¡Estoy en Mt Hood YSA!

¡Hola Fonzfam!

I didn't think it would happen so soon, but the Lord has called me to serve in another area of the OPM. My time in Tualatin was short but so much fun! I'm going to miss those who's lives I've been a part of, yet I'm excited for the day that I may return for their baptisms. Elder Wadsworth is going to have a fun time with his new companion, Elder Jensen. Elder Wilkes is in a different trio over in the Lake Oswego zone. I'm serving over in the Mt Hood YSA with Elder Hadfield who's from Layton, Utah. He came out the same transfer I did last year in August. Our zone has the fewest missionaries in it with 8 companionships, but the area we cover could fit the rest of the mission in it. It's soooo beautiful out here and the people are great. I'm looking forward to my time in the Hood.

On Tuesday last week, we were in a temporary trio between Elders Wadsworth and Jensen until transfers the next day. Because of that we had to take care of the work in both of our areas. We had a lesson that we thought was going to flake out but turned out to be one of the coolest lessons that I've been apart of during my mission. It was with an elderly couple named Bud and Muriel. They had met with missionaries over 40 years ago and had some experiences with trying to find truth. Their interested peaked when they had a chance to watch this last General Conference and they wanted to know more. As we taught them the Restoration of the Gospel their eyes lit up with the Spirit. Muriel closed her eyes during Joseph Smith's first vision in response to our invitation to pay attention to the feelings that would enter their hearts. They shared their desire to learn more and said that they'd read more of the BoM than the half hour a day that they were already doing. They said that it was never too late to learn new things. Even though they weren't in our own teaching pool, it was such a cool experience to be there. I know that they'll be baptized soon.

Since coming out the YSA branch I've only been able to meet a handful of the members and those who we're teaching. Because of Stake Conference being this last weekend I'm going to meet a lot more people tonight at FHE(It sounds like we'll be carving pumpkins). There's two baptisms that we have coming up in the next few weeks: Caymon on October 27th(his brother Devan was baptized September 22nd after a year of investigating the church) and Cassie on November 10th(a friend had brought her to institute a few weeks ago). I've already met both of these guys and they're so excited to learn more about the gospel and work towards their baptismal dates! There are a few others that we're working with and it's going to be a blast to keep finding.

We got up early this morning and made our way over to Mt Hood itself to go on a hike as a zone. With the beautiful clear weather we've been having we got permission drive up to Timberline Lodge. It's so beautiful from up there at 6,000ft elevation. We hiked for about two hours taking it all in. We're so blessed to live in a beautiful world and I love seeing things from God's perspective. Hands down it was one of the best pday activities that I've done so far. I'm grateful for the love of our Creator as He shows it to us in so many ways. It's always good to be mindful of His hand as He guides our lives. Thank you for all of your emails and love! I hope you have an awesome UEA weekend and enjoy the shorter school week. I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Fonnesbeck