Thanks.....for a baptism

Elder Polson, Ricardo Tanaka and Elder Northrup

November 28th, 2015

Well this week has been great and a bit disturbing.

Tuesday was a pretty average missionary day. That is it was up until around 7pm. That is because Elder Polson and I, had to go fill up our tires with air. Well, since you all know me that obviously didn't go to well. Here is why, I had previously voted on going and filling up our tires at place where the professionals could do it. Elder Polson decided against that idea. He had the final say in the disagreement. Which means we ended up going and doing ourselves. Anyways he gets out of the car with our tire pressure gauge to check the tires. As soon as he checked the first one the pressure gauge blow up in his face. I didn't discovered that this had happened until a few minutes later. That when I hear Elder Polson say, "Umm Elder Northrup......ummmm I broke it." "Broke what," I said. That's when he just lifts up his hand and shows me the pressure gauge....in disrepair. I could not help but saying "way to go REX." A bit later we bought a new one and were able to finally finish putting air in the tires. I definitely will never be doing that myself ever again.

Broken Tire Gauge

On Thursday we got to have extreme exercise time. We were able to go play sports from 9-12. I finally got to play Ultimate Frisbee for like the first time in for ever (pun intended). I was so much fun. My team destroyed the other team, it was pretty much NO CONTEST. I say that because we my team somehow picked all the people who had played in Utah on teams before their missions. 

Thanksgiving fun!  (Elders Steiner and Miller)

Later in the day we went and ate at the Sutton's they are really nice family and everything but it was different compared to our family's Thanksgivings. It was still a good dinner because they have a son named John who is just the funniest kid. Once we finished eating we left and went home for the night.

Last Saturday was also just so amazing and weird at the same time. We went and were able to set up for Ricardo's baptism. While we were there setting up. These random people came into the room. All I saw at first was Elder Polson face, which was just a face of surprise. I was a bit confused until one of the random people said, "We probably shouldn't be doing this right now." At that moment it hit me. Those people were Elder Polson's extended family. I was so awkward for Elder Polson because they aren't suppose to be there. He didn't even invite them either they just showed up and so that was the super weird part of it all. 

During the actual baptism though the spirit was flooding into the room. It was just so amazing the feeling that was present. Elder Polson baptized Ricardo and when they came back. Ricardo went up to the front and bore his Testimony in front of people for the first time. When he was speaking you could tell that the words he was saying were coming from his heart. It was just an amazing experience. The next day in Sacrament our Bishop confirmed him a member of the church of Jesus Christ and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost. Wahoo another person has accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The sad and disturbing thing this week is I heard one of my friends from our Ultimate frisbee team passed away. His name was Deric Chenworth. He was a very great guy and an amazing friend. Keep his family in your prayers.

Elder R.K. Northrup

(Received this picture that Elder Polson's aunt texted during the baptism.)

 "Rainy days and Mondays  Always RARELY get me down!"

Weird Baptism Day Picture.

Elder Nelson, Me and Elder Polson

Thou Shalt Be Dunked!

Well guess what guys we finished planning for Ricardo's baptism for the 28th! It is going to be such an awesome experience for him. I am so happy that he has made the right decision to get baptized. He is going to be so beast mode in the gospel.

Elder Ha and I went on exchange this week. We didn't do much on them because we exchanged the night before Zone Conference. However, I learned from him how sacred the progress record paper is. I learned this when he rebuked the Tacoma WML for the Korean Branch, about how they don't just put anyone on that record and they only put people on the record who are progressing or have been prepared by God to receive the Restored Gospel. That experience was just amazing and I will never forget it. After that meeting we went and got Chick-fil-a. Now this moment was Elder Ha's first time eating Chick-fil-a. Right when he took his first bite, his face looked like he had just won 1 million dollars. I was just smiling at him the whole time. He is such a good Elder.

On another note we had zone conference this week. It was such a blast. I learned so much about prayer. I have learned that being more specific in your prayers will allow for those things to an exactness will happen. It has been flippin' amazing because we have found more potential investigators and more people to teach. One miracle was the other night we got a call from a guy named Oscar. He wanted to know if he could follow us and sit with us at Stake Conference. We just thought. What?! It was so amazing to have someone just want to come and listen about the teachings of the Gospel. We later found out that he has been taught since Spencer W. Kimball was the prophet. We found his teaching record in our area book and it almost 7 pages long, plus he has passed two baptismal interviews. The only thing that hasn't happened to him is getting baptized, so we are going to work with him to get baptized.

We had dinner with the Websters the other night. They are so great. They love teasing people and always can make people laugh. Sister Webster is the Relief Society President and does a fabulous job at it. She gave us so many people that have recently moved, that need visiting and could possible be solid investigators in the future. That family is just a powerhouse in missionary work.

Well sorry I didn't write as much as previous times but the church is true and it will be that for today, yesterday, and forever so don't you forget it!

Elder R.K. Northrup

A member of the Seventy and a blitz with the AP!

We have had some slight changes this week. In District meeting we now have the Hylebos Elders who consist of Elder Knight and Elder Fullmer, I came out with Elder Knight. We also said good-bye to Sister Mortensen and we brought in Sister Orr. Those are all if the changes to our district.

This week has been a rough week for teaching lessons but on the bright side I have a gained a love for tracting. This week we have gotten 2 potential just tracting. The first ones name is Ernie. All I could think of after we left his house was Harry Potter 3 when he gets a ride on the night bus and the drivers names is Ernie. Here are some quotes from that scene: Stan: "Take it away, Ernie." Shrunken Head: "Yeah, take it away Ernie. It's going to be a bumpy ride!"

Anyways this week we also helped Sister Dameron paint some cardboard cut-outs of Who's for our wards Christmas party. That was super fun. We are going to be helping her again some time this week.

On Saturday we went on a blitz with our AP. Elder Polson went with the new AP, Elder Mousser. While I went with Elder Berkheimer. Blitzing with them was so much fun. This is were I gained my love for tracting. We knocked a ton of doors together most people weren't home or didn't want to hear our message on the Restoration. However, this one house we found had this intercom system on there porch so instead of knocking we used that. We turned it on to talk and Elder Berkheimer said into it, "We are the missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ...."  It was super fun. We got this girl in her twenties to come to the door. She told us that half of her family was already members of our Church, she also told us that she was a Jehovah's Witness. Elder Berkheimer and I encouraged her to read the Book of Mormon. All I could think of during our conversation was, "No, no, your doing it wrong!" Of course I couldn't tell that to her face. A few houses later we went back to our apartment to re-exchange. Elder Berkheimer is the one who taught me how much fun it can be to go tracting and I now look forward to that part of our day. Where before I practically dreaded it.

Oh and on Sunday we found out that Bro. Crawford was ordained a Seventy. I thought was super cool. This means if you ever see Elder Dan Crawford in General Conference just know that I knew him before he was a General Authority.

My ponderizing scripture this week is D&C 52:34.

Elder R. K. Northrup

WoW, Transfers, and Blessings!

Ok so this week has been jam packed with interesting events and upsets.

I think I told everyone last week that we would be having a baptism on the 7th, well it didn't happen because we found out that our investigator drank BEER! Ahhhh I wanted to drop kick a booing Dwarf when I found that out. Anyways we were able to get him back on track and he should be baptized on the last Saturday of this month. Pray for Ricardo not to break the Word of Wisdom again.

Then on Thursday night I went back over to the Korean Branch for an exchange. I am going to start off with, I pretty much love Asian food. We went to this house for dinner where they made these Korean noodles with some soup! It was so good I had about 2 1/2 bowls of it. We afterward went and taught this family called the Rushtons. The father has such an amazing testimony. He is also just so humble. He feels he doesn't deserve credit where he has earned it. He share with us some of his testimony building experiences.

On Saturday we got a random call from one of the ward members. It was the Websters. They called us for a blessing and we rushed over to give our assistance to them. They are a super tenderly Elderly couple and are just so nice. We gave them both a blessing of healing that there illnesses would stop bugging them. We then left them with a prayer and our best wishes that they would be ok.

We left and we started heading towards Browns Point Elementary school. That's where we saw two cars in the middle of the road. One of them just recently had slammed into the other car and they were just pulling their cars off to the side when we pulled up. We tried to help them but a member of our ward beat us to it. We prayed for them to be able to stay safe for the rest of the night and then talked to the member for a bit and left.

On Sunday after Church we went with Bro. Crawford and gave blessing to someone in this nursing home called Hallmark Manor. She was very receptive to us and the spirit that was there while we gave her the blessing was just amazing. I could not help but smile the whole time we were in her presence. When we were done we drove to a less active's house who also wanted a blessing. As we gave it to him the spirit was practically just carried over from the last blessing. It was so incredible. 

Later that night we went back to our apartment. My companion and I sat around the phone trembling in our pants as we sat there staring at the phone. Let me just tell you something, Transfers Night is one of the most stressful things ever. Anyways as we sat there I couldn't take it anymore so I went and played with my Ultimate Disc. Right then I heard excitement come out of my companions mouth yelling, "We aren't being transferred." We decided right then to do a victory dance and then we went to bed.

Well that was my week hope you enjoyed reading it. The Church is true and as Kingsley from Harry Potter says, "You may not like it President, but you cannot deny, Dash Points got style."

Elder R.K. Northrup

Panang Chicken Curry

Us with Silver Lake Elders, Christiansen and Larsen before E.Christiansen was transferred to Renton Zone!

A Week of Hard Work!

My Tag in Area #2 Dash Point Ward

This week has been great. Elder Polson and I have accomplished so much this week. I think that would be because we have a bigger drive since Elder Lawrence visited us last week. 40 baptisms here we come!

This week we had our last District meeting before transfers. I hope I stay in Dash Point though because I love this area. There are people who want to hear the gospel plus the members actually do missionary work in this ward. Which means we can actually do a lot more! Pray that I stay in this area! Anyways in district meeting, we had President Eaton come to it and he gave our district a lot of insight into some things to improve our teaching. He taught us how important it is to figure out how long it takes us to teach the whole entire Restoration lesson. We found that as we time ourselves as we teach then the less likely it is for the investigator to get bored plus he understands the more important parts a lot easier. We are going to start honing in on this skill.

On Wednesday, I went to the Korean Branch for an exchange with Elder Kim and Elder Ha went with Elder Polson to Dash Point. This was a pretty interesting switch considering Elder Kim knows very little of the Korean language. As you know I know nothing of the language. However, we had faith that we would still be able to teach with the power of the Holy Ghost. While I was on the exchange Elder Kim and I went to Tacoma for a couple lessons. We taught the Word of Wisdom both times and the spirit in the room the was bursting at the seams. I could only say in that moment what C3P-0 said after he had been lifted in the air by Luke Skywalker, "I didn't know I had it in me." For cereal there was such a good feeling in the room that I don't think anybody could deny the truth of what we were teaching and it was all with a language barrier. The Spirit is so AMAZING!

After we re-exhanged the next day, I found out that on the other end of the exchange also had a lot of success. They taught 2 member lessons and made our ward mission leader cry and increase his willingness to serve more in his calling. They also got 3 new potentials which was great and at least one of them is going to get baptized... because I have the faith.

On Saturday, which would have been Halloween we went on a blitz with the Zone Leaders in our area. I went with Elder Tali'uli and Elder Polson went with our recently released AP. During this blitz we found 2 new potentials and 1 new investigator so its really going to keep the ball in our court as we work for our mission's goal of 40 baptisms.

Anyways that's all for this week. Remember that the church is true no matter what you say or do!

Elder R.K. Northrup

Ponderize scripture of the week:  2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

 "I hate you!"  Anakin Skywalker