Don't let her see this until someone reads it at graduation!!!
I think I remember how these go so lets see.
Living with Cassie before Lifeline was like living with a completely different person most days. I have always been able to see the real Cassie but she hasn't always seemed to be able to do the same. I think one of the most important thing for Cassie to understand is that Heavenly Father has always known her, and he knows what things she had to go through to be made stronger, He sees his children as who they can become, not who they are or ever were, and that's why He never gave up on her, just like her family never did either.
It was hard to watch as Cassie dealt with the things she needed to go through, but I always knew that she could get through them and be made stronger by them even if that didn't seem to be the situation at the time.
Living with Cassie now makes it harder to remember what it was like before, but I will never forget the things like all the times she has been able to overcome her problems, or the times where we were able to come closer as a family, I think it is important to remember these things so that we can know that no matter what the situation, there is always light at the end of our trials.
I know that no matter what, Heavenly Father will always love Cassie. I know this because I know that our family will always love her, no matter what.
Luke 11:13
"If ye then know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him"
This is a special promise to us as Heavenly Fathers children. If we as parents and our parents know how to treat our children, even though we aren't perfect, how much better would our Father in Heaven, who is perfect, know how to treat us.
This is why he gives us trial, He is always ready to give us strength if we ask for it in faith. He knows that the trails he gives us are actually gifts because we can be better from them and if we remain faithful we will never have to go through them again because we learned from last time.
I always have and always will love Cassie, and I know that now she has gone through this she will be able to be better from it, and she has come closer to her family and her Father in Heaven. She has become closer to being the person her Heavenly Father knows she can be, and that is what he always wanted from her. And now she can use the tools she gained to continue to strive to achieve what he knows she can achieve.
I say these things, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
--
Elder Strong
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
April 25, 2016 - Mo Email
I have a little more time so.
Johnny (homeless) also has a Girlfriend and son that the missionaries were teaching. They want to be baptized as well but that probably wont happen for a while. They are also homeless but they are staying with her brother, not on the street. We want them all to have a stable address before they are baptized so it may take a while.
We met a guy named Rob, he has been inactive for 10 years and is a recovering drug addict. He has been clean since september (he had relapse then, he had been clean a long time before) and went to dental school. He is 40 and is probably the first to overcome drugs and living on the street and then go to dental school. He also looks nothing like a drug addict. He live in a trailer as nice as ours was in a super nice trailer park. He is awesome.
Well now I am out of time officially, Love You!!!
Elder Strong
April 25, 2016 - Pictures
They friggin have bees!
Favorite chicken
I custom laminated my planner. That is Samuel the Lamanite and the Colombia River Temple.
scenery
April 25, 2016 - Week 2 in the field
Well that took a while to write. (The letter for Cassie's graduation)
First things first, we moved. If you already sent that package it will be fine. The President discovered we had an apartment that fits 6 Elders with only 2 so he decided to save money and move us. Ill send pics next week, I forgot.
The new address is 302 Barth Ave, Richland, WA 99354.
And I just realized I typed the old one wrong, it was Cherrywood Loop, Richland. not Cherrywood, Loop Richland. Hope that worked itself out.
So this week was awesome but really quick. We found out our homeless investigator cannot be baptized this week but I think that is a good thing. It will help us prove his faith and be sure he is definitely ready for baptism.
Next we me Amit and showed him the restoration video. He is from India and is Hindu in religion so it was really cool to teaching him because he literally knows nothing. He is really committed to learn more and is doing awesome. He does smoke though, that will be fun to take care of.
My companion is from Henderson Las Vegas, he usually just says Las Vegas and then people get real disappointed. He has been out for 8 months and I am his first Trainee.
Dad, that Pipe looked gross. I am glad you and Nate are going to re-do it. It is cool that he is able to help, Its kinda weird not being there to help you myself. Send me updates as you keep up the work.
Is Mordicai gaining weight?
Let me know how Rileys accident is going.
Here is me and Elder Jordan with one of their chickens that they keep in their backyard.
Oh and we went to a baptism in Pendelton on Saturday, It was awesome. She was Elder Jordans old investigator in his last area. The spirit was so strong it was amazing.
I hope everything going as well as it sounds! Everything's going great down here.
Love you!
Elder Strong
April 24, 2016 - Message from Michelle Withers (ward member from Richland)
My day was made complete when I received this message and picture tonight. It is the little things that make me happy when I hear about my missionary.
"Hey Alice, We live in Richland and just fed your son. We want to send you a picture. We fed them roast and potatoes."
Sunday, April 24, 2016
April 22, 2016 - Card in the mail.
It is always a great surprise to get mail from my missionary.
What a great reminder!
Monday, April 18, 2016
April 18, 2016 - Oh yeah
We have a car so cd's would be cool. Spiritual and uplifting please.
That doesn't mean only LDS Artists though. If it is on the topic of God or a principle of the church its cool. or if it is instrumental only.
Elder Jordan listened to a song by Justin beiber about prayer so it is pretty loose.
If you go through the Mumford and Sons album on Itunes it would be ok, I know Little Lion Man cant come but maybe you could listen to and burn a disk for the ones that will.
A lot of the Brandon Flower and The Killers should be fine, it just has to be on topic, uplifting, and have no curse words or things that would offend the spirit.
Lindsay Sterling, The Piano Guys are pretty cool too. Please investigate.
Elder Jordan has a USB drive loaded with a ton of songs. We just cant transfer any data so they have to come pre loaded by you so if your going to do one, make it count. Our cars can use them.
We are also allowed to have one of the Ipod nanos (like the green one I have at home).
If you factory reset that and loaded it with all the music you could that meet the mission standard, that would be even better than the USB. Just email President Ware with questions you have about it. You should only send it when it has enough music to last me my mission so its ok if it takes a few months. Ill have Elder Jordans USB for at least 2 transfers (12 Weeks) so its ok for me to wait for it. It would make a great birthday present.
We probably already own a ton of acceptable music, you just have to sift through it all and you might want to buy a few more things.
If you do send out the nano, just make sure it is loaded up with as much as possible. I wont be able to add to it at all without sending it home for you to do it.
Anyway, if you do that, that would be awesome. Love you!
Elder Strong
April 18, 2016 - MTC and trip pictures
Whole zone with new district
Me and Flores with Sam our TRC investigator
Me and Flores with Brandon our TRC investigator
My skills in action (using his sewing skills to fix his ties)
Get me a tie like this, haha. It was Elder Blacks favorite so he wouldn't trade.
Best picture ever taken
Pondering Bench at Provo Temple
The District on the train to salt lake to leave to WA
On the Plane
Plane flight
The blue bridge
April 18, 2016 - Week one in the field Pictures
Me and elder jordan
Living room/kitchen
kitchen/livingroom
couch area in bedroom, we have a piano i forgot to point out in the other email, im trying to learn. maybe you can find me a cheap small "How to Piano" book. (only if it is cheap!)
Closet, it has the water heater in it.
April 18, 2016 - Week one in the field
Hey everybody! It's Preparation day! That is one of the first things they told me when I got here, it's preparation day not P'day.
So my area is the Richland. I serve the Shoreline and Riverview wards. Me and my trainer Elder Jordan got doubled in which means neither of us have served this area and we have no clue what is going on. All we have are some notes written by the previous Elders that we can barely read and some out of date records in our area book. Everything is going awesome though.
We have two investigators we have put on date for baptism our selves and a few on date from our last Elders but we haven't been able to meet with them yet so those dates will probably fall through. When we got here we had 26 referrals (that is a lot), now we are down to 14 (still a lot).
One of my on date investigators is JohnnyLee, he is currently homeless and is super interested in being baptized. He has been an investigator for about 10 years and is 50 years old. He is going to be really hard to work with because we were told not to baptize him until he is stable and we have to be sure he isn't being baptized for the things the church provides for members. He seems legit though.
The other is a 9 year old in a semi inactive family, we are also scared for her because her brother was just baptized and she didn't want to be. Also if her parents can't stay active, neither will she.
I'll send some pictures of where i am staying. I'm in a members home, The VanKatwijk's (van cat wick). They are pretty nice but the apartment is a dungeon, and an ill equipped one at that. It's still pretty ok though, a couple days ago brother VanKatwijk told us we could use the kitchen upstairs all we want as long as we're clean and then we can use the living room as long as we're clean.
It does kinda suck though, we have to mow there lawn once a week which isnt usually the missionaries problem, we try not to serve members too much because we should be using that time to serve none members.
Dad, I offered to fix their lawn mower, It wont idle unless choked or at full speed (rabbit) which means its the carb (he also told me it hasn't been serviced in 3 years), good thing i still remember everything from small engines. Ill clean out the carb and if it doesn't work then i'll tell him to take it to get serviced. It started on starting fluid though, I have hope.
Also sorry about the plasma cutter, that sucks. At least the welder is still doing good.
Cool/weird cars i've seen so far
Rumble Bee, Geo metro ls1 or lsi (show that to alex, convertible), a mint condition Toyota MR2, Mazda Miatas all over the place, along with some not so special Corvettes (real common base models).
Our area and most of our mission has a car (some areas are walking only) we drive a nice Ford Fusion, 38000Miles about. Its a pretty nice car and once we hit 50000 we get a new one, but we are limited to 800 a month so probably won't be during my time.
My address is
615 Cherrywood, Loop Richland, WA, 99354
Remember that if you send it to the house and I get transferred out I might not get it, that's why they say send it to the mission home and they also said USPS is better because that way they can actually forward it if they need to, but whatever works best, im sending a letter to explain it better. Transfers are every 6 weeks.
Things I need:
Ties are always great
ONO chicken recipe
Wanton Salad recipe
and any other recipes that might be cool.
I need you to pay my tithing for the last paycheck I got. you can go to my savings account and see, it was like 385 i think
The weather is great down here, no rain or extreme heat. My wards are weird though BTW. They are pretty mixed on either decently wealthy or barely holding on.
Well now im going to send some pictures.
I cant think of anything else to write about, I hope I did OK. Next time ill bring my journal to get some Ideas.
I love you all sooo much, Its always hard to stop writing but I really cant find anything else to write about.
Love you!
Elder Strong
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
April 13, 2016 - He made it!
Dear Missionary Family,
We are delighted to inform you that your missionary has arrived safely to the Washington Kennewick Mission. We already love them and are excited to serve with them. We have enjoyed becoming acquainted with them and are confident that they will become an effective instrument in the hands of the Lord in sharing the gospel with the people of Washington and Oregon.
We have assigned them a companion who is an experienced, devoted, and motivated missionary. All of our missionaries understand that one of the greatest privileges available in the mission is to train a new missionary. This first companion will be a special person in your missionary’s life and will help give them a great start here.
We feel that our greatest responsibility is the care and welfare of your child. We want to assure you that we will be in regular contact with them. We will be observant of their physical health, happiness and spiritual well-being. We will work closely with them throughout the mission to help them succeed and fulfill their calling as a representative of the Church and as an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Please be assured that we will be in contact with you if we encounter any concerns that would call for your attention. We see you as a great asset to the success of your missionary while they are serving here and will work closely with you if the need arises. You would help us immensely by informing us of any changes to address, phone number or email for you, your bishop or your stake president. We want to keep our records current so that we can keep in touch whenever necessary.
Attached are photographs of your missionary taken with us at the welcome dinner at the mission home, along with a map of the mission. Please feel free to contact us at the mission office with any questions that you may have.
Thank you for the sacrifices you are making at home to have your missionary in the field. We have seen the Lord bless the families of missionaries who are serving in untold ways. We know that His blessings will be upon you as well.
With love,
President Boyd S. Ware
Washington Kennewick Mission
8202 W. Quinault Ave., Ste D
Kennewick, WA 99336
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
April 12, 2016 - Kennewick WA here is comes.
The phone call today was really good once it happened. When he didn't call by 9:30am I thought it wasn't going to happen. I'm not going to lie I was a little sad. At 9:45 it finally happened. We had a wonderful 53 minute talk.
He is doing so good and is so excited to go and serve.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
April 7, 2016 - (my favorite picture)
"I've started tabbing them so I can use scriptures in my lessons easily, it works really well and makes me look like a genius in class"
April 7, 2016 - Pictures (3)
Right now they are building a new MTC building next door (the big tall one) and they are letting us sign the beam for the beam ceremony.
Also here is some cool scenery
And some kind of Porsche (I think)
April 7, 2016 - Pictures (2)
people going to washington plus sister Jaurez
what Sister Waters does during conference
scenery
Sisters in our zone
Sisters in our zone
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