Wednesday, June 22, 2016

June 20, 2016


Mark Owen Vickers

AttachmentsJun 20 (2 days ago)
to bcc: me


Hey Everyone!

Sorry it's been sometime since I emailed all of you. My last area was
a bit spotty for access to a computer and the way our mission email
works I couldn't get access to all of my contacts from my iPad.
Hopefully that won't be an issue going forward. *Fingers crossed*

I am now in the Westfield Ward and loving it. This is actually the
same district of my first area. My companion is Elder Visser.....haha
Visser and Vickers and you got it, we both have red hair. Gotta love
it. Anyway he is one of the Zone leaders and he was also the Zone
leader when I first got into the mission. I am learning so much from
him. He will be finishing his mission at the end of this transfer.

This week we had the opportunity to serve in the peanut butter factory
which makes all the peanut butter used by the Church in all of it's
humanitarian efforts worldwide. They run the facility for around 50
hours straight and then shut down for 2 weeks to clean. In a 4 hour
shift roughly 6,000 jars are filled. The peanuts are grown here in
Texas on a Church owned farm, sold to an independent processor and
then bought back for production. I was working the roaster room with
my companion. Our job was to hook bags weighing in excess on 2000
pounds to a hydraulic lift, raise that in the air, push the bag about
5 feet to the side and then to untie the bottom which released the
peanuts into a food elevator. Once a bag had been hung out job was to
record the temperature readout a every 25 minutes and occasionally
rake the top of the elevator to ensure even distribution. The roaster
reaches temperatures in excess of 380 degrees while in operation.
Really neat experience. The Church partners with Houston food bank to
provide pb to those in need.

Our investigator Samantha is amazing! She was found by Elder Visser
and Russel shortly before I arrived in this area. She accepted an
invitation to church and came for 2 weeks in a row before we could
meet with her. We set a baptismal date in the first lesson and she has
been a rock from day one. Her baptism is set for this Saturday and she
will be an awesome addition to this Ward. We have 2 families we are
teaching as well who should have solid dates by the end of this week.
Keep ya posted on them.

I love the Lord. I happiness this Gospel brings into my life and those
I am able to teach. Thank you for all your prayers and for all that
you do to lift those around you.

Until Next week,

-Elder Mark Vickers




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