15 June 2015

A funny thing happened last Monday, right after I emailed. I came out on my mission with one watch, which I had for about three years before my mission. A month out, it broke. I got a replacement, which broke in under two weeks. I replaced that two months ago, and that one broke Monday. So I got my first watch fixed, but the pin fell out not even two hours later. when I took it back, they replaced the pins with fixed pins, so I'm just going to hope that it'll last! 

On Tuesday, Elder Mackey had a two hour meeting in the morning, the first one of that kind in the mission. President Taggart gathered all of the missionaries going home this transfer for the first time, so I hung out in the mission office with all of their companions. We are losing 6 of the 10 zone leaders, so next transfer is going to be interesting. The sister missionaries from another ward had asked me if I had an "Indian" Book of Mormon, which I didn't, so I was going to grab one. The mission office had 6 different Indian language Book of Mormons: Urdu, Hindi, Telugu, Sinhala, Bengali, and Tamil. Then, we taught another lesson with Mike, the investigator with a mustache. He's a great guy, but his hair was 4 inches long, he had a mustache like Jeremy on Studio C, and his left arm and leg are paralyzed from an accident. This time, we taught the gospel of Christ, and the word of wisdom, because we'd noticed that he had a few issues with it. He committed to live the word of wisdom super easily! Later that day, we transplanted a tree for a member. Finally, we had a lesson with Emily, our most progressing investigator. We watched the Testaments, and had a great discussion about the importance of proper language in prayer. She is the most solid investigator we have, but she has to wait until she is 18 to be baptized. That's coming up, though!

We spent Wednesday mostly visiting people. First, we tried Sister Jaime. We had talked to here to set up an appointment a week ago, but when we showed up, she asked us to come back in two hours. We knocked a few doors and got gas for the car, then returned, to one of the biggest surprises of my mission. She had baked cookies! Normally, when we visit less actives, we get at best, grudging acceptance. She was nice! We learned a lot about her family history, and she showed us some books about it that family members had written. A few of them had crossed the plains with handcarts, and one had wrestled Joseph Smith. That same one settled four towns, one of which (Wallsburg) was named after him. He also had 5 wives and 43 children. Then, we visited Bro. Davis. When we first knocked on his door, it turned out that the records were wrong, and he lived next door. When we knocked on that door, we were immediately ushered in. He was very talkative, counterpointed by his silent, and very nearly deaf, wife. She had enormous amplifier headphones on, but still couldn't understand us very well. He had a lot of stories, and a depressing outlook. He talked for quite a while about all the simulator games he played to pass time until he died. Afterward, we went to dinner with Brother/President/Ex-Bishop/

Doctor Lords, our former ward mission leader and bishop, who is now the second counselor in the mission presidency and is a podiatrist. He was wearing a very nice suit during dinner, which puzzled us. Normally, people just wear street clothes when they have us for dinner. But after dinner, we had it explained: he wanted to go out with us for the evening. We visited an interesting guy first, Bro. Williams. He is the father of two members, but didn't convert. He thought that religion was a great thing for people because it gave them morals, but didn't believe in anything. However, despite that, he had a moral code. Then, we visited the Tafuas. Normally, they don't answer their door, but they made an exception to that this time. Pres. Lords had to go then, but we visited one last person: Bro. Alger. I was expecting a gruff dismissal like the one I had received the last time, but instead we had a great conversation. He is a truck mechanic, who used to be very active before falling off for no noticeable reason. 

Thursday was district meeting in the morning, before we helped with a move. The Sheffields had lived in the same house for 50 years, and had done nothing but collect incredibly fragile pieces of glass and china dishware, dolls, and knickknacks that entire time. We had 8 missionaries there doing nothing but packing boxes, and we still didn't even get halfway through. Then, we had dinner before going to visit Bro. Harpster. He is 80, and incredibly busy. He owns three companies, ranging from catfish to algae to diesel fuel. He has a 1957 thunderbird in stock condition! 

On Friday, we had weekly planning, then a lesson with Mike. Unfortunately, the missionaries we were going to be teaching it with were half an hour late, so we just let them take it while we went to our next appointment. Then, we went back to the Sheffields for more packing. We had even more missionaries than Thursday, but still didn't finish. Their garage was nearly full with box after box, most of which were marked "fragile." Then, we had dinner, then visited Bro. Openshaw, and had correlation meeting. We now plan on having a big ward event for members to invite their friends to, but it's going to be in a few months and we still have next to no details. 

We did a lot more service on Saturday. First, we went over to the Orlands, and weeded, moved aa cabinet, put some stuff in an attic, and did some miscellaneous jobs like that. Then, we went over to the Sheffields again for more packing. After that, we had a very early dinner, and had a lesson with Emily again. This time, we went over the baptismal interview questions. We did this while sitting in the church parking lot, because no one had their house available late on Saturday night, with no notice, for whatever reason. What's a social life, again? :)

On Sunday, we had ward council in the morning, then church, with a huge surprise. I nearly didn't recognize Mike when I saw him, because he'd gotten a haircut, was wearing professional-looking shoes, had a tie, and had shaved his mustache! If he was wearing a nametag, he could have been mistaken for a missionary! After church, we  had choir practice, then dinner, then we visited a few more less actives. We've been making a big push to reactivate them, because even though that doesn't show on any numbers, they are just as important as baptizing new members, something that we've had trouble doing in this ward. Then, we had Persian, where 8 missionaries showed up. It was a big event!

A funny thing happened this morning. As we were walking into Walmart to do our shopping, President Taggart called and asked if I liked Indian food, and that I might get the chance to try it on Wednesday. As in, 48 hours from now Wednesday. Well, not exactly. The travel will take 41 hours, starting Wednesday and ending Friday. Well, not exactly, again. It'll take only 29 (only) hours of travel, 23 on a plane and 6 in layovers. This isn't set in stone though. President Taggart, the president here, wants me to leave on July 14, but Pres. Berret, the president there, wants me to leave early. I'll find out tomorrow when I leave for sure, but I'm planning on Wednesday. 

**** Another email received later that day****

 

You'll be cheating yourself of the true pleasure of enjoying the
following if you don't read the first email I sent first. Seriously,
stop reading right now if you haven't read that one yet. I'm warning
you, it'll take all the joy out of my sarcasm if you don't. Please!

These are my flight plans.

If President Taggart has his way, I'll leave then. If not, I'll leave Wednesday, and it'll be super crazy