"With smiles and rainbows and hearts, but like in a manly way"

I am so happy!  Missionaries are the happiest people I know, and I'm the happiest missionary I know.  I can't even put my finger on why, but Life is just so good.  Oh by the way, turns out my companion knows Ally (a cousin)! 

 

So, one of my first nights in Puyallup, it was about 8:45pm, and we see a guy on the side of the road, give him a Book of Mormon and invite him on a church tour.  His name is Dean, but you've never heard of him before, because shortly thereafter he fell off the face of the earth.  Then we give him a call a little bit ago, and he picks up!  says he's still interested but won't meet with us because of all the stuff going on in his life.  

Two days later, we're out knocking doors on this one street, and we pass a guy, so we invite him to church, and he's like "wait a minute, I think you guys called me the other day.."

 hahah i'm like "DEAN!? is that you!!!???"  

and he's like yeah!  

so then he follows us down to the church, and we start the church tour.  

 

We always start with an opening prayer in the foyer.  During the prayer he's making some noise which i didn't think much about, but afterwards he's just like "wow.... just then, I felt like...the presence of God around me, telling me this is good.  It felt so warm, what was that?"

:)

So we explain, and then finish the church tour.  He happily committed to be baptized on september 1st. 

but the next day, he told us to meet him outside the safeway at 3:00.  So we're there, we wait for 15 minutes, and look all over for him.  We know he spends some time in the forest behind safeway, so we also looked for him there, but to no avail.  So we still need to find him again.

 

Mary is set to be baptized on Wednesday at 12!  And it's finally solid! 

 

Last night we were down in Olympia doing the missionary music fireside thingy, it was so great.  We sing a few songs (best of all, Amazing Grace, and I get to belt the tenor part way loud) and i'm part of a ten piece musical number, How Great Thou Art.  At first there was just 8 of us, so we called ourselves "How Great Thou Oct"  hahaha  get it? but 2 more got drafted in, so we became "TENder Mercies" which became "TENor Mercies" 

We clearly have too much time on our hands.

Lil Krees (Elder C, a previous companion) is also in a musical number, which is sounding tighter than ours, except the arrangement is pretty boring. 

but, Krees, Major, and Rhodes are doing this trio for Come Thou Fount, and it's the most legit thing i've ever heard.  It sounds, SO good. 

Oh, and Sis. Grenfell is conducting this whole thing If i didnt already mention it, and it just makes me so happy haha, she is so good at it.  

 

Anyways, so last night we're there singing and I just realize how so so so so happy I am, and it makes me so so so so sad to know that one day my mission will be a memory. 

 

The happiest, best, and sweetest experiences of my life have been in these past 8 months while serving a mission, If anyone by chance is reading this and considering whether or not a mission is right for them, It is.  Please don't deprive yourselves. 

With smiles and rainbows and hearts, but like in a manly way,

Elder Chase Lonas