Week 48

Dear Family and Friends,

Christmas Eve is upon us, and I am excited to be a missionary this time of year. It is exciting because I am able to focus 100% on the reason for Christmas and not have to deal with the commercialized state it has become over the years. The birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer being celebrated is amazing. I've loved serving this Christmas season. I've only got one Christmas on my mission left after this.

I've been loving my mission. I can't believe it's almost half over. I actually hit my 11 month mark today. Christmas is tomorrow, New Years is 8 days away, and my birthday is 10 days away. Lots of big stuff going on this next little bit.

We got a new person on date this week! I wasn't there for it because we were on exchanges, but it is still awesome! We made a big push for having people at church for the special Sacrament Meeting, and we had 6 people come to church! It was awesome!

I hope everyone is ready for the new “Come, Follow Me” program next year? I'm excited for it. As long as we do it faithfully, I know for a fact our faith with strengthen and grow as our prophet, Russell M. Nelson has promised us.

Also, did anyone see the Christmas devotional? That was awesome. If you didn't have a chance to watch it, I would definitely recommend it.

Thank you for the prayers and support. I am super excited to see and talk with my family and cousins on Christmas Day.

The Gospel is true.

Elder Rexinger

Merry Christmas from Hermiston.

Week 47

Hello My Family and Friends,

Christmas is nearly upon us and I'm excited for it. Not only because I get to call my fantastic family, but also being able to remember our Savior’s birth this time of year is really special. I have the location for calling home all settled and figured out, just gotta find out a time.

I've been receiving some things as we get closer and closer to Christmas, but I've tucked them away under the little tree that we have in our apartment and I'm waiting until Christmas. We also made some of our own Christmas ornaments. It was awesome, it just involves a large tub of water, spray paint, and clear glass ornaments. It was part of a Butte Ward activity that we caught the tail end of when we showed up at the church for our weekly correlation meeting. It was fun, but you might want to wear a mask when you do it. Them fumes are bad for ya.

Anyways, we have been doing quite a bit of service this week. Twice this week we've been called in the morning time to help with this last second service project. For example, we helped someone move out of their house with a 15 minute heads up. We also helped move a piano, as well as clean some houses. We love it, and it's been helping Shanna out a lot with her house.

I love being a missionary. I love being able to help people. Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures this week, my bad. Next week for sure though!

Thank you for prayers and support. Merry Christmas.

Elder Rexinger

Week 46

Hello My Friends and Family,

Elder Skinner and I have been hard at work this week as we are every week. We did a lot of service indeed. We helped Shanna clean up her house as much as we could. We started with the back porch and after a while we started working on the interior. I organized the HECK out of her cupboards and vacuumed a ton of stuff. We also brought over some Greased Lightning to help out, we left it there and Shanna’s son Liam (who has had a history of NOT cleaning in the past) spends a lot of time cleaning because of how effective the cleaner really is. He says, "I just spray it and wipe and it comes off!" Greased Lightning is really awesome if you haven't heard of it, it's the best. It apparently makes cleaning fun. We're also gonna be heading over to Shanna’s again tomorrow to help paint the inside of her house. That is gonna be awesome because she really likes us. 

We did some more service helping Tara move out of her house. That was fun. We did some prep work with boxing up a bunch of stuff and different things like that. Then, we helped move the washer and dryer from downstairs, took the legs off the dinner table and moved it, moved the TV stand, moved some beds, etc. What's cool is that all the people we've been working with so far have all trusted us. They've basically all said "When you leave, I'm gonna cry" or, "I'm gonna miss you when you eventually leave."

I am glad to hear from them that we're appreciated, but we always gotta make sure they're converted to the Gospel, not to us. If they're converted to us, then we're hosed when we eventually leave them.

Everyone stay safe out there. I was disheartened when I looked at my email and saw that my little sister Elise was a passenger in a recent car accident that seriously injured one of her friends.

Thank you for the prayers and support.

Elder Rexinger

Hanging out at the North Pole

Zone Leader's Christmas Tree

Week 45

Hey Everybody,

Our people we are teaching have been doing alright this week. There haven't been too many developments there. Elder Skinner and I are gonna be out finding a lot in the next transfer. Oh yeah, speaking of transfers, Elder Skinner and I are staying together here in Hermiston, so I get to finish his training. Not a lot of people were transferred in the Zone. Our new Zone Leader is Elder Eberhard. He was in the West Rishland Zone while I was there and he's awesome. I can't wait to be serving with him again. 

We already found some new people, Nancy and her kids, Isaiah and Tina. There's pretty cool. They are really comfortable around us and Nancy really wants to learn about Jesus. We're looking forward to working with them. I'm looking forward to these next few weeks. Elder Skinner and I are gonna be out here in Hermiston doing our best to find, teach and baptize. 

In other news, last Monday during zone sports, I sprained my thumb. I was playing goalie in a game called Gator Ball. We were playing with a volleyball. It's not very heavy, so you can throw it really, really fast. I put my hand up to block a shot and hurt it. Someone in the ward, Dr. Alder, said it was more than a simple jammed thumb. I went and got myself a nice thumb brace. Everyone likes commenting on it. I was also told by the Mission Nurse that I might be banned from P-day sports because of how often I get injured. It's all good though.

That's all for this week.

Thank you for your prayers and support. The Gospel is true.

Elder Rexinger

Getting ready for the day.

Decorating doors for a service project at a care home

Week 44

Hey my wonderful friends and family,

How's it going? How was Thanksgiving? Anyone go Black Friday Shopping? I miss Black Friday Shopping. A few times I went and helped my mom out with Black Friday. We waited for hours at Best Buy and Target. It's worth it though. While my Mom would be getting all her stuff, I'd just throw my own personal things in the cart. When we got up to the cashier, she'd usually just let it slide. I enjoyed it. :)

Thanksgiving consisted of 4 hours of eating and not too much else. It's been weird with how dark it gets when it's super early. It's pitch black outside at like 4:45 pm up here.

The transfer is almost over. It ends on December 5th, and I hope I stay here in Hermiston. I want to finish training Elder Skinner. The longest I've served in an area is 4 1/2 months. (3 transfers) Who knows how long I'll be here in Hermiston? The end of this transfer will be 3 months, so not too shabby.

The area has kinda reached a standstill. A lot of our people have been hard to get in contact with. We did meet this awesome lady named Nancy. She has met with missionaries in the past, but she has said that she likes us (myself and Elder Skinner) a lot. We were even invited to her daughter’s 18th birthday party. We haven't seen Jocilyn for a while. Billy got back from Pendleton, so we'll see what's going on with him soon. The Jons family have shut us down pretty much. Erich told us their family is too busy to meet with us right now. We're gonna be doing a lot of finding in the next coming days. I can't wait to see how it goes.

Thank you for the support and prayers. The Gospel is true.

Elder Rexinger

The former Elder Zachary visited us.