31 December 2018

Well, I must apologize, I don't have any new pictures for this week. Or any news. Sorry. I guess that's what happens when we get to call. But, in short, we had a good Christmas. We spent it at our Branch President's house where we had a nice breakfast, called home, and just generally had a good time talking. We got to talk to Diane again this week, which was nice. She's having a lot of hard times in her life right now, so it was great to be able to introduce the plan of salvation to her. Our biggest problem is that she really likes to talk. Like, a lot. I've never seen  anyone who could talk as much before. But it's fun, and we're basically adopted grandchildren now. (As with everyone else in her neighborhood, she's genuinely one of the nicest people I've ever met.) But that's about it for this week, talk to y'all next time!

25 December 2018

Sorry this will be short nearly to the point of nonexistence, but here's a few pictures. If I have more time, I'll send more. But a pretty good Christmas call today!

Christmas Zone Conference get together

My Thor Christmas socks

The first snow Elder Martins had ever seen in Raleigh as we were headed to Raleigh... it was sad.

Santa's house in Wallace

 

 

17 Decemeber 2018

So the news is in: I'm staying in Wallace for another transfer! I get to spend Christmas over here in the Southern Kingdom, changing it up from last year. It is always interesting being a missionary during Christmas, it feels a little weird. You're slightly disconnected from everything that's Christmassy in the normal world. It still is great to be able to go out and share a message about Christ during this season though. So often people forget why we have this season, and it's great to be able to be the ones going out and reminding people of the birth and life of Christ. Also, I love the Light the World initiative even more this year. We're going into week three(light your family), and it's my favorite one of the videos.

The work over here was pretty great this last week. We got up with Dan and Sandra again, and actually got to teach them. They also gave us baliadas, so that was pretty exciting. (Baliadas are a food from Honduras, and they're delicious.) They have some problems with the idea of going to a church, but I think that they'll keep on progressing well. They certainly love having us over. 

Speaking of being fed, there's a less active from El Salvador that we found and have been trying to visit. We're now pretty sure that she won't ever return to the church, but she and her boyfriend both really like us and they made us pupusas yesterday. And taught us how to shape them. I would have pictures, but my hands were covered in oil and water. Still, they were delicious. 

We also went by to visit Diane again. It's always so much fun to talk to her. It's a little hard to teach her because she really, really loves to talk, but she's a great lady. We managed to segue into the Restoration, and she was really into it. We mentioned the gift of the Holy Ghost and she cut us off a bit and asked how that worked, because she had always been taught that you just got the Holy Ghost after you accepted Christ. So, we explained it and read out of Acts 8 with her. She got kind of quiet and sat there for a minute before saying that it went against what she had been taught her whole life, but that it felt right. She's so humble and ready to learn, it's great! 

Aside from all that, the only other thing is that two sisters in our district were dying, so we had to take death pictures for their last district council. (For anyone who needs clarification, they were not actually dying, they were finishing their missions.) But those are the only pictures I have from this week.

 

 

10 December 2018

So it's almost time for transfers again, that's  next Tuesday. I have no clue if I'll stay or leave. The other missionaries are all staying stay, but the members are guessing leave, because nobody would have stayed as long as me in over a year. The branch is doing a Christmas gift card thing for the missionaries, and one of the members said that if I leave, she's taking out the money she put in and giving straight to me. I'm conflicted between wanting to stay and leave. I'm pretty firmly a city boy, and Wallace is not exactly a big city. But I love all of the members here, and the people we're teaching.

This Tuesday, we had a great lesson with Tom again about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He seems conflicted on baptism, saying he wants to be baptized within the next 30 days, but also not wanting to agree to a date. It was a really spiritual lesson, though, and he seems to be progressing well. In other news regarding people we're teaching, Michael did something for us this week. We were over teaching about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, and near the end he just looked at us and said, "You guys need a haircut." We said we knew, but wanted to find somewhere cheap. To our delight, he told us that he cut hair and would do it for free. Now, I've received a number of free haircuts on my mission, and always gotten exactly what I wanted, so I wasn't worried at all. In retrospect, I should have, knowing Michael. He pulled out his kit and Elder Martins wanted to go first and said he wanted it short on the sides and a little longer on the top. Well, he got what he asked for, but not what he wanted. Apparantly his and Michael's ideas of what short is are different. So he wasn't super happy with his haircut, but I thought I could get around by that by specifying exactly what I wanted. So, I asked for a 2 on the sides with a fade up to an 8 on top, leaving me with a solid inch left on top. However, you have to take off your glasses when getting your hair cut, so I couldn't see what he was coming at my head with. As soon as I felt him start cutting, my only thought was, "Oh that's not an 8." But the damage was done, and now I have something around a 2-3 on top and even shorter on the sides. At least hair grows back, right? Aside from that, they only news is that Sandra, the wife of one of our people we're teaching, got emergency surgery this week, so if you could keep her in y'alls prayers that would be great. 

In just fun news, we had our branch Christmas party this week. Our branch president's wife roped me into playing clarinet for a game of guessing Christmas songs, which was fun. Sorry, no videos of that. They only had me play a couple of notes at a time. But I did also provide some background music. We were supposed to wear our pajamas, and so we did. Some other missionaries happened to have some, and so we borrowed them. I went with a full candy  cane theme, carrying a big one and had pockets full of little one's to hand out. That was a big hit with the kids, and some of the adults. But it ws overall just a ton of fun. 

The craziest part of the week is the weather. We got hit by winter storm Diego here, which didn't do a whole lot. Well, in the northern  part of the state, they're absolutely covered in snow. Down here in the Southern Kingdom, we got rain. A lot of it. 3 days straight and counting, with temperatures in the mid to high 30's. Being outside isn't the most fun right now, but at least it's not been  pouring. The biggest downsides are not having umbrellas, and our now brutally short haircuts which don't hold heat in very well. But the worst is over, and we can stay inside all day if we want. We have an elder's activity this afternoon where 3 elders are going to do the Andy's Challenge. This is at a restaurant called Highway 55, and you have to eat a 55 ounce burger, a 64 ounce drink, and a basket of french fries in a half hour. If you do it, it's free. If not, it's $30. I wisely opted out. If you're interested, I can tell you the results later. But that's all for now, see y'all! (Pictures will come later.)

Haircut

Best socks I've ever seen

Reindeer we put together

Us all dressed up

And finally, Santa in his restored state. Yes, this used to be super creepy Santa

 Wow they seem determined to make sure that I don't recognize anyone when I come home, a boundary change right before I leave and another before I get home. And don't tell Tom, but Winter Storm Diego just became rain by the time it hit us. We're too far south and too close to the beach for much snow here. However, our backyard did flood rather impressively. It's been in the high 30's and raining for three days straight now, which makes being outside a lot of fun, especially with it being 95% humidity or more at the same time. The moisture just cuts straight through your coats, there's not a whole lot you can do about it. But out of all the crazy weather, hurricane #2 (Florence) was definitely the most exciting. I don't know if I mentioned it, but when I was flying in we tried to go to Atlanta at the same time that Hurricane Irma was hitting. So, I've had Hurricanes Irma, Florence, and Michael all in one mission. And Winter Storm Diego. These should be how I name my kids. That's names for two boys and two girls, not 10 girls though. Sorry. Guess I can't do that unless we get a whole bunch more crazy weather. And I don't think you want that too much.

3 December 2018

So, we've been trying to get people to church, but it's been difficult. So, new methods had to be created. We've been trying to get Ozzie to church, but he's always been giving excuses. So, we managed to get him there using an... unusual method. We met with him on Wednesday, and ended up getting him to promise to buy us some Taco Bell if he didn't go. So, he got out of Taco Bell, but I can say that I've never been happier to not get free Taco Bell. But not too much happened this week unfortunately, both me and my companion got sick. Well, he got sick and then passed it onto me. The only other news from this week is that I stepped into a hidden hole and ended up covered in mud. Thankfully, we were about to head home anyways, but Elder Martins had a good laugh. I'm just glad I've got really flexible ankles, I can't even remember ever having any sort of ankle injury, and I've stepped badly and twisted them so many times... maybe it has something to do with my ability to flip my feet around, which is going to be one of the only pictures from this week.

 Just an incredibly creepy Santa at a thrift store that they got all cleaned up and redid some stuff on

 Only the best stocking I've ever seen.

 And as promised, my halfway backwards feet. I want to get them further around, but it's a weird thing to stretch for.

26 November 2018

Thanksgiving has passed, so I now guiltlessly can wear my Christmas ties again. They've been sitting on a shelf for 11 months now, but they're free again! I was just given my second one this week, actually. Very exciting.

Thanksgiving day wasn't too exciting for us out here. We started off the morning biking to a pulga that's pretty close and tried to talk to a few people there. We had a pretty nice conversation with someone, but she kept on trying to sell me a phone case. She was near the booth, and I didn't know it was her booth until I'd started talking to her. Oops. After a while of talking to people there (and this place was PACKED), we went to our Thanksgiving lunch. They had a super good ham that they had cooked, and I found out their secret later: they had cooked it in ginger ale. Apparently this is a common thing in the south. You either cook your ham in ginger ale or Pepsi. It sounds gross or weird, but it was super delicious. And super tender. Oh, now I'm hungry again... We stayed and visited with them for a little while, and one of their guests was a little interesting... He was from the Cary area, and he knows Brother Watkins! Mom, I have yet to serve there, but I've at least now been able to make indirect contact with them! He said he'd pass on that I'd said hi. And if they ask you if it's from me because the person can't remember my name, say yes. Of course, we did our missionary duty and tried to eat everything that they had. Now, this was only the first big meal of the day. We had a dinner that we'd been invited to as well. So, we went to them at five. Thankfully, the turkey took way longer than expected, and so our stomachs had some more time to prepare for round two. Of course, we ended up stuffing ourselves silly again and having a good time. Both families have been appropriately thanked, with much gratitude on our part. 

One of the best days of the week was when we got to sit down with Oscar and talk with him again. He's really humble and nice, and always invites us right in. We taught him about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy and going to church. He's talked to missionaries before, and gone to the church a few times in the past. He said he wasn't a very religious person, but the church that he does like is ours. Then his wife spoke up and told him that if he liked a church, he should go to it! It was awesome. 

Of course, the real highlight of this week was a day that we spent knocking doors in a town called Burgaw. It was this neighborhood of maybe 125 houses that was the real interest there. While there, we got to talk to many people who "weren't interested," one person who said they'd go to church without knowing who we were or anything (and then didn't), another person who accused us of being a cult, and then an old couple with a ton of random stuff. From the top! 

Well, the people who weren't interested aren't exciting at all. Let's skip to random church guy. 

So we knocked his door, and he answered pretty quickly. After, of course, we heard some girl yell to someone, "It's two white guys!" and a voice respond, "No way, really?" We started talking with him for about 15 seconds before he asked where our church was. We told him and were writing down the address as he had a conversation in the background with his mom (?) where he asked her if she'd take him to church the next day. She seemed rather taken aback by this, but agreed. So he said that he'd go. He didn't, but it was an interesting contact anyways. 

Now there's cult lady. As she opened the door, the words were already coming out. "I'm not interested in what you're selling." The door was already shutting, and my companion quickly interjected that we weren't selling anything. Innocent enough, we get confused for salespeople fairly frequently. Clearly we were wrong, and she made sure to tell us. Yanking open the door again, with fire beginning to rise in her eyes, she set us straight. Yes, we were trying to sell her our cult. Oh darn, how do they always see right through us? Desperate to form a rebuttal after having been thrust into the light so abruptly, we regrouped and countered with the bold declaration that we were not a cult. But this kind of impertinence could not stand! Oh, no, not with her! Straightening up, she announced her status as a good Christian woman, denounced us as a cult once more, and slammed the door in a righteous fury! Her eyes had been absolutely blazing! How dare we claim to Christians? Well and truly stymied by this, we counseled together briefly and decided on our next course of action, which seemed obvious at the time: burn down her house. After a few moments of searching, our efforts were fruitless in procuring sufficiently flammable materials to accomplish our plan, and so we moved on. 

And the disclaimer: Some of this was slightly exaggerated for comic effect, and we had no intentions of causing her or her house any harm. I just thought that it sounded like a great way to end the story, rather than the much more realistic (and boring) walking down the steps to the next house. But that's pretty much all of the exciting stuff for the week, see you next time! 

 

 I feel like as these people were setting up their Christmas decorations, their thought process went something like, "How can we make this setup as dangerous as possible?"

 Just random murals you can find in Burgaw

 Just wanted to let you know mom, I only knock doors in the safest places in my areas! When there were sisters in Wallace, they totally weren't banned from knocking here!

 

19 November 2018

I'm only able to type this on a phone, so this one'll be short. But our big three things this week involved those parts of the title, in that order.

First is the fire. We were tracting down a street, and someone was burning a huge pile of branches, and we offered to help. He said no, and so we asked him how we could help. He said he was fine, but we'd already started picking up branches. He said he didn't want us to smell like smoke, but we assured him it was fine. And so we started helping, and he was grateful. We talked and worked for probably about an hour, and had a really good conversation. It turns out he has talked with missionaries before after a surgery that left one of his knees immovable for 4 months, and they had visited him everyday. He really appreciated what they did for him, and expressed gratitude for what we did too. He also dispensed some life advice, which I've taken into consideration. He also saved some woman's life once, dragging her from a burning car. He's a really cool guy. He invited us back, and said that we could come over sometime for dinner, and gave us his number. It'll be great. 

Number two was a lot of fun for Elder Martins. We were knocking doors when someone named Terry opened. He seemed a little strange at first, and invited us in. He gave us both a hug, and said that he loved us because God loved us. We had heard someone playing guitar, and we asked it had been him. He said yes, and showed us. It was pretty cool. Elder Martins said he played guitar too, and was given the chance to play as well. Terry (who asked us to call him "Pops") got his son who also played guitar, and he and Elder Martins played together for a few minutes. Then they got me to sing along, and we just had a good time for a little bit. Trying to introduce the gospel, we played/sang the only two church songs Elder Martins knows, When I Am Baptized and something else I'm forgetting right now. Anyways, we had a nice talk. He isn't very interested, because he's very firm in his own faith. He used to play in his own band, toured the country, but then had his moment of realization and turned his life around. He's really nice though, and told us to stop by whenever we needed a drink, a place to use the bathroom, get something to eat, or stay for a few nights. A very generous man.

And finally, the guns. We had set up a time to visit a less active member, and so we swung by his house. We got to meet him and his two young daughters. He's a lot of fun, and we ended up taking pictures with an inflatable poop emoji that they had. But we were talking about his job as a police officer, and he wanted to show us his guns. He walked over to a very large gun safe and opened it, and he had some cool stuff, including an M1 Garand that his father (or grandfather, I don't remember) had used. I ended up describing it as "family history with firearms," and that fit pretty well. He also invited us over for dinner whenever we were available, and pressed $20 on us to buy food. The hardest thing on my mission in refusing money from members. They seem to think it's their duty to pay us sometime. Back in my second area, I had a member threaten to shoot me if I didn't take his money. But yeah, that was the majority of what happened this week.

 

 

13 November 2018

The reason for this particular title is also part of why I'm emailing on Tuesday, we had Zone Conference yesterday. This will also lead into a slight rant about miles and how badly we're doing with them. So I'm in the Wilmington Zone now, and we had to go to Fayetteville, a 90 mile trip, and then back, another 90 miles. We only get half back for that, so we essentially just lost 90 miles. We also had our total mile total cut but another 150, and had to drive to and from Raleigh for transfers, another 200 mile round trip that only gets half back. And when I was in the Fayetteville zone, I had to go to Wilmington for Zone Conference. There's only so much you can do with that. So that's the little rant that I have about that, now onto things that actually matter.

The Zone Conference itself was awesome. Elder Costa, the President of the Area Seventies, and his wife came to it. (Which was also why it was a combined Zone Conference.) They talked a lot about the various chapters in Preach My Gospel, with a lot of emphasis on 4 and 10, Recognizing the Spirit and How Can I Improve My Teaching Skills. I came out of it all with a whole bunch of new ideas on how to start working with the members, and might I just say: Please, be the kind of members who do member work. It's so important. Even if the missionaries don't approach you about it, do it and introduce friends to the missionaries, invite them to church, just be friends and good examples. I think the biggest problem is that a lot of the time, members don't know how to do missionary work, and missionaries don't know how to do member work. We just all need to work together, and we can figure it out. Be the model families that the missionaries all love because they help them! We also got to see all of the new #LightTheWorld videos, and they're super good. I'd highly recommend watching them all (there's only 4, and they're short) because they're so powerful. There's also a new calendar thing that has been put up, and it's got a lot of great ideas. 

For just the week itself, it was pretty good. Jay has been continuing to go to church, and is even already answering questions in Sunday School! He really likes church, and is going to be a strong member, especially because he's young. We've been teaching him the lessons again, and he remembers a lot of what we taught. And he's super excited to go do baptisms for the dead, there'll be a temple trip in January. Pray for him! Osvaldo (Ozzie) has also been doing good. He keeps on saying how he's already seeing differences in his life from when we've been teaching him, and wants to continue meeting with us. He's great, but he gets nervous around new people and so church is hard for him. He hasn't made it since our last weekend of service 2 weeks ago. He keeps on saying that he wants to go, though. We also met someone really cool named Oscar. We knocked into him and he let us right in! He's talked with missionaries before, and so he already likes us. He didn't make it to church, but we're visiting with him again tomorrow. I'm excited to see where he goes. And as the last little bit of news for the week, our apartment is smelling good again due to our awesome branch president giving us a bunch of melter things, room sprays, and stuff like that that he makes himself. And some of the honey from his hives in the back. I don't know if they're online, but if you can find Sue's Wicks somewhere, go for it. It's good stuff. We also did find out the source of the bad smell, Elder Escobedo had left a whole bunch of sweet potatoes in a box on top of the fridge, and they weren't doing so hot. On the plus side, I found out that vacuums are a great way to quickly get rid of large numbers of fruit flies that are too small to be effectively swatted!

Until next time!

And these are our preparations for Christmas that we found in the attic, and the world's largest frying pan, which is about 12 miles down the road from us. We were visiting our Branch Mission Leader and decided to stop by the only tourist attraction in our area because it was on the way.

5 November 2018

So, long story short, Jay got baptized. It was awesome! Sorry, I don't have a huge amount of time because transfers are tomorrow, but I'll talk more about it later if I can.

29 October 2018

This was our last week of going out and doing hurricane cleanup. We ended up with over 500 people on Sunday! That was so cool, and it ended up being the longest time I've ever seen it take to pass the sacrament. We didn't have nearly enough trays to carry all of the cups we needed, so we had to refill a few trays. It was a really spiritual sacrament meeting. The cleanup wasn't super intense from a workload point of view, we had a ton of teams and not that many work orders left. There was a trailer park that hadn't even been touched yet, but we came there with over 200 people and left only a few hours later having mucked out all 18 trailers. The owner was so grateful. We had two people that we are teaching there, too, Jay and Osvaldo. It was fun working with them. Because of the service equipment taking up all of the space, we weren't able to baptize Jay this weekend, but it is planned for this Saturday. We're so excited for him! It's taken two months or so and two hurricanes, but it's finally happening! That'll be the big news for this upcoming week. I've uploaded more pictures to the Hurricane Florence folder, and those are the last additions. However, we helped someone else that we're teaching clean up all the grass and branches from his yard, and then we had a bonfire. We taught him by the fire, and went home smelling very much like smoke. If you got within five feet of it, it was painfully hot. It was pretty cool. For whatever reason, they also threw a couple of old tires in there as well. Those burned way hot.

22 October 2018

This week we had a couple of good lessons, and one really cool experience alluded to in the title. One of our people, Jay, is still doing great. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he accepted it with no problem. He didn't have a problem with doing any of the things in it except for a little bit of tea, and that is a miracle in of itself down here in the South. The problem is he can't drive himself, so we have to find a ride for church and things. All of this service keeps everyone tied up all day, though, and so no one can really give him one right now. We're trying to get it all figured out, and we'll see how it goes. He has a baptismal date for Saturday, and we might have to push it back by a week or two until things calm down enough. We also have started teaching another member's friend, and he is doing great. He has a ton of questions all the time, and he definitely felt the Spirit in the last lesson. We're going to teach him again this week, and he'll go out and serve with us this weekend again. We also got him to go to a devotional that President Oaks did for the Wilmington Stake on Saturday. That was really good. He talked a lot about the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy and taking the sacrament. What I wasn't expecting was how funny it would be! It was a riot for half of it. His wife made fun of him for still getting up and cleaning out the gutters by himself and getting married so young. He poked right back, and he just kept it funny and spiritual the whole way through. But the coolest part of that day for me happened earlier that morning, where our tiny branch got a special visit from President Oaks! I got to talk to him personally, explain a little about what we did, and shake his hand! He's so humble and excited about everything. It was awesome being able to hear from him.

That about wraps up the week, I'm still uploading more pictures into that Google Drive folder I shared a few weeks back. Only one for the email today. Bye!

 

Yeah! I got to talk with President Oaks face to face and he asked me about myself and that sort of thing. It was way cool! He visited the little town of Wallace (pop. 4,000) because our tiny branch building (we don't even have a chapel, just a multipurpose room) and our 35ish active members are recognized as one of the most efficient in moving teams in and out and just general organization. We got about 400 people in and out in an hour, something that even the stake center EOC's struggle with. And they have 10 times the manpower, easily! Our members are just super good at getting everything organized and keeping things flowing smoothly.

 

15 October 2018

Now that I think about it, this week marked the third hurricane on my mission. While I was flying into NC, we had Hurricane Irene that we tried to land in at Atlanta(I think it was Irene), Hurricane Florence in September, and now Hurricane Matthew just a bit under a month later in October. And my mom probably thought going stateside for my mission was safe. It didn't do too much to us, but our mission president didn't allow us to leave the day it hit. Weird, right? This week we had a really cool experience, though. Our most progressing person had an issue of his granparents hating the church. They didn't want anything to do with it, and they didn't like that he was getting taught by us or going to church. He lives with them and can't drive, so that made it very difficult to teach then as they didn't want us to come to their house. But this week we found put that their house was damaged by Florence, so we got to go over in a weekend crew and clean it up. They were grateful and we had a good talk with his grandpa. We're hoping we'll be able to get to talk with them more and get their approval for his baptism! We've also gotten in contact with some of our people we were teaching before Florence and pick it up with them again. Another cool thing that happened this week was also service related. One of the members here invited her friend to come out with us and help the clean up efforts last week, and he came this week too, even being there for church. Even cooler, he accepted to take the lessons/discussions or whatever you want to call them. Afterwards, the member mentioned to us that she had been trying to get him to go to church and talk with the missionaries for a really long time but he'd never wanted to do it. Things are looking up here, and transfers aren't until November 6th, so I still have some time left here! Then again, I'll probably stay here for at least one more transfer anyways. That's all for now, bye!

8 October 2018

This has been one of the hardest weeks of my life, physically. The amount of physical work involved in preparing for the weekend work crews (that we also do) is crazy. For example, this week included unloading two full semi trucks of supplies, one of them entirely by hand, the other halfway, as well as me and my comp making an impromptou parking lot in the field next to the church for all of the overflow parking we'd need. We only had about 45 minutes to do it, but we did a fairly decent job. The only issue was that it was a little tight pulling in and out, but we fixed that. After all of the in week stuff, we went out on the weekend and did a few houses. In the process, I managed to hurt myself in our last house on Sunday. We were ripping up their hardwood floor when a chunk of it shot up and hit me in the eye, which was thankfully covered by my glasses. It was still moving fast enough to bend my glasses way out of shape and cut me a bit around them, where either the wood or my glasses hit me. I'm not entirely sure. Still, I love serving everyone around here. It doesn't matter how sore I am the next day or how tired I am, these people are so grateful for what we're doing. People have lost everything here, and they don't know how to continue. Then, the "yellow angels" show up and help them out. One of my favorite parts is leaving a house, because we always get to leave them with a food kit that will last them a few days, a cleaning kit, and a prayer. The amount of gratitude is incredible. I don't think I'll ever understand how much we affect their lives, but I know it's for the better. Even more, people are wanting to learn about our church and why we do what we do, so the missionary work after the cleanup will still keep us really busy!

I'll attach one picture here, the rest will just go into the same Google Drive folder I shared last week. 

1 October 2018

Well, I am no longer in Raleigh. We got back into Wallace late on Wednesday. Driving in, the damage didn't seem to be too bad. Some downed trees here and there, but nothing too dramatic. And then on Saturday we got to go and start the cleanup efforts in Wallace. Long story short, there's a lot of damage, but most of it isn't easily visible from a drive-by. At one point, we were knocking doors asking people if they needed help with cleanup in a trailer park that seemed undamaged. The water line on the inside went up to about 3 feet up the walls, and everything was soaked/half destroyed. Then, if drive down other streets where they've started cleaning, there are just piles of trash on both sides of the street going all the way down. Well, to start from the beginning of the stuff we started helping with, it goes back to Thursday. The day after we got back, President Roper(our branch president) called us and told us about a special branch council meeting that they wanted us to go to. We showed up and it was all about arranging things for the ~270 people who would be coming in to help out in this weekend, and just determining the supplies we would need, how we would get everyone in and out of our tiny parking lot, and how we would help out all of the people who might be staying overnight to camp at the church. On Friday there was another meeting, this one to help stage things and get them ready for distribution on Saturday. We had to go to Wilmington and Jacksonville to pick them up, and then unpack them again in Wallace. By the time we were done, there was a pretty good setup and we were almost ready to roll. Saturday morning we made some last minute preparations and then people started coming in. People from Raleigh 3rd ward were there, so that was cool. They were the ward that I've spent the most time in on my mission, and it was fun to see them again. We assigned everyone work orders and sent them all off. There are two main types of work orders that we deal with here, muck outs and tree removal, but muck outs are definitely the most common. (Muck outs are going in and ripping out carpet, drywall, damaged furniture, appliances, and the like.) We weren't assigned to any crew, so we were at the command center until a crew came in that afternoon and asked for some Spanish translators because they were going to a job who didn't speak English. So we got to go out and help out with a mixed muck out and tree removal job. What made that one interesting was a Baptist church that showed up a little bit in with a Bobcat and some more chainsaws. The Bobcat made getting rid of the tree limbs a lot easier, but we had to build it a little bridge thing so it could cross a ditch and get to the other downed trees. It worked out surprisingly well. The homeowners had already done a lot of work, so we got it done pretty quick. That was the end of that day. Sunday turned out to be just as interesting. We had a brief sacrament meeting outside and then we attached ourselves to a crew and took off. We started off working in a really wealthy house, and it was huge. The same crew had spent about five hours working in it the day before, and there was still a lot to do. We finally left after about another five hours, with 5 people to finish off the little bit that was left. It was pretty crazy, especially because they were throwing out things that were completely undamaged, including a personal library, massive shelving units, and tons of clothes. The flood waters hadn't even reached these things, but they still threw them out. The craziest part to us was literally the only thing on the first floor that they did want to save: the front door. This made sense to us when we found out that it cost $14,000. This, as well as the fact that it was in a super wealthy neighborhood and could likely pay for contractors to clean it out, really irritated people in our group. Basically, they wanted to help people who really needed the help and not spend so much time on people they said could pay for it themselves. Well, what could we do? That afternoon, we went out in a mini group off five people to begin a muck out. It was on some back roads, and took us a while to figure out how to get there because one of the roads was washed out completely and had tons of dead fish covering part of it. That smelled really bad. Eventually, we got to it. It was on stilts to keep it from flooding, but the water level in the river had risen 17 feet and flooded them out anyways. Their whole neighborhood was on stilts, but everyone had been flooded. The waterline in this house went up to about 3 1/2 feet on an already raised house, which made us wonder how bad it would have been if it wasn't on stilts. The water had receded out of the house only 3 days before, and the roads had only cleared off the day before. All of the carpeting was still completely soaked and weighed an incredible amount. We were taking our wheelbarrow in and out, or we wouldn't have been able to do it. We also pulled out their fridge, stove, and dishwasher, as well as a lot of miscellaneous furniature and drywall. We got a good start on their house, and a crew will be returning next week to finish it all off.

Unfortunately, in terms of the people we are teaching, I still don't have any news. We haven't been able to get in contact with them at all so far, and we've basically been turned into service missionaries for a while. Our branch president said that the weekends might be like this for up to a month or two, so we'll see how things go. That's all for now, but enjoy the pictures. I took a lot, so they'll be coming through a Google Drive link. 

24 September 2018

For right now, no big news and I might not get to send a full length one. Basically, we had a cool zone conference highlighting the miracles around the hurricane, and got some training for service. Also, they got us some new service clothes and said we can start going around to help out. It'll be great! 

17 September 2018

So, we got hit with a hurricane this week. That was interesting. It was supposed to be a category 4, nearly a 5. Instead, it slowed down before making landfall (about 35 miles from my apartment) and was only a category 2. The really crazy thing is the path that it took. It was originally headed straight for Raleigh, but then curved around it, going into South Carolina and then going up into Ohio and that area. Huge miracle there. But what happened woth getting evacuated is interesting. On Tuesday we got a call that we were evacuating to Fayetteville in an hour, and so we took off. We got there and were picked up by a member named Brother Mckoy. He was super awesome, and we filled our time there with reading, playing clarinet and playing foosball. That was pretty fun. We had power the whole day we were there. The next day, (Wednesday) we got a call to leave for Raleigh in 40 minutes. We were caught off guard and so we had to shove everything in our bags and leave again. After we got to Raleigh, we got picked up by a member family called the Woodalls. They were a ton of fun to talk to. We also got permission to do more things from the mission president, including watching family friendly movies and the news. So we got to watch Coco, which was a way better movie than I thought it would be. It might just be that I haven't seen any movies in a year, though. But we spent 5 days with them. It was mostly a lot of watching the news, talking, and reading. I also got some more good cooking experience. We don't have a lot of news on how Wallace is doing, but we know there is a ton of flooding. Our apartment is probably fine. We might be here for a week or two months. No specifics here. We might be able to go out and help starting next week, but everything is still up in the air. Everyone we know is still pretty fine. Yesterday they told us to go to the stake center and now we're going to be with other missionaries working. Not too much is known, but I'll have more info.

15 September 2018

Hi mom, we were given permission to email home and tell our parents that we are alright. I'm in Raleigh(well, close to it anyways), and we've only seen some rain and heavy winds. We're fine, and the storm is skirting around us for the most part. I'll be able to talk more Monday. Bye!

10 September 2018

This week is going to be a little hectic, or it could just end up with us sitting around for a while. A Category 3-4 hurricane is coming into North Carolina on Thursday or Friday, so we'll probably get moved further inland. I'm one of the closest to the ocean, which will make life a little more interesting. We have a safe house with one of the members in the area, but they said if it's a 4 they're leaving the area as well. We got told that our entire zone (the whole Wilmington area of missionaries) is likely getting pulled into Fayetteville to sit out the storm. Everyone these past few days has been getting ready for (and are very focused on) Hurricane Florence coming in. It's really crazy how much it has been talked about. The stake presidency is having nightly meetings about it and what they're going to be doing. I'm willing to bet that we're going to end up just doing clean up for a little while as well.

For the news around here of this week, there isn't too much to report. We didn't get to meet up with J at all still, he's been having a really rough time with his health. We're hoping that he gets better. William has been doing well, but he hasn't been reading in the Book of Mormon. We've been helping him out around his house though, and apparently he's very grateful. He offered us each a few hundred dollars for everything that we've been doing, which we turned down. We kept on trying to explain that we only do this for free and because we want to help people, as well as having a rule that we can't accept money from people while we're on our missions. That only made him determined to track us down after our missions and pay us then. He's a determined man. We also recently got to have dinner with the Branch President where he talked to us about bee keeping, which he does as a hobby and makes a lot of his own honey. Which is delicious. Oh yeah, and we had some car troubles too. I don't know what it is, but they seem to have issues around me. In Raeford, I got flats all the time. Here, the touchscreen in our Malibu died. So we got to spend about 4 hours between two days at a Chevy dealership as they fixed it for us. That was interesting. What was really cool was getting to be right up next to my dream car, a 2017 Chevy Corvette Grand Sport that they had in the showroom. 

Honestly, I think that's about it for this week. Not too much has been going on, but I can almost guarantee that next week will be a lot more interesting. Nothing like a hurricane to shake things up a little bit. 

4 September 2018

I don't have too much to report on this week, so it'll be brief. We did a lot of service, and that was pretty good. More yardwork and the like. On Sunday, we had a really cool thing, we had two people we're teaching come to church! William was taken by his less active cousin who we're trying to help out (he works like crazy in night shifts and doesn't want to lose sleep). J gets taken by another member, and he told us on Sunday that he read the entire Book of Mormon! In 2 1/2 weeks! We're so pumped for him! He wants to get baptized, but it's going to be a couple weeks more until he can because of a combination of stake conference and us not being able to meet with him very often. The member has to take him to the church to meet with us because his grandparents that he lives with don't like us. He's 22 so he doesn't need their permission, but we want them to stay on good terms. We really don't want J to get kicked out! We'll continue working with him bit by bit and see how he goes. Other than that, we don't really have anything much to report this week. Just another week as a missionary! It's going great though!

27 August 2018

By way of explanation, my companion this week was freaking out a little bit about how fast his time goes because he just hit his 10 month mark. I'm about to hit 13, and it feels like 10 was yesterday. Time really is flying by ridiculously fast. (Yes, Mom, I'm aware that you don't feel the same way.)

But back to the stuff that matters. We got to visit with some really cool people this week, including with J and with William again. J said that he wants to be baptized, and so we set a date with him on the 15th of September. He's been going to church regularly, we just need to go and teach him everything! He's so ready to be baptized, we just can only meet with him 1-2 times a week. On the plus side, he's just absolutely plowing through the Book of Mormon! He's almost finished with 1 Nephi, and we gave it to him about 2 weeks ago! William is a little more hesitant about baptism, but he's also going through and reading in the Book of Mormon. He says he wants to read the whole thing before he gets baptized. He does have some good questions, though, and he went to church for the first time yesterday! He lives with a less active family who works a lot and so can't come to church much, but they've been trying to get going again. 

Last night, we got to visit with some cool people to. We knocked on one woman's door, and she invited us in after a bit of talking. Her name is Rosa, and is super religious. We gave her a Book of Mormon and showed her Moroni 10:3-5. She loved it a lot. In fact, she loved it so much that she read half of the chapter while we were there. She just wouldn't stop. She said that you could really feel the love in it. We're going to be able to meet with her again on Friday and hopefully teach all of her family. Later that night, we knocked on someone else's door and they invited us right in as well! They were also really receptive, and we're going back to visit with them next Sunday. There's big things happening in Wallace!

In more fun, random news, we had a branch activity called the Shrimp-a-Roo! Basically, we just had food and games for a few hours. We had to show up at 7 in the morning to help set up and to paint the soccer field. That was pretty cool, but ended up with us being outside for a total of about 10 hours that day. More on that later, but check this out! 

 

Missionaries getting artsy. By the way, that says SUD LDS. SUD is the abbreviation of Santos de los Ultimos Dias, or Latter Day Saints in English. And yes, that is Moroni up top. This picture was taken by my comp up on my shoulders. This was the center of the field. We had a few mini soccer games, but they were interrupted by the arrival of a huge inflatable waterslide. My comp had to go down due to losing a bet with someone for who could make the longest shot into the net. J and William went to that, too. It was a ton of fun. About an hour after this, (it ended at one and we had to help clean up) we went and helped William do some yardwork. It was pretty hard stuff for another few hours, and so by the end of it my neck looked like this: 

 

 

 

It's only a little bit painful. But overall, it was a really great day. We had a lesson with William then, too, and talked more about the BoM and why we are baptized. He's such a great guy. Also, while we were helping him, we found this little guy! You can't see his bright blue tail. 

 

We also had our first full Zone Conference with President Holland this week. It was super great! We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how important it is, not only for our people we're teaching, but also for us. He's a really awesome mission president. He knows how and when to be serious, but he can also have a lot of fun and make jokes. I can tell that it's going to be a fun last year with him. 

The only other thing that really happened this week was a "Family Home Evening" that we have with all of the Hispanics in the branch. We played Human Battleship with sponges, but in order to  be able to throw a sponge you had to be able to answer a gospel question right. That was a ton of fun, too. Here's me giving a sponge to one of the kids to throw. 

 

 

Well, I think that's all for this week. Bye!

20 August 2018

So I have been moved to my new area. It is called Wallace, and it's this tiny little Southern town. There are only about 4,000 people who live here. We have no other missionaries close, and so we go to Wilmington (40 minutes away) for district council. Hey, at least it's close to the beach. Wilmington, that is. Wallace is still way far away. We're going to be having a zone activity sometime soon, so that should have some fun pictures. Also, every Monday here we have a family home evening with all of the Hispanics in the branch, and we're doing Gospel- themed human battleship. It'll be way fun. My new companion is called Elder Escobedo, and I'll have some pictures of him attached.

This week started out pretty interesting. So, Elder Hull and I were packing up so that we could both leave the area on Tuesday morning. Then, at 8:58 a.m., we got a text from the assistants. They asked us if Elder Hull could come and play piano for the new missionary meeting. At 9:30. The problem was, he was maybe halfway packed, if that. And we lived 25 minutes away from where we needed to be. Previous to that text, we had almost three hours left to pack and get ready. Now, we had 7 minutes. We told them we'd be there as soon as possible, shoved everything into bags and into the car, and left. We got there at 9:39, which was pretty good time. They were running late too, so we weren't even actually late. So I just spent the rest of the morning just waiting for all of the other missionaries to show up. It was pretty nice to be able to talk to all of the other missionaries again before my exile to Wallace. 

Once I got to Wallace, the first thing I noticed was how absolutely tiny it was. There's just not very much here. It's crazy. But we got working pretty soon, and we have already been knocking quite a few doors. We have some really good people here. One of them, J, is super great. We gave him a Book of Mormon on Saturday, and then we talked to him on Sunday after church. He had already read up to 1 Nephi 11! He is so great, and we just need to help him understand it a little bit more. We're going to teach him again tomorrow, and we're super pumped to help him. Unfortunately, he has to have a surgery soon, so if y'all could keep him in your prayers, that would be awesome. Other than him, we don't have a whole lot of people who are really progressing a ton. One is named William, and he seems to be a pretty good guy. He just has trouble waking up for church on Sundays. (It starts at 9 in the morning.) We got to help him out with his yard on Saturday, and that was pretty fun. First time I've ever used a machete. Apparently when your grass is too tall, a lawnmower just won't cut it. (Get it?) Unfortunately, I had neglected to wear jeans, and had opted for shorts instead. There were a lot of thorns out there, and so my legs got kind of cut up. Also, I'm way allergic to some kind of grass, and it turns out that it's in William's yard. I had bumps going up my wrists, my knees, and had a rash rapidly spreading across my body. It was insanely itchy. At the same time, I had some bug or another bite me in three places on my legs, which then started to swell. My comp was genuinely concerned that I would die. I took an allergy pill and hosed myself off, and then faked being okay for a while. He had wanted to take us out for tacos, and I'll stand being way itchy for a little way if it means that I get authentic tacos. They were some of the best I've ever had, and it was definitely worth the wait. After that, we went home and I took a shower. By that night, the rash was completely gone. No more emergency visits for me! Last time that happened, it was so much worse. But it wasn't too bad this time. 

I think that's about all of the news for the week, see ya!

 

Elder Escobar in a field

13 August 2018

As my mission president informed me Saturday night, I am leaving. In fact, this area is getting whitewashed. That was a surprise. I've been here for two transfers, and my comp has been here for 4. I thought I was staying and he was leaving for sure. I was half right. Unfortunately, I have no way to get my ~8 lbs. of frozen blueberries to my next area. So they're getting left behind. I'm going to be in Wallace, a little city about 40 minutes from Wilmington. I'm pretty excited, but every time I start to pack I always have to wonder how I got all of my stuff there in the first place. I have to leave stuff in every area, and I don't even remember picking up anything. I'll figure it all out.

The work here this last week kind of is suffering. We still haven't been able to get up with that one really cool family (Luz, Maria, Anthony...) but we've finally been able to make an appointment for tonight. Hopefully they'll be back on track for when the new missionaries come in. One of them is actually one of my old companions from Raeford, and he'll be training here. I'm excited for him to see how they're doing. Another family kind of told us that they want the mom to heal up from a broken leg before we go and see them again, but we'll have the other missionaries at least stop by soon to say hi and get to know them. They have a lot of potential, but they just need to get reading in the Book of Mormon. We've also been talking with another man named Nelson from Honduras. He really wants to learn more, but can't go to church right now because of work. We are going to try to get him a job with someone in the ward who owns their own construction business, which just happens to be what Nelson works in. So hopefully that'll help. He says that he already knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true, "I mean, just look at it! There's no way he could have written it!" (rough translation from Spanish.) So that's exciting. Hopefully he'll continue to progress. 

Not much has been going on in terms of just random area stuff. It's been kind of slow. My dog bite is almost completely healed, so that's good. Mostly just some bruising that's still hanging around. The dog's owners were also located by animal control and the dog is current on all of its vaccines, so I don't have to worry about getting rabies either. Nice way to end the transfer.

6 August 2018

So, to start it all off this week, I got bit by a dog on Saturday. This particular dog has the nickname of "The Tank," given to it by one of the previous missionaries who served here. It's actual name we found out is "Muñeco," which means "little doll" in Spanish. We think that The Tank is a much more accurate description. He's a big pit bull who is always chained up in the front yard of some trailer, and whenever we pass by him he runs to the end of his chain and barks like crazy. Well, on Saturday, they didn't have him on a chain. I don't know why, but they didn't. So we were walking by (we frequently visit this particular trailer park) and as we were turning his corner, he starts to run at us. I was used to this, but I thought he still had a chain on. He didn't'. I saw that and still wasn't too worried because he wasn't barking like normal. I thought he was being friendly. (We've tried to befriend this dog, but it wasn't happening.) Then, as he was right in front of me, he jumped at my arm. At that point, I realized, "Oh, he might not be so friendly right now." This is where I think that God intervened. I hadn't even really comprehended what was going on when he had jumped. I don't remember pulling my arm back at all, but apparently I did. And I'm pretty sure it spent a lot of time in his mouth, because I had slobber on my arm almost from elbow to pinky. I'm pretty sure that I can't move all of my lower arm past a dog's mouth before it has time to really bite down, but that's what happened. I did get bit a little, but it wasn't anything major. At the same time, I kneed it in the chest/side to get it away from me a little, and then the owner called it off and it walked away. I was bleeding a little bit, but if God hadn't intervened, I would have had a 75+ lb. pit bull hanging off my arm. So that's really my miracle of the week. I'll have a picture at the bottom, but it's not bad, almost just a scratch. With some minor swelling. But that's since gone down.

In terms of the work for this week, it was pretty good. We got to meet a family of 3 who seem way open to listening more, and they really want to learn. The dad is named Roberto, and he's a taxi driver, so he even has a pretty regular schedule, which is super uncommon out here. Like, ridiculously uncommon. I think he's only the second non-member Hispanic I've met out here whose schedule isn't just absolutely insane. We're really excited for them, and we're meeting with them again on Wednesday. And something very interesting happened in terms of less-actives: We found two that we didn't know existed. One is from the Dominican Republic and hasn't gone to church in over 15 years, and the other is a 16 year old girl from Hondorus who got baptized when she was 11 and just fell away. But she seemed super open to us, and she and her aunt live with another person we've been trying to teach. She said she wanted a Book of Mormon, so we're going to go by and read with her and everyone there in it, and hopefully they'll both start going back to church. That's it for this week, talk to y'all later!

 

 

30 July 2018

Okay, this email has nothing to do with phones, but I needed something that rhymed with zones and that was the best I had. We started off this week with a zone activity, and that was pretty fun. Kind of like the Olympics with different events, but things like who can build the tallest/best looking tower out of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows and that kind of thing. It was way fun. Our district's name was the Faarsquad. Half of our district really loves Shrek, and so my comp was Lord Faarquad leading the Faarsquad into battle. There was pool noddle jousting, now that I think about it. And dueling. (Again with the pool noodles. No pools were involved.) My "event" was where we had to have someone reading out a proclamation to the people as Samuel the Lamanite with people shooting Nerf darts at you. I had to read some weird recipe and we were judged by the amount of passion we put into it. We had 5 people in the district who could help block the darts, and every hit you took was minus one point. I was awarded 15 points out of 10, because I was the last one and they had already given ten points to someone else, but said that mine was way better. However I got hit 18 times and therefore didn't do too well there. But we got five bonus points for one of district member's exhuberant blocking. If I can find a video, I'll definitely send it.

In terms of the work, we're still trying to work with the same family, but they might  have something going on that prevents any of them from being baptized, even though the kids really want to be. We'll have to see as time goes on. I'm not sure how much I can really put in an email. Still, they are progressing as much as they can and it makes me really happy to see them move on and change their lives. I love this chance that I have to be a missionary!

Sorry, I think that's all the big stuff this week, maybe more next week. Oh, and here's a random picture of my first time trying helote. (Elote?) Anyways, that stuff's way good.  

23 July 2018

My comp keeps on putting the week count on his email, and I wanted to do the same, but I don't know what week it is, which makes it way harder. Anyways, this was a pretty great week. I don't have much time right now because of a zone activity, but I'll talk about the big events of the week.

Well, the big event of the whole week was really just one of our investigators making it to church. This is the first time that someone has gone to church in this area in transfers. It was way good. Her name is Maria (same one from before) and the ward just absorbed her. We had to go to her house in the morning and knock on her door to make sure she was up and getting ready, but it all worked out. A family from the ward picked her up, and they're so great. They made her feel really welcome really fast, and already invited her to go to dinner with the rest of her family. Her family is on board as of last night, and she and her brother have baptismal dates. Their mom wants to go to church, but isn't as sure about being baptized. We had a great lesson where we taught the Word of Wisdom and what they have to do to be baptized, and they were super open to it all. They always have great questions and actually understand. Well, I will maybe send out a second one later, but I can't focus in here because it is way loud.

16 July 2018

So, tomorrow (as everyone around me keeps reminding me of) is my year left point. My official release date is to be 17 July, 2019. Everyone around me is very excited, probably because we have four missionaries in our district all going home on that day. Well, the halfway point for the Spanish misionaries going home that day is actually not until next week, and our year on a mission isn't until the week after that. English missionaries hit their halfway point last week. This is due to MTC time counting for the Spanish missionaries but not for the English ones, mostly because the Spanish ones had to spend twice as long in it.

The week itself wasn't super eventful, but I went on exchanges with someone in my district named Elder Barnes. He's pretty cool, and he's in the same group as me time-wise. It's nice to be able to work with a whole bunch of different people and see how others work, sometimes you can get stuck in a rut and not end up doing what the person really needs. Right after that exchange, we had district meeting and I went on exchange with one of my Zone Leaders, Elder Sannar. He's another really cool guy, and I learned a lot on how to work with the members from that exchange. We didn't get to tract much on that exchange, but I still think that it helped. We also got to help prepare one of the youth in our ward get ready for the mission and teach him a little bit on how to teach the Restoration. It's kind of funny, because he only speaks Spanish and is probably going to have to learn English on his mission. He struggles with that the most. It is also interesting to reflect back  on the beginning of my mission in the MTC and realize that I struggled as much as he did teaching. Actually, I struggled a lot more because my Spanish was truly terrible. Which also makes me think about how much I've improved there. In the MTC, if we diverted from the very carefully planned and written out lesson that we had, I would be completely lost and my companion (who, funnily enough, is also my companion out here right now) would take over thhe lesson entirely and I would sit there trying to keep up, and generally failing at even that. But yesterday, we were talking to the brother-in-law of one of our investigators and he was shocked to find out that I was even American. Apparantly, he had thought that I was from Spain. This is despite the fact that I don't have a Spanish accent at all, I've been told that mine resembles just a mix of people from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Chile. Which all have very distinct forms of Spanish, so mostly if someone doesn't assume that I'm American, they're just way confused about where I might be from. It's just crazy to think that I've been able to reach this point with Spanish so fast, I know that it's only with the Lord's help that I've been able to do this. I took five years of German in school, and I wasn't ever even close to where I am in Spanish. It would always take me a second to switch between English and German mentally, but I can switch between English and Spanish literally without thinking. I sometimes find myself thinking in Spanish even! This is just so incredible to me because I don't even have the chance to be fully immersed, but the Lord gives us what we need to help the people we talk to. I'm excited to see what might happen in the next year. 

For other random things in the week, we had interviews on Wednesday for the first time with President Holland. He assured us that they were very different this time than what they were normally going to be, and then proceeded to talk to us for the whole time about our families. It was a get to know you type thing, but it was still kind of strange. It'll take  while until I'm as comfortable with him as I was with President James. Still, I look forwards to the opportunity. And another random cool thing, we got to talk with one of our investigators for the 4th time today. That's pretty rare out here, they're very rarely there for their return appointments. We're just trying to get him ready and willing to go to church. We know he likes having us around, partly because we don't badmouth the other churches. We can tell he likes having us around because he made us carne asada and hot dogs, and tried to get us to eat a lot of it. And then invited us to go fishing with him and his brother in law (same one as before) so that he could make us catfish. We had to politely decline, we're pretty sure it's not allowed. We're not 100% sure, but it doesn't hurt not going just to be safe. 

Well, I think that's about it for the week. I know that I'll remember something huge soon, but for now that's all.

9 July 2018

So, this week has been kind of crazy. It's felt like two weeks in one, and just absolutely flown by. So not too much happened in the first few days of the week, just that those teenagers Maria and Antonio we had been teaching weren't there for their return appointments and they weren't responding to texts.  So, on Thursday, we declared a temporary drop on them and made plans to contact them next Thursday. But Wednesday was really the big day of this week. That was when we had our first meeting with the new mission president, President Holland. Wow, it was intense! He is definitely a different sort of mission president than President James was. The big quote from the meeting that people keep on quoting is, "If you are disobedient and aren't going to change, I will not hesitate to send you home." That's a big change from before. Personally, I think it's for the better. But we also got to meet his family, and that was pretty cool. No, we didn't get to meet his dad. And yes, that is how he refers to him. It's kind of funny. But it was a really great meeting and we're all super pumped to be able to work with them.

The big thing of this week happened yesterday. So, we were trying to go to a few appointments last night, but they were all falling through. We were heading to the last one where the miracle happened. We were in the same trailer park that Maria and Antonio lived in, and we were walking down this one street a pretty good distance away from their house. So imagine our surprise when they were pulling away from a house and driving towards us! So Maria stopped the car and we started talking to them. They invited us to come by to talk with them more that night, and we said we'd be able to go soon. We tried our last appointment at about 8:00, but they weren't there either. So we walked down to Maria and Antonio and got to teach them the Plan of Salvation! It was way cool. They had a lot of really great questions and were getting involved. Now there's a few things involved in what made last night so crazy. 1: We had decided to park in a nearby parking lot and walk to this trailer park, rather than park in front of the trailers that we had planned on visiting. If we hadn't done that, the timing would have been off. 2. There was a set of sisters that were driving by at the time and stopped us to ask us if this was our area. Basically, the boundaries in that part are really weird and so there's a few streets that are kind of a gray area. Again, the timing would have been off if that didn't happen. And 3. All of the appointments fell through. If they had been there, we wouldn't have been walking down the right street at the right time. So basically, everything lined up perfectly to allow us to talk with them again. We are going to invite them to be baptized after we get the chance to talk with their mom again, which should be happening tomorrow. So yeah, we're getting excited over here. I think that's about it for this week, bye!