from June 02, 2014

 I have acquired a small bag that I carry a Book of Mormon around. I do not have much time today because I got a lot of emails. We had a good tour of the submarine. It was pretty sweet. We were not allowed to see the nuclear reactor though which would have been cool. They are pretty cool boats. You should read about them. It was the USS Seawolf. We also got to go play pool and ping pong afterwards which was a lot of fun. I decided that I am going to buy a pool table when I am older. It has always been one of my favorite games. I remember going to that one shop with you on University and looking at all of the tables. And yes it is too bad Mark Sherinian cannot enjoy the blessing of the Atonement. Luckily the Telestial kingdom is still a kingdom of glory. 

I miss the thunderstorms as there are not any here in Washington. We are also teaching a cool new family that we met pretty recently. We are going over there tonight. Transfer calls are next Saturday and I really hope I stay another transfer here. 

will

June!

Re: Sunday Night

William Percival

 

 

6/09/14

 

 

To: SHANE PERCIVAL, Cindy Percival

I appreciate the sports updates. I did not know any of that information so that was nice to hear. When was the last time a horse won the triple crown? I have thought recently how I always wanted to play hockey but probably not over baseball. Tell Anne to take some good pictures of the wedding. I will miss being there as I have yet to go to a wedding. No one on either sides of the family have been married in like 10 years.

 I am glad you enjoyed Epraim's Rescue. I watched it while in Lacey with Miller. It was done by the same guy who did Testaments which is another missionary favorite. It has been a frustrating week but still a good one. We are working with getting three kids baptized, two from one family and one from another. Unfortunately the mother in each family does not want the child to be baptized and the father does. Our golden investigator Sana did not come to church so we will have to wait another week to baptize her. We got transfer calls on Saturday and I am staying another 6 weeks with Elder Aussef. The other two missionaries we live with are staying as well. This was our mission president's last transfer calls. In three weeks we will have another president. I am happy to stay as I enjoy the dynamic we all have together and  the games we  play in the apartment. Looks like I will be spending the same amount of time in Brownsville as I did in Lacey. This will most likely be my last transfer here so we will see if I get another area here or in Brazil.

 Due to a new rule  we do not get to drive to Tacoma for transfer meeting. We will not be able to see the final testimonies of missionaries going home or are mission president's final testimony which is too bad. The new rule is you have to be transferring areas to go to the meeting. The four of us sang in Sacrament meeting this week, Savior abide with me aCapella. We are a very talented 4-some for singing. I sang Tenor. That is it for this week. Enjoy the wedding.

Will

May 26th, 2014

Part 1

Handing out Book of Mormons is one of my favorite parts of missionary work. We always write our name and number in the front. Our mission president had a training on e zone conference  on having people start at the beginning when they read it because God put the book in order so people would come to know its true but from time to time we give people specific parts to read.

 This week the weather was beautiful. Sunny days and it was not too hot. We are emailing today at our bishop's house because  it is memorial day and the library is closed. We had a good week for missionary work. We are still trying to get permission to baptize two kid and we found two new people to teach who are pretty "golden" as missionaries put it. We are also teaching a 9 year old kid today who should get baptized in a couple of weeks so the work is moving forward. Much better than anything I had in Lacey. Though I did like the Lacey area better. Brownsville is a very small area. We are trapped in a small invisible box.

 I have started eating eggs every morning with Siracha sauce so you should be proud I am adding some hot sauce to my food. We  started playing cribbage this week during our Decomp time. It's actually a fun game but maybe that is just on my mission. Everything is more fun when you are not allowed to do anything else. Other than that nothing else is new. We continue to play Saturday morning basketball and we actually played a 5 on 5 game this morning with some of the members of the ward. I also found out that one of the guys I live with named Elder Thompson plans on going to Colorado School of Mines when he goes home. He told me he wants to go to a community college in Colorado for  two years and then transfer to mines. I thought that was pretty funny.

 Well we are off to tour a Seawolf Class Submarine today. Our bishop is fairly high up in the ranks and got us permission to take a tour of the ship. Its a nuclear powered sub and is one of the most advanced fast attack submarine in the world. Our  bishop told  us all about them about a week ago in preparation to our tour. It takes two torpedoes to sink an aircraft carrier and they carry 50. Ill take some good pictures. Tell Bon Bon I got her letter and loved it.

Will

from May 19, 2014

Well the weather was beautiful this week. Sunny days but it was not too hot. We continue to play Killer Bunnies and have bought some expansion packs to keep us entertained. In my opinion the elders we have this transfer in the apartment are better than last transfer. I hope everything stays the same for at least one more transfer. No splits in the future. And yes I floss every night. 

The shoes are holding up great and should be good for a while. I might take up that warranty before I leave for Brazil but we will see. I have not prayed in church yet. We actually had a new family we are teaching come to church for the first hour on Sunday which was exciting. Instead of going to Gospel Principles we taught the Restoration to one of the kid classes. We are a funny group of elders when we are all together for dinner. At a dinner last week we somehow got on the conversation of abstinence and someone from the family mentioned it is 100% effect and Elder Hughes pointed out Mother Mary making it 99.99% effective. Just a little missionary humor for ya. 

We found some new people to teach this week which gives us a pretty big pool to work with. We are also going to start teaching a 9 year old kid who is not baptized this week so we will see where that goes. Glad you enjoyed the pictures. I am trying to take some. I think we are going to be able to tour a submarine on base next week with our bishop. Our bishop is 2nd in command on a submarine and the stake president in this stake is the chief of operations for the whole Bremerton shipyard. The shipyard is run by Mormons. 

Our number is 360-649-9232, obviously do not call or text me but if the Lins want to take us out to dinner I think that would work. Oh and if you could send me the game EVO that would be great. I want to try to play it with everyone. You can take the shipping cost out of my account and I will ship it back before I go to Brazil. But if you could send it tomorrow that would be great. 

Not much else to tell this week. It was a fast week and I hope the weather continues. 

Will

from May 12

It was great to see you guys. Since I mostly updated you on what I have been up to I thought I would send some interesting facts about this mission to you. Interestingly enough this mission baptizes very well. The northwest other than Utah is one of the highest baptizing places in the USA. Also our mission is one of the highest baptizing missions in the northwest. I wish I had some exact statistics but I do know that our mission baptizes around 65 people a month. You will have to ask what the mission in Iowa averages. I am not sure the reason but I suspect the reason is the high number of military people who flow in and out of the Tacoma area. That way there are always new people to teach. That is the only reason I can think of. Most missionaries leave this mission baptizing 10-15 people on average over the course of their mission. Many missionaries in the US especially in the South are lucky to be apart of 1. 

Anyways I thought I would share that. Well basketball sounds like nothing has changed. That was nice of Steve to say. He has always been a real cool guy in my book. Along with Joe of course. There are not many people in groups in our area. You have to remember we must stay inside our ward boundaries which consist mostly of neighborhoods. You should look on lds.org for the Brownsville ward boundaries. It was really nice to see you guys. Everyone looked good, especially the dogs. One more statistic for you. Our mission handed out 500 Book of Mormons last week. So you can imagine you many get handed out all over the world each week. And yes, other than the Testaments, the church does not put out many movies about the Book of Mormon which I find interesting. 

I love you lots and enjoy the advice you give each week. I try to be more confident in what I do each day.

Talk to ya Sunday

Thanks for the pics. I will answer your survey first. Yes Max will still be doing swimming. My friends all still write me around once a month, which is enough to keep updated on what they are doing. I have not heard from Joe Wandro's Mom in a while, since I got to Brownsville which is surprising. 

The new 4-some in the apartment is better than the old one. My new companion is Elder Aussef. He works hard and has a good attitude so I enjoy him. He does talk a lot though and you know I do not have much to say so I just pretend to care. His style of missionary work is very similar to mine though so I am having a good time. It will be weird when I go back to living with only one guy instead of three. I actually enjoy sleeping on top bunk. I stole one of the good mattresses so I sleep very well at night. President forgot to do Designated Drivers so I drove home from Tacoma and drive on Wednesdays. Turns out I still know how to do it.

 That is exciting to hear about Clayton. Wouldn't it be funny if Erin came here? 1 in 405 chance. I was thinking today that things are pretty good here right now. We are teaching a family that is really neat who all came to church on Sunday. The father, Jim is a member who had not gone to church in 30 years and just showed up last week. None of his family are members so all we have to do is convert his catholic wife and they should be baptized by the end of the transfer. It is Jim, his wife and 4 kids. 
I am pretty sure I will get my visa when the world cup is over. So that is nice to think I have a date when I will leave. I almost bought some new Ecco shoes today but they did not have the color I wanted. We have not found a place to skype yet but I will have someone text you what time before Sunday. Sorry. That is all for this week. I am glad you got to go to the temple. I am jealous. 

Lots of Love, talk to ya Sunday,

Will