Sept. 30, 2013

Before I left Pasco I went and say good bye to the members and those that I have worked with while I was there.  I saw Max.  When I told him that I was leaving he seemed pretty sad.  He said that he would miss me.  He also got a little choked up and teary eyed before I left.  He also told me that I better come back and see him after my mission.  I guess he enjoyed having me around.

I also saw TJ, he was in the YSA, he likes his personal space and is not one to give out hugs at all.  The only missionaries that he has given a hug to was the one that baptized him, so when I went to tell him bye, he told me that I could pick out a tie to have (he doesn't do that very often).  Before I left his place he gave me a bro hug, which surprised me.  That made me feel like an awesome missionary.  I guess the members in Pasco really enjoyed having me.

Wenatchee is pretty, it's also chilly.  There is snow on the mountains to the north so it makes it difficult to bike around.  It will take some time getting use the area.   My first couple of days have been a little frustrating.  I'm still trying to figure out the area.  There is great member support though and they are excited about missionary work.
 My companion if Elder Smith and is from Orem, Utah.  He plays the piano and has traveled the world playing in concerts.

That's about my week.

Love,
Scott

Sept. 23, 2013

This week has been pretty good.  It went really fast.  We didn't have a baptism this weekend and we were not able to meet with Alex.  We did try and stop by but he was never home and when we would call him he would never answer our calls.  Last week I mentioned that that we were seeing miracles.  I was referring to Alex, him telling us that he wanted to be baptized, which was pretty awesome.  We just have to get with him and that hasn't been easy.

Saturday, the mission president called and asked if I would except a training calling in a new zone.  I am being transferred to Wenatchee.  I will have to figure out the area and train a new greenie.  It should be an exciting adventure.  At least I had some experience with training so that will be helpful.  Wenatchee is a walking area, but I have found a bike already.  I got it from and Elder.  He told me that I could have it if I could fix it, so that's what I did this morning and I've almost got it fixed.  This elder said that he got it from a mission junk garage.  You can beat a free bike.  I've also been told that Wenatchee is a very mountainous area and it gets really cold in the winter.  It can get around 10 degrees.  THAT is cold.

When I told the members of the YSA branch that I was getting transferred some were pretty sad.  They told me they wished I could stay longer and they felt that my time in Pasco was too short.  After the meetings in the YSA branch, we had a missionary meeting and one of the sisters that we have worked with a lot walked in the room and said that she can't believe that I am being transferred, we work so well together.

Well, I love you.

Love,
Elder Poling

Sept.16, 2013

Things have been going pretty good.  We had a baptism Saturday which was exciting.  We are seeing miracles happen here!  This week we got a referral from some Elders in the zone.  We contacted them and set up an appointment for Friday.  We had an appointment before our referral appointment which went longer than we excepted so we sent  him a text to him to let him know that we were running late but would be there soon.  He texted back and said that he had read the "Mormon" book and didn't want that in his life right now.  We still wanted to meet with him and see if we could answer any questions that he may have.  He told us that he was fine where he was in his life and didn't want to meet with us.  That was a little disappointment.  We just told ourselves that now may not have been the time for him to hear what we had to say.

We texted another investigator that we have been working with to see if he could make it to the baptism we had on Saturday.  He asked us if he could be baptized.  We have set up to teach him the 1st lesson tonight.  Hopefully things will work out with him.

I have learned to clean up more.  You wouldn't believe how clean I keep things.  You wouldn't believe it if you saw how clean things are in the apartment then they were in my room at home.

That's about my for this week.

Love,
Scott

Here's pictures of my baptisms the past 2 weeks.

Sept. 4, 2013

This week was pretty good.  We had our usual meetings and went and made some visits.

Thursday evening we tried to visit some possible investigators and they were either not home or were not able to meet with us at that time.  Since none of them were available we decided that we would see if we could meet with some former investigators.  We still had no luck.  No one was home.  We decided to take the long way back to our car and see if we could find some people to talk to.  While we were on our way to the car we saw a couple of members of the YSA branch.  We went and talked to them for a while.  We set up an appointment to see them the next day.  While we were talking to them a lady walked by and asked us if we were Mormon missionaries.  We said we were.  She said that she had almost joined the church but couldn't give up smoking and caffeine.  We told her that we could meet with her if she wanted us to but she said that she was moving in about 3 days.  While we were talking to her she told us about some of the things that had happened to her including being hit by an 18 wheeler.  While talking to her we felt impressed to give her a blessing.  She said that she would like that.  The member we were with offered his apartment as a place to go to give her a blessing.  We went up to his apartment and shared with her a message about pressing through hard times, then Elder Greenwell gave her a blessing.  It was a powerful blessing.  The spirit was strong and she was crying by the end of it.  I was close to tears as well.  She thanked us for the message and said that that was just what she needed.

On Friday we had an appointment that went pretty well.  We talked about baptism and how getting married  will bless them.  We also showed them a video, which he mentioned was very powerful.

Saturday we had another baptism, which was awesome.  He bore his testimony after his baptism on Saturday and then again on Sunday during Sacrament meeting.    That was pretty cool.

We didn't really do anything for Labor day.  We played volleyball and basketball and had FHE