This
has been the craziest week of my mission yet. On Tuesday, we had a
mission-wide training for iPads. That was huge! There are around 200
elders and sisters in the mission, and putting them all in one place
made things pretty nuts. Funny story though- when the age change for
missionaries hit, our mission had 150 missionaries. 50 were transferred
out to a new mission as ours split, and the remaining 100 ALL ended up
training, because another 100 fresh-out-of-the-MTC new elders got sent
in. That led to some interesting results. Because a few companionships
were still training at the time that all the new elders came in, they
had to form a few "tripanionships," where you'd have one senior
missionary, one 6 weeks in, and another right off the plane. That must
have been fun. Irregardless of that tangent, when the whole mission got
together, we had a huge training, where they brought in the MTC head and
an area 70 to train us for the new iPads we got later. The training
program is just another study thing that basically just got dumped in
our laps while they told us "figure out how to use it." We were one of
the pilot programs for iPads, so there was absolutely no training in how
to use them when we first got them, we were just told to figure it out
and tell the mission president. Fun, huh? That was a year ago, I just
came in in the last 6 weeks before they rolled out the new training
program they put together. We're going to have to figure out how to use
that well, too. They also told us a bit about all the monitoring
software that they put on the iPads. According to Elder WIlding, it's
basically the same sort of scary stuff they said about the last
monitoring software, but that ended up not being true at all, something
we figured out when they told us about the last one when describing the
new one. Apparently, there were quite a few loopholes in the software
that missionaries would use to download any app they liked without the
president's knowledge, but those theoretically got closed. Also,
President Taggart will now get an email whenever someone does download
any app, with the unapproved ones flagged, and if he sees us using any
app in an unproductive or inappropriate fashion, he can push one button
and shut that app down on the missionary's iPad. It's kind of weird, all
the stuff they can do remotely.
After
that meeting, we went to Ihop, because it was free pancake day. 10
missionaries, in suits and ties, all showed up at the same time in a
crowded Ihop at the busiest time of day. Shockingly, it took them a
while to seat us. Then, we all got exactly 3 free pancakes, and left. It
took them next to no time to make the pancakes though. Probably because
a), it was free pancake day and they were already churning them out
like crazy, and b) because they had a half-hour warning before we sat
down. That night, the member family that fed us took us out to Blaze
pizza. Do they have any of those in Indiana? It's basically to pizza
what 5 guys is to hamburgers, or Chipotle is to burritos. There's a lot
of options.
The
next day, we did the mobile food pantry thing again. We went out early
in the morning, and started setting up. We put out tables around a truck
that the people who go there would line up and go around, and had one
person on the outside handing out the food, and one on the inside
restocking the table. It was a pretty slick operation. Sometimes it was a
little comical, though. The people who'd get food there would show up
with whatever containers they could find- shopping carts, boxes,
strollers, you name it, they had it. I was on potatoes this time, but
they were the really small kind, smaller than your thumb, and came in
big boxes. We were told to give out 2 heaping double handfuls, but there
were so many potatoes that we ended up giving out whole boxes, half
boxes, and just whatever people would take. We only just barely managed
to give out all of them by the end anyway. The people next to us were
giving out fruit snacks, and they were giving out 6 boxes to each
person. There was so much food given out that it was staggering. Then,
later that night, a miracle happened- an appointment 3 weeks in the
making finally came together, and I got to teach my first set-out,
full-on lesson. Normally, they are 2 minute affairs on doorsteps, but
this one was what they prepped you for in the MTC- a 45 minute, solid
lesson, with commitments, prayers, member testimonies, the whole deal. I
think it went pretty well, too.
Thursday,
we did almost nothing but set up the new iPads we got. They have double
the memory, a new fancy display, better cases, screen protectors, and
more spying software. Oh, and no Facebook. Some missionaries, who used
it a lot for the past year, are practically going through withdrawal.
They are pretty nice, but I'd rather have the old one back, because
although it was slow and annoying, it had a month and a half worth of
scriptural annotations, insights, comments, and revelations that I had
while reading. What's worse, I figured out how to sync them with
LDS.org less
than 24 hours after turning it in, so it was too late. The iPads really
take a lot of setup. You have to do all the expected stuff, like naming
it and getting all the wifi networks in there and all that, but then
you had to download all the gospel library stuff again, all the notes
that you mailed to yourself, and all your photos. It probably took 8
hours, all told.
Friday
was fun. What do you think of when you hear "building houses for
Habitat for Humanity?" I though we'd be building houses when we were
told of the project. Psych! When we showed up and asked what needed to
be done, the supervisor pointed to a red line painted on the ground.
"You see that line there? It needs to disappear." So, we spent 4 hours
digging a big hole. They needed somewhere to run pipes for gas and water
and all that through, and the trench had to be at least 2 feet deep.
That is a lot deeper than it sounds, past your knees. What's worse, the
ground was not only rock hard, but was actually dirt pounded hard for a
foot, then a layer of concrete for a few inches, then more hard dirt.
And to make it more fun, it was a bright and sunny day, in the high 80s.
We did get a jackhammer and some pickaxes, but they were no easier,
just more productive. I ended up on the jackhammer for quite a while,
well over an hour, mostly because no one else wanted it. It was HEAVY!
Easily 60-80 pounds, and so working with it was a pain. You'd turn it
on, then let it rest against the dirt at an angle, and it would start
pounding up and down. It would sink in about four inches, then you'd
lever it out so it loosened up the dirt. Then you'd repeat about 10,000
times until the patch of dirt you were working on was loose enough to be
removed with shovels. 20 strapping young men with power tools only
managed to get 40 feet in 4 hours, the ground was so hard. It was a lot
of fun though, and it was the first time I'd met half the missionaries
there. What's crazy is that even though I was working in the sun for
hours, I only got sunburned in one place- the back of my arm. On the way
back from it, we saw a house burning. I got a few pictures, which I
will send later.
Saturday
was transfer call night. The whole day was just anxious anticipation
for them. Two missionaries in our zone, the Elders Johnson, are both
getting transferred way far out. Funny story though- one of them (the
super athletic one that I went on transfers with a few weeks back) was
cruising down a street at 30+ mph, and hit a few orange pylon things. He
never buckles his helmet, and so he said after that as he flew over the
handlebars that he thought his life was over. Then he slammed down on
the ground really hard on his back, cracking his head on the ground.
Somehow though, his helmet stayed on his head even in midair, and even
though it was cracked in 7-8 places, his head wasn't. His backpack and
shoulder of his shirt both got rubbed through in a few places, and he
messed up his ankle when it smacked into the ground, but he was walking
just an hour later at transfer eve. The wheels on his bike were bent
funny, and his taillight fell off, though. It's definitely a miracle
that he was alive, period.
The
guy we baptized two weeks after I moved in is named Andy, and we taught
him the second new convert lesson today. It went really well! We also
taught Gospel Principles class again, which is pretty fun. Not too many
people attend, but it's a good class. And the best news of my mission-
We got a referral! All of the investigators we've had that have been
serious to any extent have all been referrals, so any new ones are super
exciting. Well, that's not strictly true- we found one solid guy while
tracting, and he's following commitments and trying to get a testimony.
Unfortunately, we had to pass him off to the zone leaders because he's
YSA. Fortunately, the referral we got isn't, so we might be able to
actually teach him.
How have things been in
Indiana? How's the new job treating you? Has David had any luck getting a
job? Tell Sam that he should email me back!
