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.)

 

 

27 May 2019

So there wasn't a huge amount of stuff that happened this week. Mostly interviews, another Spanish Summit, and we found a turtle.

Interviews just happened on Thursday, nothing too exciting. We had to drive to Fayetteville, but that was about it. Nothing too exciting, President just wanted me to keep going in Clinton. Transfers are next Tuesday, so we'll see what happens. 

The Spanish Summit was pretty fun. It was a bunch of instructions and roleplays. Nothing super exciting, but it's always great to get up with all of my old comps and talk about how we're all doing. 6 of the Spanish Elders all go home together next transfer, so that's always a big topic of conversation. Other than that, not too crazy. 

The turtle was interesting, we were driving back from the church and we saw a turtle in the middle of the road. So we stopped to pick it up and move it, and took a couple of pictures. It managed to scratch my hand a bit, which is why it's on the ground in one of the pictures. 

Well, I forgot to send stuff about people we're teaching. The only major development was with Elizabeth. She went to church again, and we found a better ride for her now. We had a lesson on Saturday with her and a senior missionary named Elder Penrod. It was about repentance, and went really well. She's getting closer to deciding to be baptized, and even threw away all her coffee! She's making a lot of progress really fast.

20 May 2019

It's not been too terribly rainy here, which has been nice. It would just make the humidity here even more unbearable. We just hit 95 degrees a couple of days ago, and the humidity is pretty bad too. I checked the weather for Mesa, and it's going to be hotter here all week than there. And again, the humidity. I'm just glad I don't have to deal with a second full summer here. Come to think of it, I only had to spend one August here. Not bad, huh? 

As for the tracting, I've done almost none of that recently. It's weird. President Holland is really encouraging us to move away from it as much as possible and use other ways to find new people to teach. It is still going pretty well, we started teaching a member's boyfriend this week. Come to think of it, I'm still not 100% sure that the member knows about it. We found him (Gio) trying to talk to his mom who had been taught about a year before, and he really is open to learning a lot. He was the one who told us that his girlfriend was a member, and the daughter of the first counselor. We also don't think that the dad knows, so we're trying to figure out our next step with him. It's an interesting situation. 

We're also teaching Nino and Maria, which is a very interesting situation. Nino got injured at work a few years back after falling and hitting his head, so now he has the approximate mental capacity of a six year old, according to Maria. Basically, we teach Maria and try to keep Nino out of trouble. A member named Brother Centeno lives in their neighborhood and has been helping us out with them. We tried to visit them last night, but Nino was trying to "fix" the hose and didn't want to come in, so we're just going to go back on Tuesday. Their 20 year old daughter is home from college, so we'll try to start teaching her as well. I'll be on exchange in another area on Tuesday, so I won't have too many details on how well it goes, but I'll do my best to get them. 

Also on Tuesday, (but before the exchange) we're going to have a second Spanish Summit. That's where all of the Spanish missionaries in the mission get together and basically discuss how to best do Spanish work, because President Holland is recognizing that it is fundamentally different than English work and wants us to have more specific training. So, you'll probably get some pictures from that as well. 

The only thing that I really have pictures of this week was an exchange with the Spanish Training Leaders, two experienced missionaries who are basically the Assistants but for just the Spanish missionaries. I went with Elder Crowton, and it was pretty fun. He and I go home together, and we spent a little time just talking about how to not get really, really trunky. And then Harry Potter. It was a mixed bag. 

Elizabeth is still doing well. I was on exchange for her last appointment, but they were talking about temple work and baptisms for the dead. She asked them about if her 6 week old daughter was in heaven, and they read Moroni 8 with her. She started crying and was super happy to know that she could see her daughter again. We talked with her the next day and she was still pretty emotional about it. I love seeing how much the restored gospel can bless people's lives, and I know that the Book of Mormon teaches us the truths that we need! 

I think that's about it for the week, see ya! 

(The picture is just us and the STLs petting a horse that's in our backyard. Ish.)

 

 

13 May 2019

This was somewhat more of an eventful week. On Thursday, we had a zone conference. We focused a lot on planning effectively, and we all got new planning whiteboards! It's the kind of lame thing that only us missionaries get excited about. It was  really good zone conference though, and it gave me a lot of new ideas. Directly after, we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Stubblefield, and Elder Lacey went with Elder Crews. It was a fun moment to reminisce with Elder Stubblefield, we went on exchanges for just a few hours while both of our trainers had to go to a meeting in my first week in field. Well, it went a little different than last time. Firstly, we had  full overnight exchange unlike the first one, and secondly, both of us actually knew what we were doing this last time. It made for a pretty good exchange, but we nearly got Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame spoiled for us. Someone who we were teaching was very enthusiastic about those and didn't know that we don't watch movies out here.

As for yesterday, I had a nice Mother's Day. I got to call my family, and Mom only had to tell the family to be quiet so she could hear me about four times. Clearly it was a peaceful day back home. We had some really good speakers in church who talked about the importance of mothers, especially to their children. (I had to translate The Family: A Proclamation to the World off  the top of my head, which is definitely not something I reccomend as a fun activity.) 

Sunday afternoon/evening we got to visit with Elizabeth again. She lives pretty far out there, so it's hard to get to her sometimes. But we had a good lesson with her on tithing and prayer. She never has any issues with the commandments we teach her and commits to live them, but is still a little unsure about getting baptized. Yesterday she said that she was getting close to being ready though, so we're hoping to have that be coming up soon. She's already been to church five times and loves it every time, she's just waiting to get an answer to her prayers about this being the true church. 

We also managed to get up with Wayne again this week, and he's been making a lot of progress with the Word of Wisdom. Right now, he's down from 1 gallon of sweet tea every 2 days to 1 gallon every four days, and never drinks it in front of us anymore. We're still trying to figure out how to get him to church, there's not a whole lot of members in his area, and it would have to be a longer term solution. He might be moving into Clinton proper though, which would make it a lot easier. He really loves having us come over, but he gets sidetracked easily. Still, we have high hopes for him.

This week we also got up with Jaquita, somebody who we'd first talked to about a month or two ago. Her sister had surgery down in Florida, and she just got back from helping her out. When we ran into her again she was having a yard sale, so we set up a time to come back for Wednesdy. She seems to like learning, so hopefully we'll be moving along with her. 

Gio is being very hard to get up with. Teenagers who work are probably the second hardest group of people to find and home regularly. We'll just keep plugging along and see when we can get up with him.

And for a more interesting part of the week, service! Our mission is a pilot mission for testing out how service affects the work in an area, and it's been keeping things interesting. We are supposed to get 10 hours a week each, which is hard in little areas like Clinton. We had really been struggling to find opportunities to serve this week, and we even tried something President Holland suggested, going door to door in work clothes offering to help people. Nobody took us up on that, and we tried texting various people in the branch and some that we were teaching to see if anybody knew anybody who needed help. Finally, one of the members answered and we ended up going out to him and mowing his lawn and helping wash his cars. It ended up being pretty fun, and we got four hours of service time out of it. 

That's all that I can think of for right now, so this is it for the week. See y'all later!

Pictures:

This was a pork burrito that one of the members made for us on Thursday, and it was absolutely huge and delicious. Only the second meal in my life that I've taken a picture of.

Just some of the weird stuff you can find while driving through Clinton. 

And finally, one of the turkey trucks. (Or chicken, I couldn't tell.) We live next to a bunch of turkey and hog farms, so these are a pretty common sight. What's worse, and even more common, is the smell!

 

 

29 April 2019

I've been doing my fair share of yard work this week, we've been helping clean up someone's yard. They have a tree filled section where there was an unbelievable amount of undergrowth and vines everywhere. After many hours of help, you can almost make it the 30 feet to the creek behind it. We were getting really close when on Thursday I had a bit of a scare. So you know how bad my poison ivy reaction is, right? Well, it turns out that there was some in the area I had been working, in some cases actually crawling on the ground. So we bailed quickly, used the hose and some soap to scrub my arms down really well on site and then we ran home and I showered thoroughly. So far, no reaction! So if you want a blessing of the Lord, there's a major one right there! I was fully expecting a hospital visit after that. But we're doing good over here.

22 April 2019

So this week the weather continued to be absolutely crazy. We were visiting some members on Friday morning when one of them told us to be careful because the weather was going to be really bad. Well, this was news to us. Apparently, there were some severe thunderstorms coming in and tornadoes were an option. Never ones to be beat, we took it and all the rain in stride. That is until, of course, we got a call a 5:30 locking us down in our house. So that made it a little less fun. The result was a lot of wind and rain with  tornado warnings and watches all around. Nothing but another fun day of weather in North Cackalacky!

In random news, Elder Lacey and I are both staying in Clinton for another transfer. That means that the chances that I finish my mission here are pretty high. 

And on to the people we've been teaching. Elizabeth went to church again this week, which was awesome. She's been going consistently and we've been working with her still. We had an appointment with her, but we had to cancel after a bunch of confusion after church. Still, we plan on setting a baptismal date with her in this next week. It'll be great!

Wayne has starting progressing again. We call and read the Book of Mormon with him every few days, and he really likes it. He says that we've been able to answer things for him in ways that no other church has been able to. He still needs some time and consistent work, but we'll keep it up with him. 

Damaris didn't go to church, and we stopped by after to see how she is doing. She said she doesn't like it because she doesn't really understand what is being said. Now, I could see this as a genuine concern if she hadn't turned down the offer of a translation headset. So, we're a little stuck with her.

Gio is also going slowly, he isi just really busy all of the time. When school is out we'll be able to go and visit him a lot more often. 

We have some newer people, Nino and Maria. They're a really nice couple, but they haven't been able to go to church because they have to take their daughter back to college in Fayetteville on Sundays. We'll try to work it out with them, and maybe have them bring their daughter to church with them as well! They're a bunch of fun, but a little hard to keep on track. We taught them the Plan of Salvation the last time we were there. Maria was really focused on it and seemed to like it quite a bit. Nino was all over the place. 

On Sunday we got to have an awesome Easter lunch that some of the members had made. We had steaks, chicken, rice, beans, rolls, potato salad and lemonade. Very filling, and very tasty. 

Saturday we had the branch Easter activity. That was a bunch of fun, and more good food. They had a dessert auction and and thing of Jello sold for $20. The bidding got pretty intense. I put in a bid of $1 a few time for some plates of cookies, but was unsurprisingly outbid every time. Someone evidently took pity on the missionary budget though, and gave us a plate of the cookies I had bid on! So just a good day overall. That was also when they had the Easter Egg hunt for the little kids, and they had laid them out all over the place. They also had a scavenger hunt, and they dragged us in on one side. That was pretty fun, but when we got to the chest that they had locked, the lock was jammed and we couldn't get the key in. Well, that ended up getting cut off. You know that all activities end best with someone breaking out the bolt cutters. And yes, they had them on hand because you know, it's North Carolina. But that was about all the fun from the activity. Time for pictures!