Happy New Year!

     Hello everyone!  I hope you had a great Christmas!  Mine was amazing!  First off thank you to everyone for all of your cards, letters, and packages!  I really don’t think you will ever understand what those meant to me!  It was so great to be able to open so many gifts on Christmas.  It was hard to be away from home but I have never felt so comforted by the Spirit in my life!  Thanks again!  I am so grateful everyday for my many amazing friends and family! I hope you all had an equally great and safe Christmas!     

   

     

     This week has been kind of slow and tough because of everyone being gone for the holidays. Covering two wards has been a bit tough because of the amount of attention we are supposed to give to each ward but we are finally starting to get the hang of it and it keeps us really busy and working hard which is great! We have been struggling with one of our investigators Nathan because of his addiction to Coffee. He was supposed to be baptized this last week but we have had to move it back because of the Word of Wisdom.  We have been trying to help him understand the importance of abstaining from tea and coffee but it has been hard for him to understand! Hopefully with help from our Father in Heaven, Nathan can quit drinking coffee and enter the waters of baptism. 

     Gerald and Lucy are getting so excited for their baptism!  They just can't wait!  We went over the other day to have a lesson and when we walked in they had bought us a bunch of Christmas gifts.  They have quickly become some of my favorite people.  I am so excited for their baptism this week.  It is going to be just great.  

    Christmas Eve was such a fun night.  We went over to a members house, the Rennies for Christmas Eve dinner!  They had the best Prime Rib, and I just loved it!  We spent the night at their house and I was so grateful to be with them!  Christmas morning was so exciting!  The fact that I got to call my family didn’t hit me until I woke up! We went over to the Trumbulls to call.  It was so great to talk to my family!  They are the best and mean so much to me! I am so grateful that we get to live together forever.  I for sure cried as I told them all how much I love them but it was great to hear that everyone is doing so well!  We spent the night at the Beans house and had such a great dinner!  Sister Bean made my favorite apple pie, really you all need to come up here just to try a piece of her pie! 

     I learned a lot this Christmas.  Christmas just wasn’t the same as years past.  I was able to spend it working for our Savior and had the whole month to truly think about Him and all He has done for us.  I am so grateful that He was born!  

     Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all have fun and are safe!  I hope that we can all spread the gospel a little more this year! I  know that if we will just open our mouths to friends and family about the gospel, Heavenly Father will fill our mouths with the things that need to be said!  I love you all, thanks again for everything!  Elder Aiken.

Merry Christmas 2010!

     It is so fun serving around the Spirit of Christmas!  This week has been great!  Serving a mission is the best decision I have ever made.  I love coming to know our Savior more and more everyday! 
     We have been kind of stressed about covering two wards because of the time we put into the Tiger Mountain Ward, but the Lord is making it possible for us to do everything that we need to!  This next month and year in these two areas is going to be amazing! The wards are so excited about missionary work!  

Brock the chef!

     We had a great week of experiences!  On Wednesday morning we got a call from a former investigator named Nathan, and right when we answer he goes “I get it!  I get why we need a prophet and the importance of the Book of Mormon!  I get it now!”  He hasn’t been investigating for quite awhile because he wasn’t able to understand the importance of that!  He was flipping through the tv and the BYU channel came on about the Book of Mormon and Jopeph Smith and it explained everything enough for him to understand!  So we met with him that night and he is getting baptized this next week! He is in his 20s and is a great kid!  He is a little bit slow so it has been a struggle to try and teach him.  It is amazing to watch the Spirit teach him, because we can't teach him ourselves because we struggle to put things into a perspective that he will understand.  The Spirit is completely teaching him and I am so grateful for the Spirit and its necessary role in the conversion process. 

First baptism - Jennifer Simmons!

     Then my first baptism was on Friday! I was so excited! Jennifer got baptized, she is from our new area Issaquah 1^st!  The missionaries found her last Saturday, and after transfers, we got her on Monday, and she was baptized 4 days later.  I have never met a more prepared person in my life!  As we have been taking over teaching for her, I am just amazed at her testimony!  She says the Lord has been preparing her and leading her to the Mormon church her whole life.  She moves out to Utah in the next few weeks, so we won't get to see her anymore but I am so happy she was able to be a part of my mission!   Whenever we have met with her we are all on the verge of tears as she talks about the gospel. It means so much to her now and she loves telling people about it.  I can't wait to hear the great things that she accomplishes! The baptism was amazing!  It was so cool to watch someone make those covenants with our Heavenly Father and to watch her face light up as she received the Holy Ghost.  She got her temple recommend right after the baptism so she could do baptisms when she gets to Utah this week with my mom!  She is so great!

Gerald Andersen getting ready for Dec. 31st baptism!

     Gerald and Lucy are amazing.  They are just the best!  All Gerald wanted for Christmas was a new suit for church.  He has never had one before.  They are so excited to go shopping to buy one today!

My good friend Elder Deines

     Although it is really hard to be away from family during Christmas, I am so grateful I get to spend a Christmas on my mission.  Christmas doesn’t have the same meaning for me this year!  It's all about our Savior this year and I how grateful I am that he was born, so that I could have Joy in this life, and so we can all return to live together again someday!  Our Savior has been there for me through everything and I am so grateful for Him and His perfect example!  I love you all!   Merry Christmas and enjoy the time you have with family!  It goes by too quickly.  Be safe and do something good for someone less-fortunate. We are so blessed.  


Elder Aiken

First baptism commitment!

      Hey everyone how are you all doing?!  It's been a great week here in Issaquah!  I think I am getting mossy, it hasn’t stopped raining for days!  The rain here is funny usually it feels like someone turned on one of the outdoor misters for a summer day but they don’t seem to get how to turn it off! 

     The week has been really busy! The first three days of the week my companion was gone at training for the day, so we had to go on exchanges to different areas. But I didn’t want to be gone for two days from our area and lose all of that tracting time so I went on exchanges with a returned missionary in the ward, Mac Bean.  It was great!  He got back from his mission about a month ago and we just had the best exchange.  He has taught me so much in the short time I have been here!  His family is amazing too! We are going there for Christmas, and they really are just terrific! This whole ward is awesome.  

Gerald and Lucy commit to baptism Dec. 31st!

      On Thursday we had a lesson with Gerald and Lucy.  Haha I just love them to death.  We walk in and Lucy had made us all dinner.  It's amazing to see the change in her since taking the lessons.  She used to be so shy and everytime we go over now she is cracking jokes and always makes us dinner!  She always makes sure to give us a hug before we leave.  But we taught them about the Plan of Slavation and the importance that the role of the Atonement plays in our lives!  The Spirit in the room was so strong it was truly amazing!  We put them on date for baptism on the 31^st of this month!  They are both getting so excited and I can't wait to see them receive the gift of the Holy Ghost! 
      So the best part of the week happened the next week.  We went back over to Gerald and Lucy’s to finish teaching about the Plan of Salvation.  So long story short, Gerald used to be a jockey and trained horses and now he drives horses around the country for a living.  So last week he got a call from his work asking him if he could pick up a guy at a truck stop and drop him off in California.  So he picks up this guy named Jack.  I guess the guy used to be a famous jockey, “Cowboy Jack”, he won a bunch of races I guess.  But anyways Jack was supposed to get dropped off in California but couldn’t so Gerald just said come stay at my house till you can get a ride back!  Haha totally something Gerald would do.     So on Thursday when Gerald and Lucy committed to be baptized he just sat quietly and didn’t say much besides hi and bye.  But then we come back the next day for another lesson and we ask him if he had any questions, and he said ya I have a question “Is it bad that I only think of God when I have hard times.”  Lucy raises her hand and goes I'll answer that!  "That can be an invitation for you to become closer to God". The Spirit in that room had us all on the verge of tears!  Gerald and Lucy were grinning from ear to ear helping us teach him the first lesson!  Haha Gerald kept turning to me and doing a thumbs up after every point and kicking me. We then started to teach Jack how he can come to know these things are true, and what the Spirit feels like.  Then Jack got chills over his body and Gerald goes “Jack that’s the Spirit!”.  So we asked Jack if he would read the Book of Mormon and he said he would love to have a copy!  He said I am going to go at this with an open mind, but when I leave in the morning for California and after I read, and if everything goes well and I come to know this to be true I would like to fly back out here and get baptized!  It was amazing to see the chain of events!  Gerald and Lucy have had missionaries knock on their door for 20 years they say, and this time they were in search of a church to attend.  And then Gerald brings some random cowboy home and ends up in the same room as the missionaries.  
     I know that God wants us all to know of his message, sometimes it takes amazing miracles!  My companion and I both left in tears, when you get to see miracles you can't doubt the existence of Christ and his love for each of us. 
     I didn’t get transferred!  So I am here another 6 weeks atleast!  But now we have been assigned another ward so it will be a really crazy time!  But it will be great.  I love you all!  Farewell until next week!  Elder Aiken.

First baptism commitment!

      Hey everyone how are you all doing?!  It's been a great week here in Issaquah!  I think I am getting mossy, it hasn’t stopped raining for days!  The rain here is funny usually it feels like someone turned on one of the outdoor misters for a summer day but they don’t seem to get how to turn it off! 
     The week has been really busy! The first three days of the week my companion was gone at training for the day, so we had to go on exchanges to different areas.  But I didn’t want to be gone for two days from our area and lose all of that tracting time so I went on exchanges with a returned missionary in the ward, Mac Bean.  It was great!  He got back from his mission about a month ago and we just had the best exchange.  He has taught me so much in the short time I have been here!  His family is amazing too! We are going there for Christmas, and they really are just terrific!  This whole ward is awesome.  
      On Thursday we had a lesson with Gerald and Lucy.  Haha I just love them to death.  We walk in and Lucy had made us all dinner.  It's amazing to see the change in her since taking the lessons.  She used to be so shy and everytime we go over now she is cracking jokes and always makes us dinner!  She always makes sure to give us a hug before we leave.  But we taught them about the Plan of Slavation and the importance that the role of the Atonement plays in our lives!  The Spirit in the room was so strong it was truly amazing!  We put them on date for baptism on the 31^st of this month!  They are both getting so excited and I can't wait to see them receive the gift of the Holy Ghost! 
      So the best part of the week happened the next week.  We went back over to Gerald and Lucy’s to finish teaching about the Plan of Salvation.  So long story short, Gerald used to be a jockey and trained horses and now he drives horses around the country for a living.  So last week he got a call from his work asking him if he could pick up a guy at a truck stop and drop him off in California.  So he picks up this guy named Jack.  I guess the guy used to be a famous jockey, “Cowboy Jack”, he won a bunch of races I guess.  But anyways Jack was supposed to get dropped off in California but couldn’t so Gerald just said come stay at my house till you can get a ride back!  Haha totally something Gerald would do.     So on Thursday when Gerald and Lucy committed to be baptized he just sat quietly and didn’t say much besides hi and bye.  But then we come back the next day for another lesson and we ask him if he had any questions, and he said ya I have a question “Is it bad that I only think of God when I have hard times.”  Lucy raises her hand and goes I'll answer that!  "That can be an invitation for you to become closer to God".  The Spirit in that room had us all on the verge of tears!  Gerald and Lucy were grinning from ear to ear helping us teach him the first lesson!  Haha Gerald kept turning to me and doing a thumbs up after every point and kicking me. We then started to teach Jack how he can come to know these things are true, and what the Spirit feels like.  Then Jack got chills over his body and Gerald goes “Jack that’s the Spirit!”.  So we asked Jack if he would read the Book of Mormon and he said he would love to have a copy!  He said I am going to go at this with an open mind, but when I leave in the morning for California and after I read, and if everything goes well and I come to know this to be true I would like to fly back out here and get baptized!  It was amazing to see the chain of events!  Gerald and Lucy have had missionaries knock on their door for 20 years they say, and this time they were in search of a church to attend.  And then Gerald brings some random cowboy home and ends up in the same room as the missionaries.  
     I know that God wants us all to know of his message, sometimes it takes amazing miracles!  My companion and I both left in tears, when you get to see miracles you can't doubt the existence of Christ and his love for each of us. 
     I didn’t get transferred!  So I am here another 6 weeks atleast!  But now we have been assigned another ward so it will be a really crazy time!  But it will be great.  I love you all!  Farewell until next week!  Elder Aiken.


(Letter from a ward member)


Aiken family;
Just a little note to let you know how much we are enjoying having your son i our ward.  His arrival has really sparked the work  here.  He's such a hard worker, full of energy, excitement and love.  He has tracked into many of our non-member friends and they have let him in and let him teach them when others haven't gotten past the front porch.  I know he is really missing all of you but he is working hard and serving well!  We love him and are trying to take good care of him while he is here!  Thanks for raising such a wonderful young man.  Carole Noel.

Call 911!

     What an amazing week!  I am so grateful for this past week it was a very spiritual week and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be serving a mission! 

     There is so much to say so if I don't make any sense im sorry!  So on Tuesday we got a call from our Mission President saying that we had to move out by midnight because the lease was up and there was some confusion on where we should move!  But we had a bunch of appointments so we couldn't go home and move until around 8 p.m. and we still had to move all of the beds and couches and everything. We moved to the other end of the hall and into the Zone Leaders apartment.  So we were all just hurrying and trying to get all of the stuff moved out so we could get to bed somewhat close to on time.  Around ten o'clock we got most of our things moved out and into the new place and then we got a call from the mission president saying that we had until tomorrow to move everything because he worked out some deal with the place. 

     So we just finished unpacking all of the important stuff and decided around 10:30 for some reason to go and turn off the lights in the old apartment and lock it up, which we never do.  When we walked into the old apartment smoke was coming out of the kitchen hood over the stove and so we start freaking out and for a second I thought that maybe someone pulled a prank on us and put a smoke bomb in there or something, but then we got closer we realized it wasn't a prank. 

     So we ran out and down the hall and the apartment down from us at the end of the hall had smoke pouring out of the door frame!  My companion runs down and pulls the fire alarm and I called 911, but I had no clue where we lived so I threw the phone to my companion.  The apartment on the other side of the hall across from the fire is where the Staples live, they happen to be members and are the apartment managers!  They have four little kids and the alarm wasn't waking them up! 

     I start yelling and banging on the door to get them up!  The dad runs out and opens the door to the fire and the smoke and heat just about knock him back so I just start running in their apartment and grab the kids out of bed!  The zone leaders ran from floor to floor to evacuate everyone.  It was the craziest night ever!  I am just shaking writing this, it was straight out of a movie! 

     We got back into the apartments around one in the morning and everyone got out fine.  We are all so blessed to be safe, the story just could have been different on so many levels!  Yesterday Sister Staples and the kids brought us cookies and she goes "thanks for saving our lives".  And we were just like haha whatever.  And she got really serious and she was like "no Elders, we found out today that the sprinkling system was broken and the fire alarms didn't go off until the latch was pulled".  So if we hadn't of moved that night, Elder Twingstrom and I would have been asleep in the room opposite the fire....and if we hadn't been prompted to go down and close the apartment up, the Staples wouldn't have woken up because the apartment that started on fire was vacant and so was ours!  So the whole half of the hall no one lived in so no one would have known until the floor above caught on fire.   

     We are just so grateful for the Spirit!  As missionaries we are promised protection and I can feel it everyday!  I accomplished a few dreams.....calling 911.....pulling a fire alarm, and running out of a burning building!  So it was great!  So after that day the week only got progressively better!  We were able to meet with a bunch of our investigators and find a good handful of new ones!   I just love everyone that we have been able to teach!  I am so grateful for all of them.  We have recently changed from going through areas, to praying where we should go. Every single investigator that we found this week was from streets that we prayed to go. The mission is amazing because of the spirit we feel as we serve. We are so blessed to be serving our Father in Heaven and carry the name of His church on our clothing! 

     On Thursday night we tracted into an amazing family!  We taught them the first lesson and they were all so interested!  They were just the most athletic family, we walk in Mom, Dad, and the two boys all wearing jerseys and watching a football game together!  At first only the mom seemed really interested, but as time went on the Dad kept sitting up straighter and straighter and everything just clicked for him. We hopefully get to teach them again this week! 

     The best experience of the week for me was yesterday.  So a few weeks ago we tracted into this family and they answer the door and go come on in! Hahaha.....ya sure don't ask me twice!  So we come in and just talked for ever and they said they didn't have time for a message but we could come back.  They gave us eggnog and jams and stuff, a really amazing family.  So we finally were able to go back over together.  So the dad had all of his kids sit around the table and have us tell them why we do what we do and what our church means to us.  We basically taught them a lesson and as we were talking we found out that the Dad and Mom grew up Roman Catholic and their upbringing turned them off to the idea of religion, but he really wanted the kids to do what they wanted and they could be Mormons or whatever they wanted.  So I looked at him and asked him if he found out there was one church on the earth if it would mean a lot to him?  And the thirteen year old talked really loudly and said yes!!!  So I look over at him, and I was like wait what?  I was just taken back I guess, and he goes I don't get why there are so many churches, I want to know!  He had the biggest smile and the widest eyes, and we gave him a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon and he ran upstairs to set the book in his room!  He reminded me of Joseph Smith, just so eager to truly find out for himself!  It was so inspiring how much faith he had in us and to truly find out for himself. 

     I love you all!  Thanks for all of your prayers and letters they all mean so much! Don't ever be afraid to share the gospel.  It changes lives!  I am so happy to know that this Church is true and to be able to bear my testimony to these people. Have a great week!  Love, Elder Aiken.