30 November 2020

 Hi! It's been an eventfull week, the first full one in the mission. Things have been going good. I got to help my companion give some messages to members, and we are starting the Light the World message. Thanksgiving was good. We met as a district and got trained, then had a lunch we brought and played some games. Later we had a devotional over Zoom where the Mission President talked to us briefly and then we watched The Other Side of Heaven: Part Two. We were provided a Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and pumkin pie, which we microwaved before eating. It was pretty good.

It has been a little hard to teach new members because the member population is so high. I think I taught one non member so far, she is young and wants to be baptized. I think I might be able to teach a non member tomorrow.

It is getting a lot colder here. I'm still waiting for my bike to arrive, and I hope it arrives today.

Well, that is most of what has happened this week!

23 November 2020

 

 Hey mom, its been a bit of a crazy week. On Tuesday we arrived, filled out a bit of paperwork, got in a mission van, had lunch went to the mission home, and got trained for about two hours. We had pizza for dinner then a testimony meeting before we left for a hotel for the night. We got up the next day, had breakfast, and headed back out to meet our companions. I got assigned to Elder Gilbert, who is the district leader. We got to do a little bit of shopping that day because I didn't bring food for the week, but I was a little overwhelmed and didn't think too much about what I was buying. The food for the week has been a little repetitive, and I look forward to shopping today. I got assigned to the Cedar Hills mission. My trainer told me this mission was kind of hard, because I heard the member population was about 95%.

For most of the week, we have been giving Member Missionary Messages to members about Temples and the Gathering of Israel. We leave them with invitations to help the work by sharing the message with others, nonmembers.

The next message we are supposed to share is going to be a Light the World message, which we start after Thanksgiving. We have a discussion with a nonmember today, the first with a nonmember I will do. She is young and is about to be baptized. We got to do two service projects last week.

We don't use cars in our mission, and we were waiting until today to pick up my bike, so there has been a lot of walking. Utah in Cedar Hills is, you know, hilly. Lots of hills, some of them are really steep. It does give good opportunity for pictures because you can actually look up and down at places. We also have these big mountains around the area.

Our mission is allowed to visit member homes still. A lot of missions don't have that, and I heard we were allowed to because we stuck strictly to the covid rules. It also means that we are not allowed to accept food from families. There was one point when a family offered us a store bought cake, they talked about how they hadn't touched it or anything... I think I felt a physical pain when we declined. They insisted, and if not for my companion, I would have completely caved.

The area has also been really cold. We do some of our messages at night, and with the long walks, the cold gets kind of intense. I think my coat is completely insufficient for this weather.

Well, that's most of what has been going on. Thanks for the emails!

 

 

8 July 2019

I went to Climb Time once or twice before my mission too, and it was pretty fun. Did they get to use the ropes, or were they stuck to bouldering? The weather here hasn't been hurricane levels of fun, but we're having thunderstorms every couple of days here. Not a huge amount of rain, but plenty of thunder and lightning. Our fourth of July was even less exciting, I'm afraid. We couldn't go see fireworks, and we didn't have any dinner scheduled. Fortunately, we had a member out with us that night who decided to be awesome and take us out to Cookout. So we celebrated with burgers and shakes. (Well, I had the chicken tenders, but it was close enough.) This is kind of random, but what are your feelings on coleslaw? That's a staple out here, and I have to have tried 20 different kinds by now. Previously, I didn't like Carolina style barbeque, but I learned that you have to eat it with your slaw to cut the acidity. Now I like it a lot. If you come out here, you'll have to try some.

The highlight of this week was definitely free Five Guys having Elder Holland come and visit the mission. We just had part of the Virginia Chesapeake Mission join with us, adding on 50 missionaries and 2 stakes to the NCRM. (The Goldsboro and Kinston stakes.) So on Tuesday, we had a mission conference to welcome all the newcomers to the NCRM. We started off by singing their mission song to them as they filed in, then President Holland talked for a few minutes and released us for lunch. This is where he told everyone that at 12:30, his dad would be coming in to take a picture with the mission, and he would be the only speaker for the afternoon. The missionaries who had been in the NCRM already knew, I don't know if those coming in did or not. But this was a cause for great excitement throughout. After the picture, he had us all come and shake his hand. Then came the instruction. Wow, what an instruction. He went on for two hours, and every minute of it was great. It's always a little weird to see the General Authorities out of General Conference, it's just a reminder that they're people too. He's a lot funnier, and even more animated in person than he is in conference. Here's a few random quotes from out time with him:

"I write in reformed Egyptian, so don't worry." "He's talking about birth, and He's talking about birth!" And my personal favorite, "That's the stupidest thing ever said!" This was in reference to John 3:4, Nicodemus's response to Christ talking of being born again. He rephrased it a minute later in a nicer way, but it was hilarious. The main themes of the conference were the importance of missionary work and the interrelation with everything else the church does, the importance of the Book of Mormon, and needing to teach to the level of our investigators. On how important the mission is, he said it's "the most pivotal moment" of our lives. It was all really good, and I could definitely feel the Spirit. Honestly, to go more in depth I'd have to write a really, really long email, but I won't subject y'all to that. On to less significant news. 

The most common thing I've been hearing all week was how I'm going home soon. All the missionaries, all the members. Apparently having a missionary go home is a big deal or something like that. The ward I'm in right now has another missionary also leaving this transfer, so everyone is all stirred up about it. But I really do love everyone out here, and I'm going to miss them a lot. This Sunday is going to be a hard one. \

Anyways, this Sunday was pretty good. Mario went to church again, and we got to have a lesson with him afterwards. It went pretty well, but he has some very interesting beliefs on how the Bible and the Book of Mormon relate. Right now, we're just trying to get him to acknowledge that the Book of Mormon is a book of scripture, and holds equal weight as the Bible. Small steps. We also had someone named Jesse go to church. He is even more interesting. We got a text in the middle of a lesson Saturday night from him asking if he could go to church. He had been taught before, but neither of us had ever met him, and he had never been to church before. We quickly said yes and found him a ride. Well, sacrament meeting started, and a minute or two into it his ride walks in followed by Jesse, who my companion described as "a mix between Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel." I'm going to have to agree with him, he's huge! Still, he enjoyed church and we have a lesson with him on Tuesday that we're excited for. 

We didn't do anything crazy on the fourth (except for the previously mentioned free Five Guys) so this is going to be about it for me. Bye!

1 July 2019

This is officially my third to last P-Day. It still feels like going home is forever away. I don't know quite when that will sink in. Anyways, on to a pretty brief email.

So the missionary work of this week was kind of interrupted and overshadowed by two big things: one, we just absorbed a large chunk of the now-dissolved Virginia Chesapeake Mission, giving us two new stakes and a about 50 more missionaries. That's pretty exciting, we have a mission wide conference tomorrow in Wilmington to meet the new ones. 

The second big thing was the more interruptive. We went on exchanges, and when I came back, my comp and the other missionary were gone. So we called them, only to have Elder Shore (the other missionary) answer and say he was following the ambulance carrying Elder Curtis to the hospital. Soon after waking up, my companion had a seizure, hitting his head and having some pretty bad memory loss. We spent most of the day at the hospital, and he was ordered by the mission nurse to rest and take it easy for a few days. He's better now, but as a result not too much has happened this week. The weirdest part about this was the striking similarity to my training, where I come back from exchanges and my companion is injured/injured worse. Even weirder, I'm in the same area as my training. But yeah, because of that I don't have a lot to talk about this week. Next week should have plenty though!

24 June 2019

As another missionary mentioned this week that I had somehow managed to not notice, I only have three weeks left. I will use this as an excuse to write shorter emails, I can tell you all about it in person soon anyways.

The main event of this past week was having the car taken away from us by the zone leaders. Well, sort of. They're now making us share the car between us and the Raleigh 1st Ward elders, but this presented a problem for us. You see, when I got here I left my bike at the mission office having been told that once again I was in a full car area. Suddenly, this was no longer the case. I just got my bike back today, but it will only get another week and a bit of use. The other problem is that my comp is recovering from a wrist injury caused by a bike crash, and isn't yet cleared to bike again. And his bike still hasn't gotten the necessary repairs to be useable again. With this, we were forced to dire straits: public transportation. Yup, we've been using the GoRaleigh bus system. It's not bad, but it's slower and requires concerted effort and planning in order to use it effectively. Also, there are some places where the buses simply do not go. Still, we've been making it work. Mostly through rides from members to lessons, and rides from other missionaries to church. On to the work!

Basically, we got whitewashed (double transferred) into this area without any notes getting left for us, so neither of us really have a full understanding of this area or the people being taught. Still, we've been plugging away trying to contact all of these people. We're teaching someone named Mario. Well, sort of. We haven't been able to meet with him in a while, but he's gone to church three times in a row, this last time finding a ride for himself when we couldn't. We're excited for him, but we really want to find a time to meet with him. This week we also found a small family of a mom and her two kids. The mom is Paula, the son is Paul, and we haven't met the daughter yet. We taught Paula and Paul the Restoration and they both really liked it and committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We should be having a lesson with the two of them tonight, and hopefully we'll also meet the daughter. I think that's about it for the news this week, just a picture now. (If you want to know why this was funny, use Google Translate.)

17 June 2019

To make a long story short, I'm back in Raleigh for the third time! To make that short story long, here we go:

So on Wednesday night Elder Jackson, Elder Oberstadt and I were getting ready to go to bed when we got a text from Elder Wilson (one of the office missionaries) telling me to be ready to have my departing interview with President Holland the next day after our Zone Training, which is basically a shorter version of Zone Conference. He also told me to have My Plan ready, and it wasn't, mostly because you do it in your last six weeks once per week. I was on week 2. So I was walking into this interview completely unprepared in multiple ways. However, the interview didn't even really go into My Plan much, we mostly talked about college. It was the end that caught me off guard. He said, "Well, Elder, how's it going in a trio?" After talking about that for a little while, he then asked, "Would it be too much of a burden for you to pack up and go to Raleigh?" There was a second of silence as I took it in, and gratefully accepted, because I absolutely love Raleigh. A missionary who was here before me ended up going home a little early for mental health, and so they grabbed me, the new guy to Sanford who was in a trio and just happened to have already spent 6 months in Raleigh. Talk about revelation in transfers, right? So I had about 18 hours advance warning that I was going to be leaving for my new area. Anyways, on to the stuff that's been happening in Raleigh these past 3 days. 

Most of what's been going on has been getting back up with the people being taught. My comp who is currently here has only 9 days more than me with these people, so we basically got whitewashed in, just without notes being left for us. It hasn't been too bad, but we're going to have to figure out the bus system here again. It's going to be one of our main modes of transportation as my comp can't ride a bike right now. He hurt his arm in a bike crash about a month and a half ago, and is still waiting on doctor's approval to start riding again. He has moved from a cast to a brace, which is some good progress. 

The main cool thing is that I managed to get up with someone who I'd taught when I was being trained here, who is currently married and baptized with a kid now. So he's had a lot of changes in his life, and is working hard. Unfortunately, he normally isn't able to go to church very often but he did this week so I got to see him my first week back here! 

I don't think there is any other crazy news for the week, see y'all!

3 June 2019

We got news last night that I am going to be leaving Clinton for my last transfer! My last 6 weeks are going to be in a new area. I don't know where yet, I'll be finding out tomorrow. I'm excited, with how things are looking there's a chance I might go back to one of my old areas. However, my comp thinks it's more likely that I'll go to the area he came from, Jonesboro. Well, I'll be able to tell next week! It's weird to think that this is the last time I'll ever have to worry about transfers again.

Time to talk about the actual week! We had an interesting series of events with Wayne this week. He just disappeared. Now, this man loves talking with us. But we called on Monday to confirm for Tuesday, and when we came on Tuesday he didn't answer. So we called him, but no answer. This is very odd for Wayne. If he isn't home, he always answers his phone. And he will normally return missed calls within 5 minutes or so. Well, we tried calling again on Wednesday and Thursday, and calling and stopping by on Friday. At this point, we were really concerned for him. We figured that he was either in the hospital, in jail, or dead. And with Wayne in particular, we thought that these were all just about equally likely. But finally when we called on Saturday, he answered. It turns out that he had been in the hospital recovering from a really bad infection from previous surgeries. He's on the mend now, and is doing a lot better. We're going to stop by him tonight. 

Elizabeth is doing really well still. This last week we taught her about prophets, with a lot of emphasis on Russell M. Nelson.  She has been reading every morning in the Book of Mormon, which is awesome! She just finished 1 Nephi, and she said that she took our advice and set aside a time every morning to read in the scriptures. She came to church yesterday, and is praying to find out if President Nelson is really a prophet. 

We started teaching a member's niece this week, her name is Stefany. She is pretty willing to learn, and wants to know more about the scriptures and how to come closer to God. It's a good thing that's our specialty! We had a great lesson about the Restoration and we're going back tomorrow. 

We also started teaching Saul last week. He's got the funniest little kid, Mateo (Matthew). Whenever we'd be talking, he'd start to try to run away from his dad. We were outside, so this presented a bit of a problem. After chasing him down a couple of times, Saul put him on the trunk of his car so he'd be stuck. He didn't like that until he found out that he can use the back window as a slide. It was pretty funny the whole time. The lesson with him went really well, it turns out that he has been taught by the missionaries before too! He likes learning more, and remembered a lot of what he'd been taught before. We were going to go by last night until he told us that he had been called into work in South Carolina. So, we're working on setting up another time with him. 

Gio wasn't able to make it to church this week because he worked, but summer vacation starts this week and so he said he's going to try to get Sundays as his day off now. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he understood everything without a problem. He also started reading the Book of Mormon on his phone during lunch at school, because he says that's the only time that he has to do it right now. I'm excited for him! 

And now for the fun story of the week. I decided that I wanted some tacos. The only problem is that there isn't a whole lot of places that sell authentic tacos. That became a whole lot less of a problem with the discovery of a Hispanic grocery store called Tropicana. The best part for me was the fact that they sell pre-marinated carne al pastor, my favorite kind of meat for tacos. Long story short, I'm now the proud owner of a tortilla press and have been making tacos. They're pretty delicious. My only regret is that I bought the aluminum press rather than the cast iron, the aluminum feels pretty flimsy. I only bought the aluminum because it'll be easier to take home with me, the cast iron would weigh too much to go with me. 

That's all for the week, bye!

(The pictures are one of the tacos I made and some pretty huge pants that we found while volunteering at a thrift store.)