First Area - Issaquah!

President and Sister Larkin

I am assigned to the Tiger Mountain area in Issaquah!  Its pretty much in the boons!  My companion is Elder Twingstrom!  We are very different but its great.  I am learning so much! We got here on tuesday around eleven!  We came in to beautiful weather!  Seattle is awesome one of the prettiest places I have ever been. The drive to the mission home is really great!  We went to the mission home and just had a quick meeting introducing everyone!  Then we had the best lunch ever.  I had never been so excited to eat normal food in my life, MTC food ruins you!  We had homemade philly cheesesteaks!  They were amazing!  The mission president and his wife seem really great.  Then we individually had meetings with the mission president and he got to know us all really well. Then they send you all down stairs with all of us "greenies" sitting in chairs and then the future companions on the opposite part of the room, I was so nervous!  Then he calls of the compaionships one by one and your area! Elder Twingstrom was assigned as my trainer!  We headed out to our area around five. The area of Tiger Mountain is a really big area in terms of size but really small in terms of the number of houses!  Most of the people live on dirt roads, and last week my companion ran into a bear while tracting.  The week before a guy answered the door with a gun in his hand and said to get out!  So it's a great area just loving it!  We are working really hard! T here hasn't been a baptism in Tiger Mountain for 9 years but we are working with an investigator right now!  They call him an "eternal" investigator, he has been taught for two years.  He knows everything is true but he just now is working on praying to know if he should be baptized!  I am excited to see what happens!  I taught my first lesson to Ray on wednesday!  It was really great to be teaching again!  I miss that MTC so much, it was the best place ever.  About ten minutes in to the lesson I for sure got a bloody nose.....let's be honest only me, so that was fun!  Haha excuse me I have a bloody nose I'll be right back!  The lesson went really well!  On thursdays we help a Christian man named Skip with his yard work. It's really fun to do service out here because serving others seriously is one of the best things we can do in this life!  We are helping him make a walking path up this little hill!  It's funny the culture here in Tiger Mountain is so different.  Most everyone's driveways are a good quarter mile long and everyone's old cars are just scattered along the driveway full of moss.  I will send pictures one of these days soon.  We ended up teaching six lessons this week so it ended up being really great!  We are really working to bring this area back to life again.  On sunday we had dinner at my Seattle family's house!  The Powell family is amazing!  They literally are hilarious and I am going to be sad to leave them when I go!  The dinner was amazing.....everything tastes really good after a week of making your own meals!  I am so grateful for the Powells they are the best.  I love you all!  Remember to always have faith.  Life can be really hard but remember that Christ has gone through all that we are going through.  If we will have faith that He can take those pains from us, He will.  This work is amazing!  Have a great week.  Sincerely, Elder Aiken.  


P.S. Please send letters to the mission home - it's not far from us so we get them quickly!

My first companion - Elder Twingstrom

(BY THE WAY - BROCK'S BIRTHDAY IS NOVEMBER 18TH IF ANYONE WANTS TO SEND HIM A CARD!)