28 January 2019

So, I am getting transferred out of Wallace and onto Clinton, North Carolina. Funnily enough, This is where my MTC companion is now leaving, continuing our string of areas that we've both served in. The weird part about all of this is that Elder Reynolds is also leaving. In fact, Wallace is getting shut down for a transfer. Someone didn't make it out of the MTC leaving us one companionship short, and Wallace got the ax for a transfer. Hopefully it'll be up again soon, we have some people we're concerned about, namely Diane and Tom. Both were doing well, but now they're going to be missionary-less for a while. They know some people in the branch, and we've passed on news of our leaving. The branch president said he's going to keep up with them, so I've got some hopes. But for interesting things of this week....

On Thursday we had a first for the mission: A Spanish missionary summit. Basically all of the Spanish missionaries all got together with the mission presidency and a "guest star," Sister Voils from The District, who now lives in the mission boundaries. For those of you who are unfamiliar, The District is a set of missionary training videos from a mission in Texas, and we all have to watch them. Anyways, in the meeting we basically discussed the unique challenges of Spanish work and how we could solve some of them. It was a really good meeting, and you could really feel the Spirit in the discussions. Afterwards, we had a lunch and it was really good to just be able to be with all of the Spanish elders and talk. They're some of my favorite people in the mission, and it's the first time that the "Furious Five" have gotten together all at once since starting our missions in the mission home. The Furious Five is the nickname that the group of five Spanish elders who are all starting and ending their missions together was given. I'm gladly a part of that, but it'll be interesting when we all leave. We'll have about a quarter of all the Spanish elders leaving at the same time, so there's going to be a lot of people who have to train. 

In other news, we went to the Mt. Zion branch for the first time yesterday. President Holland wanted us to go there to see if they would be receptive to having missionaries again, and they really liked having us there. It was a lot of fun to be with all of them, especially because I recognized some of them from helping out with the hurricane cleanup. We were going to start going every other week or so, but now there aren't any missionaries in Wallace to go there at all. The branch is disappointed, but they'll get some new ones soon. President Holland knows how excited they are now, and so I hope that they'll get the missionaries they want soon. They're a really great bunch of people.

And finally, we went around and started saying our goodbyes to the members around here. I'm really going to miss a lot of them, having been here for so long you really start to get close with them. So, pictures. 

 

 

This is the Furious Five all together, (from left) Elder Hull, Elder Schmidt, Elder Clement, Elder Rasmussen, and myself. I've served with all of them but Elder Rasmussen, and we're all hoping to be able to serve with each other in the time we have left.

 The Verdin family

 President Roper (his wife wasn't there for the picture)

 Matt, the one who gave me the bullet casing last week

 One of my favorite streets to go down in Wallace

 

And one of my favorite signs here. There's not a lot to get pictures of here, so you have to make the small things count.

21 January 2019

So transfers is next Tuesday, and so this might be my last week in Wallace. We'll find out on Saturday/Sunday as is the norm. Anyways, ....

This wasn't an incredibly eventful week. However, there is some good news. As of Saturday, Aaron (Diane's husband) was still holding on. We visited them and prayed with them. They had a few people over and she was still understandably distraught, so we didn't stay too long. We're hoping to be able to visit again tomorrow and see how they're doing. 

Speaking of Tuesdays, we got up with Tom again (it's been about a month) and he said that he wanted to be baptized. He still won't set a date, and we're still really confused about him. He pays tithing, but is still iffy about doing anything else. It's odd. We're also going to go by him tomorrow to read in the Book of Mormon with him and introduce him to Come, Follow Me. 

We've not been able to meet with Ozzie again lately, and he couldn't come to church because his car got totaled. Hopefully we can get a member to give him a ride again, but the member that he's friends with has to work every other Sunday. 

And in more fun news, we had a really nice lunch with a family yesterday. I mentioned that transfers were next week, and Matt (19, and we're good friends) went to the backyard as we were leaving. Then, we heard a huge bang, and Matt comes running around to give me a 30-06 casing from the bullet he had just fired as a way to remember him. That was pretty funny, and it scared his dog to death. As he did this, his mom apologized and said that it was his redneck coming out. Speaking of which, I think Wallace is the most Southern feeling place I've served. Raleigh just doesn't have that Southern feel, but it's very strong out here. I think it gets more and more the more rural of an area you're in. 

That's about it for the week, adios!

 

 Oh, the things you see driving around Wallace. Yes, that's a little girl riding on a giant tortoise. Don't ask me why.

 I believe we found the world's biggest Steeler's fan. The car is impressive, but the suit he wears is a sight to behold. I didn't take a picture of him, I thought it'd be weird.

 And finally, some awesome member decided to grace us with pizza, and pasta, and cinnamon twists, and soda. That was a good dinner. (And then lunch.)

 

14 January 2019

I had to start out with that because this last week has absolutely flown by at record pace. I don't know where all the time goes, really. We got to visit Diane this Wednesday and teach her about the Plan of Salvation. She has been recovering well from her surgery, but her husband is in really bad shape and isn't expected to live more than a couple more days. So, it would be great for y'all to continue praying for her this week. But in some cheerier news, we also had Zone Conference this Wednesday. That's always a bunch of fun. It still surprises me how funny President Holland is. It was a little strange afterwards because I was asked to translate between him and another elder in the zone who doesn't speak English yet. He and his comp were having some issues and President wanted to help him learn English faster, so I kind of ended up being a mediator in all of that. It was definitely one of the stranger moments I've had with President so far. I had wondered briefly why I had been picked to translate, then remembered that I'm the only Spanish assigned missionary in the Wilmington Zone. So I guess I'm really his only option. I did pretty well, but he had to rephrase a couple of things because he uses some more complex words. I've got a good grasp of most Spanish, but when you're throwing around words like "syntax," that's not something that I use often in Spanish. Or at all. So I was caught a little off guard with some of the words. But I got through it okay, and just hope that I don't have to have a repeat performance. But back to the work side of things, we found a couple of sisters the other day who are really excited to learn more, Lexi and Nicole. They've got a big religious background, and want to know more. One of them said she'd invite her boyfriend the next time we visit, so hopefully we'll be able to start teaching him as well. I think that's all of the news for the week, until next time!