19 September 2016

This week was really, really short. Tuesday morning, we had zone training. All of us went down to the stake center in the morning, and the training started. Right after that, things got crazy. President Koster called and asked if I'd received any news on my visa. When I said I hadn't, he told me he had: my visa arrived! And not only that, but I was leaving. When? Tomorrow. After the training, I went back and started packing everything. That turned out to be a wise move, because I got a call from the office later confirming some details. Specifically, that I was getting picked up that night. I threw everything in my bags, and still had time to go out visiting before the APs picked me up. We went down to the mission office, and I got McDonald's for the last time...That night, we slept at their place. Unfortunately, the only free spot they had was a leather couch. Have you ever tried to sleep on leather? You stick. I didn't sleep- at all. In the morning, we went down to the office again, and I hung out and ordered Burger King...also for the last time. Eventually, I had an interview with President, and we waited for the cab. 2 hours after it was supposed to pick me up, we finally had to drive out and meet it. The Area Office was way behind, for some reason. I still managed to get to the airport on time (nearly), and I made it to my flight. With everything I owned it tow, I flew off to the logical, smart layover: Abu Dhabi, only 1700 miles past India. It was a 9 hour flight there, and a 4.5 hour flight back.

After an eternity of not sleeping on various planes, I arrived in Bangalore. The driver and I had to wait at the airport, because another missionary was arriving in an hour. I used the time to sleep on one of the tables there. We went down to the mission office, and the APs took us out to lunch at a chicken biryani place. That was amazing- I hadn't had it in 4 months. Later, I met with our new President Mortenson. Turns out, he was my grandparents' former home teacher! Then, I learned my new assignment: Visak 3rd branch, with Elder Daniel. Now, there's only one zone I haven't served in, Chennai: the one President Koster went on work trips in. That night, I took yet another flight out to Visak.

I arrived there late Thursday night, and not too much has happened since. We've done a lot of walking around and riding autos. Turns out that we have a ton of investigators who are infrequently home and live far apart. Thankfully, we do have a couple on date. That's pretty much all that's happened. See Ya!