Elder Zachary F. Smith - Washington Yakima Mission

We were able to go to the Moses Lake Temple today. It's really small. When I first saw it, it thought it was a church. The temple is a 90 minute drive from our apartment. We spent most of the day visiting people the other missionaries knew because they had been in that area. We pressed cider on Saturday. We brought home 4 gallons and by Wednesday there were 1 1/2 gallons left.  We've been doing lots of service chopping and stacking wood. I've added to my list of injuries, last week I bruised my hand chopping wood. This week a log got dropped on my foot leaving a large bruise and soon after that I got a bee sting on my face.  The view from the home we were at is amazing!

  Hello peeps, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing so I'll just start talking.  On September 29th I left the comfort of the MTC and my amazing district to make the long travel to Washington... well, the distance wasn't long but between multiple bus rides, a flight to Seattle and then a connecting flight to Yakima 2 hours later definitely felt like ages. The first picture in the email is of Mount Rainer, which we flew right next to during the flight and it was breathtaking.  Once we arrived in Yakima I met a couple missionaries there to greet us and help us get going and we were off to the tiny tiny Mission Home. After a short orientation I was told my companion and area I will be serving in. My companions name is Elder Preston Clarke, and I'm currently serving in Ellensburg Washington over the Reecer Creek ward and the YSA ward. When I arrived at my apartment I quickly put my bags down and was already out of the door, heading to a Friday night YSA activity... we ma...

Something funny that has happened has gotta be when we waited 20 minutes in the celestial room after initiatories , waiting for the sisters to finish so we can get lunch just to find out they never went to the celestial room and finished eating while we were sprinting down to the MTC... The most spiritual moment was during one of the devotionals, they were telling a story of a mother who lost their daughter in a very bad car accident but was still on multiple phone calls trying to get help for the other girls, and other selfless stuff. The number one thing I think I le arned is just how easy it can be to teach the Gospel if you prepare and study, never knew I could spew off 20 minutes of stuff about the gospel till now.