26 December 2017

Sorry for not giving y'all a warning about me not being able to email yesterday. I didn't know until yesterday that I couldn't have just about any time, but the mission president said we had a little time today. Well, Christmas was great! We opened presents with some other missionaries and I did really appreciate the gifts Mom! After presents, we went over to Bishop's house to make our calls. After that, we hung out for a few hours with them (it was both p day and Christmas, so...) and had a breakfast. They had a basketball shooting game that I went head to head with Bishop on, and lost. Just barely. He took that as an opportunity to go over again how Hoosiers don't have anything on Tar Heels when it comes to basketball. After that, we were over at another member's house for dinner and some games. We had biscuits with gravy, turkey, ham, and nachos. It was pretty interesting. The only game we ended up playing was Quelf, which was still pretty fun. After that, we were given the chance to watch a church movie, so we watched 17 Miracles. It was really weird after nearly 5 months without any tv.

The rest of the week has been a little strange. We haven't been able to get up with one of our investigators for a while, and we just found out why. Her husband (who she kicked out and tried to get a restraining order against because he beat her and their children) is back against her will. And we also now have a death threat against us if he ever sees us come over again. We'll just have to be a little more careful. (Okay Mom, a lot more careful.) But the finding here is still going strong! Everyone is super open to listen, especially around Christmas. Hopefully it'll tide over after Christmas as well. We're trying hard, but it's been a bit hard to keep up with some of them around now because everyone is leaving for other places. I'm pretty sure it'll all calm down after this season now, so we'll be able to work normally again.

I wasn't expecting a chance to email today, so I wasn't ready to upload pictures. However, I'll have plenty next week. Bye until then!

18 December 2017

Well, nothing too spectacular happened this week. So much so that I forgot to get pictures. (Sorry Mom.) So here's a picture of Elder Lowe (not my companion) looking surprised.

​The most exciting thing that happened this week was probably our top investigator who was going to be baptized this week texted us and said that she was going to follow her culture of worshiping saints rather than be baptized. Either that or that was last week and I simply don't remember when it happened. Still, it wasn't fun. On Mondays we don't have anything to do out here, so my companion and I played Risk where I lost 13 consecutive dice rolls in a row. I was done after that. Today we're having a zone activity that none of us are excited about because it'll basically just be hanging out at a stake center really far away that we don't have enough miles to go to. When we got to this area on December 6th, the previous elders had already used 694 of the 1100 miles we're allowed to go for the month in the car. It wasn't for good reasons, either. They just spent the last few days driving around the area (which is pretty sizeable) visiting members, hanging out with them, and saying goodbye. So we don't have any miles left for the car, and zone activities are mandatory. Hopefully the car doesn't get taken away. We've already explained the situation to the assistants, so probably not.

Friday was pretty fun. We had a ward Christmas party that we invited tons of investigators to, but none of them showed up. However, we did have a less active/part member family in our area show up, so we got to give them an impromptu tour of the building, which is brand new (less than two months of use) and we got a return appointment with them. Hopefully it'll work out well. We did a nativity where the other elders had to be two of the wise men.

On Sunday we had a Christmas program. It was really cool, and I got to sing in Spanish with the rest of the Spanish group. We had two investigators there and they loved it.

Well, that's all of the news I have for this week. Have a great week!

11 December 2017

So transfers happened this week. I am now in Siler City with Elder Schmidt. He seems like a good guy, and this is a really crazy area. It's a small city with a population of only 8,000 people, but the work is going so much better than in Raleigh. We had one of our bikes stop working when the tire went flat and then we were on foot for the next two days. The most crazy thing is that that was when we started finding like crazy. 9 new investigators in two days! That's a week or two of work in Raleigh! Also, we somehow managed to make it to all of our lessons with some crazy timing. Twice in one day, if we had showed up on time rather than the 10-15 minutes late we did, we would have missed them. We also got to talk to two less actives, both of whom went to church yesterday. One of them works at the Search and Rescue station here, and when we showed up, we ended up teaching his junior trainee the Restoration as well. We're working with someone who has a baptismal date on the 23rd, and apparently she hadn't been taught the Word of Wisdom. You need to follow that for at least two weeks leading up to your baptism, and we didn't get to talk to her until the day that marked two weeks. So we talked to her about it and committed her to living it, and she said that she didn't even do any of those things anyways so it wouldn't be a problem for her at all! It's been a fantastic start to this transfer. Aside from an exchange that happened the very first day of the transfer so I didn't really even get to know my companion until day two, it's been pretty standard. We have some really great members out here, and it seems like a solid ward. The only problem is that I was asked to translate on my first Sunday out here. Which reminds me of the weird thing about our companionship: We're both right out of training, as green as can be. Which never happens. The even weirder part about it is that I'm the senior companion. We don't know why, because there can be co senior companionships, but somehow I am senior. Even though technically he's had about 7 more hours of being in the actual field due to all that mess from me trying to get out here on that plane. (He came from the Provo MTC and skipped all the plane drama.) So yeah, I don't know what I'm doing some of the time, but we're doing well! Also, the weather here has been crazy. It was in the mid 60's one day, and then we had the first snow that lasted for two days. Nothing really stuck though, which was sad.

Elder Allred, my second trainer because of the bike accident

The first snow here in Siler City

And this was the first time I saw Elder Schmidt cooking.

​

4 Decemeber 2017

So this week has been interesting. Basically, I was just trying to figure out how to work in a trio for a whole week before we're all getting transferred. Well, except for trainer #2. He's going home. Meaning I'm sending home two of my first three companions. Yay for trunky training! One of my companions in this trio was my MTC companion. Actually, with my MTC companion, we're in the same district. So we saw each other a lot, even before we went into the trio together. We've joked that we might be serving our entire missions around each other. Anyways, we're going to figure out who our new companions are tomorrow. I think that they intentionally have PDay as the day before transfers so the family is in the dark for a week before they get to find out who their missionary is with. It's been fun in the trio, but it's also made me have a very strange start to the mission. By the time I get out of training, I'll be on companion #4 in my third transfer. I'll also have had two trainers, and a "brother" in the mission in two transfers. Not the normal start. All I know right now transferwise is that I am leaving the Raleigh zone, but I don't know where to or who I'll be with. So hopefully I can tell all that next week.

For whatever reason, all of the cars out here are dying for whatever reason. Either they're getting transferred out of our zone or there have been minor crashes that do a ton of damage somehow and completely cripple the car. So we've been on bikes again. It's not been too bad, but we have to cover two areas, so there's been a whole lot of biking all over Raleigh. My legs have never been more sore. And it turns out that my bike was actually damaged in the crash that sent trainer #1 home. My rear derailleur is pretty badly bent, so I need to fix that too. It kind of works, but it's threatening to pop off at any moment. Hopefully I can spend some time working on that today. 

In terms of the work, it's been a little frustrating. Our boundaries have already changed once, so we got an investigator from the Zone Leaders, but they're changing again so we're losing them again. Also, our most promising investigator was super drunk when we last met with him. We ended up switching our lesson plan to the Word of Wisdom, but he didn't want to talk with us because our Spanish wasn't good enough for him while he was drunk, so he spent the entire lesson interrogating the member we had with us. He was asked how old he was, where he was from, and a few other questions. The big problem was that he couldn't remember what he'd asked, so he did it over and over again. We set another appointment, and hopefully he'll be sober for that. Other than that, it's been a ton of knocking doors. We spent six hours knocking doors on Saturday, and only 5 people opened the door. None of them wanted to listen. However, yesterday, we decided to try a potential who wasn't there for their return appointment, and we found them home with another six people who all wanted to listen! It was super awesome, and we got to teach them all. Hopefully they'll all be progressing well. 

I think this is all the news for the week, so have a good one everyone!

 

Actually, with my MTC companion, we were in the same district. So we saw each other a lot. We've joked that we might be serving our entire missions around each other. Anyways, we're going to figure out who our new companions are tomorrow. I think that they intentionally have PDay as the day before transfers so the family is in the dark for a week before they get to find out who their missionary is with. It's been fun in the trio, but it's also made me have a very strange start to the mission. By the time I get out of training, I'll be on companion #4 in my third transfer. I'll also have had two trainers, and a "brother" in the mission in two transfers. Not the normal start. All I know right now transferwise is that I am leaving the Raleigh zone, but I don't know where to or who I'll be with. So hopefully I can tell all that next week. It's got to be fun with the other car down and so many places to go. We have that same problem here. For whatever reason, all of the cars out here are dying for whatever reason. Either they're getting transferred out of our zone or there have been minor crashes that do a ton of damage somehow and completely cripple the car. So we've been on bikes again. It's not been too bad, but we have to cover two areas, so there's been a whole lot of biking all over Raleigh. My legs have never been more sore.

 

 

27 November 2017

So yeah. My companion went home this week because he needed surgery. Basically, we went into the doctor's on Tuesday to get some more x rays. So, we get those done and sit back down to wait for the doctor to arrive. We knew it was bad when he walked into the room with a weird expression on his face and immediately asked if he had done something to reinjure himself. He then showed us the x rays, and originally he had broken his collarbone but it was still in one piece, just cracked. With the second set of x rays we found out that his collarbone was now two pieces, and the ends weren't even touching anymore. We started walking out of the room to go see them and I saw a computer screen with his x ray on it. He didn't say it was his at first, but the first thing I thought was, "Oh I hope that's not Elder Rolph's bone." Unfortunately, it was. So he got to have a nice chat with the doctor about his options. There were only two. Let it sit there in the sling and heal as it is, which would result in a huge knot of bone, possible reduced range of motion, and possible nerve issues. Or he could have the surgery and have a plate holding the two parts together, which would hugely reduce recovery time and almost immediately regain at least some use of the arm. The doctor very much encouraged the second option. So Elder Rolph talked to the mission president who agreed that it would be best to go home and get the surgery, especially because he only had two weeks left anyways. We had the official call of he's going home to have the surgery on Tuesday at about 2, and his flight was Wednesday at 1:30. The church is very efficient in shipping its missionaries around. So we spent the rest of Tuesday packing his stuff and getting him ready to go. Then we spent Wednesday morning getting stuff figured out and putting me with my new companions. So, I'm now in a trio with 2 elders from my district, and we're covering two areas. The funny thing is that one of those elders is my MTC companion, so we already know each other. The other one is his trainer, so now he's training two elders in Spanish at the same time. He's also going home this transfer. Then on Thursday we had Thanksgiving with one of the counselors in the bishopric. The funny thing is he's one of the only Americans in the ward, so we had an English Thanksgiving. We ended up being the judges of all of the pies, so we had to eat from five different slices. There was a super good apple pie, and we declared that the winner. Mom, you have the pictures of all that, so you are in charge of pictures. They didn't give us them. But it was fun, and after that madness for days in a row the rest of the week was kind of a blur. So sorry, that's all I have for this week. Except for that I relearned how to juggle.

20 November 2017

Well, this has definitely been the least exciting week of my mission. We couldn't find last week because of my companion's injury, and so we didn't have any appointments. We spent a few hours on Monday in the hospital, and then we didn't have much else to do. For most of Tuesday, we were in the apartment but got to go out and knock a little bit. Wednesday was pretty good. We had a zone conference, and we got to go to the temple. It was super nice. It's always great to be able to go and do work. Then Thursday we went on exchanges with our district leaders. We mostly just knocked because they didn't have any appointments set up that day. Still, it was great to go out and work. The next morning we transferred back and I immediately went on exchanges with our zone leaders. That one was even better. We didn't knock a whole lot, but I got to go with him and teach a few lessons. And I got to drive the only truck in the mission. It's a Chevy Silverado, and only the Raleigh ZL's have one. The only reason I got to drive it was the ZL I was with had his driving privileges taken away after getting dinged by the system called Tiwis- Teenage Independent Witness. Basically your mother sitting next to you and screaming at you if you speed, brake too hard, accelerate too fast, or turn too hard. And then telling your mission president. I didn't think that I would enjoy it much, but it turns out that I also love driving trucks. Not just small cars like I thought. Unfortunately, I got back after that exchange and found out my companion had decided to go out and knock and work for two full days without wearing his sling. He's in a lot of pain, so we couldn't work Saturday or Sunday. It took me and my district leaders an hour and a half to convince him to leave the apartment this morning. He just doesn't want to move at all anymore. It's kind of rough just being stuck in your apartment all day. On the plus side, I've had plenty of time for scripture and language study. I've also read every Ensign we have. Which is a lot. Well, that's all for this week. As nothing really happened, I don't have any pictures, so I apologize for that.

13 November 2017

Yay! We got in a bike crash! It was very fun, and I got to ride in an ambulance for the first time! What happened is that we were going down a hill when it was really dark, and it had been raining all day. My companion saw a pile of leaves that covered the entire sidewalk and thought it would be fine to go through them. I was maybe 15-20 feet behind him, so I couldn't see it. He hit the leaves and started to slide, and I was right behind him. He went down first, hit the ground hard, and started to slide. I hit the ground right after him on my right side, rolled onto my feet and walked over to him. It was probably that roll that saved me, because when I got to him, he was laying on the ground with his head bleeding. And both his hands. And his ear. I started checking to see if he was okay, and two people showed up with some paper towels for his head. They started asking questions, and then we found out that he had lost a lot of his recent memory. While I was calling our mission nurse, they called an ambulance. The nurse showed up right before the ambulance did, and she fought them on taking him to the hospital, because she said it would be too expensive for the ambulance. They said they had to take him rather than her because he was confused and couldn't make his own choices. So, I got to ride in the ambulance with him. When we got to the hospital, they made me wait outside, so I found the mission nurse and sat with her and her husband. Eventually, we got to go in and see him. Elder Root (the mission nurse's husband) and I gave him a blessing. Shortly after that, he started to regain his memory. I had forgotten my camera, so not many pictures from it. Our mission president got a whole bunch of pictures when he got there, but he never sent them to us. When he was released, he had cuts on his hands, a bloody bald spot on his head, a really cut up ear, a cut shoulder, and a broken collarbone. My sum total of injuries from the exact same type of crash about a half second after his: A bruise on the inside of my left calf from my own shoe, a mid-sized cut on my right knee, and an 8 inch long bruise on my right hip. Not much for me. He has to wear a sling for a while, and might go home if our visit to the orthopedic surgeon says he needs surgery. He'd be slightly peeved, mostly because he only has 22 days left anyways. So I've been stuck in the apartment with him, working on the area book. I think I'm going to explode. Well, that's pretty much my big thing from the week. Until next time! ​

​Elder Rolph's head, 1 week from the accident



His helmet that he had borrowed just for that one day. We had forgotten ours as we dropped off the car, and the other missionaries let us just use theirs. Didn't even make it 24 hours before we had wrecked one of them.

​My pants after the accident. (Sorry mom, I didn't even make it out of my first area before I ruined some.)

​Here's the crazy part: this is Elder Rolph's normal helmet. If he'd been wearing this one, he probably wouldn't have made it nearly as well. (Note the safety pin holding it together.)