feel like the Son's of Mosiah! It is such an awesome feeling to have. It pushes you so hard too. I love it!

That was basically the week! 

Oh... one more thing!  You all remember Laura and Tim from previous emails? Well they dropped the Graham Sisters! What the crap!   I had to binge eat some donette's not to get to upset with them!  Ugh the exhaustion is real!

Anyways, I love you all and hope you are all doing very well.

Pray for these people Kylie, The West's, Sawyer, Jerry, and Darren Moss!

Elder R.K. Northrup

Walking is how we get where we are going!

My last picture with Elder Pratt before he goes home.

I am exceedingly EXHAUSTED beyond compare.