Another good week here in Portland! I've started to get used to the differences in work over here and to the personality of my comanion, Elder Valentine and we've been getting some good work done together.
So for anyone that still doesn't know, the motto/slogan for the city of Portland is 'Keep Portland Weird' and I can tell you that they do a great job of staying true to that goal, especially my area, Cherry Park. It's almost impossible to see two people of the same ethnicity walking on the same street althpugh there are a lot of tongans which is pretty cool and there's so much art and LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter signs and recreational marijuana is legal haha. And I guess a lot of homeless people around the country migrate over here because they've heard of all the benefits.
On Tuesday, we did exchanges with the zone leaders. I got to work with Elder Vance in his area while Elder Broadbent worked with my companion in Cherry Park. It was really great! Elder Vance went to Perry High School in Chandler, AZ and is cousins with the Vance family in my home ward. He's a really good missionary and I learned a lot from him that I was excited to apply in my area with Elder Valentine.
Like I said last week, there's a lot of less active and part member families in Cherry Park. Luckily, we get to give a lot of service this week. We gave a couple blessings some people that were sick and we helped another family rearrange a bunch of furniture their home. I think service is a great way to gain the trust of people and Heavenly Father blesses us so much because of it. It reminds me of the Book of Mormon when Ammon began his mission to the Nephites. He was captured and brought before King Lamoni who asked "What are you doing here?" and Ammon said that he was just there to serve.
Anyway, Sunday was really cool for a lot of reasons. One of our investigators, Juston attended church, the ward started a new Spanish speaking Sunday school class which I participated in, and we had another lesson with the Matsushima Family. The Matsushimas are a family with three teenage sons, and they're all members except for the Dad, Mark. His name was saved as Mark 'Eternigator' in our cell phone because I guess he's been on and off investigating the church for 14 years. But we feel like now might finally be his time! So we taught him all about gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the importance of it. He committed to study in it everyday and to pray and eventually fast to know that it is true! The Spirit was so strong. And it's so awesome as a missionary to be able to make the promise that if we honestly strive to know if the Book of Mormon is true that we will without a doubt receive an answer through the power of the Holy Ghost. And if we receive that witness we know that all of the Restoration must be true. It's the evidence. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that is a huge blessing in my life.
Things are going well and I have a feeling that they'll be getting even better this week. I'm learning so much and have been keeping up on my good habits. I finally made Elder Valentine help me take down the Christmas decorations so I got one step closer to having a clean, organized apartment haha.
Thanks so much for the love and support!
Love,
Elder Tucker
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| Some houses have these cool bookcases in front that say take one or leave one so we left a book of Mormon |
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| another pic of our cool ward building constructed in 1929 |
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| Avalon theater |
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| playing scatterball with the zone |
Sherrill Funk lives you’ll love you and miss youlots
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