The baptism of Edward

Yes! It happened! This week was great. We started out the week with a dinner lesson with Edward at the Fowler's house. The Fowlers have been great in fellowshipping Edward. We had a great lesson with him on Monday night and finished teaching all of the principles necessary for baptism. That's the quickest I have ever taught anyone all of the principles, in fact, that is the first time that I have taught all of the principles needed for baptism. And everything just clicks for him, it makes perfect sense to him. We got a little worried in the middle of the week because we lost contact with him. His phone wasn't working so we were kind of freaking out a little. His baptismal interview was supposed to be Friday, and luckily Thursday night he called us! He got his phone fixed and he told us the first thing he did was call us. We went by the next morning and went over the baptismal interview questions. We also learned some pretty sad news. It turns out he has moved to south Charlotte, which is in a different stake😢. So we talked to President and the bishop, and we decided to go forward with the baptism and the confirmation on Christmas Day then transfer his records to the Sharon Ward. That's pretty super sad news, considering how people have embraced him in this ward, and we won't be able to teach him the new member discussions, but I am sure he'll be totally fine. People will love him in the new ward, too. That night, Brother Potter (another amazing fellowshipper) picked him up, took him shopping for a suit, shirts, socks, and some ties. So great. He had the baptismal interview, Elder Johnson, one of the Zone Leaders interviewed him and said it was one of the most spiritual discussions he's ever had. Needless to say, Edward passed with flying colors. Saturday morning he came to the Ward Christmas party. It went pretty well, except it was so crowded that we had to sit in a different room with the Fowlers and Edward and a bunch of crazy kids. This ward is so big, and the building is average sized. Anyway, Sunday came and he came to church and right after church he got dressed into his outfit, and we had a good baptismal service. We had Brother Fowler baptize him. It was pretty rough since Edward has only one good leg and that one isn't even that strong. Edward had to hold on to Brother Fowler in a weird way for it to work and Brother Fowler had to squat in a weird position to get it done. They had to do it two times because the first time Edward's hand didn't go under. But it got done and Edward was super happy. We had him bear his testimony afterwards and he bore a super amazing testimony, he told us his whole story. 

So he was born in Ghana and he was a popular guy in high school. He even came out with a

couple music albums that got pretty popular. He was also super good at soccer and had scholarships to plenty of schools and was planning on playing soccer for the Ghana soccer team. But all of that changed when he got hit by a wayward car. He lost the strength in his legs and he only is able to hold his weight on one for a short time, hence, crutches. He moved to South Africa with his mom when his mom and dad split because the mom wanted to practice Christianity and his dad wanted to continue worshiping African idols. He wanted to get baptized but no one would baptize him because he was crippled. He worked as an English teacher in South Africa until he uncovered some sort of scam and exposed it and he started getting death threats so he moved to America. The rest is history. He had such a powerful testimony. He started reciting scriptures from the Doctrine & Covenants and the first four Articles of Faith. He is so ready for being confirmed next week. 

This week other than that was good. I had two exchanges, one with Elder Seely and one with Elder Bingham. They were both pretty fun. Now that Edward is baptized, we are back to looking for more people. We got a new referral from someone so we'll see how that goes. Well, honestly, I can't really think of what else happened this week I am just so excited for Edward! Love y'all!

Feliz Navidad

Hello! This week was pretty good. This week was pretty wet and chilly. I had to break out my winter coat this week, it was nice though, the summer was so hot. 

Anyway, Edward is so great! We had three appointments with him this week and he came to church. Two of the lessons we had with him were at members' houses. We taught him most everything this week, and we actually talked with him and moved his baptismal date up to the 18th! So after church next week he'll be baptized! So that's super exciting. He is the most solid person I have met on my mission, it's so great! 

Last night we went caroling with the YM and YW. We had a bunch of fun with them visiting less active or lonely members. We had a really fun group. We had Interviews and district meeting this week, they both went pretty well. That's about all that happened this week. I'm so sorry it's such a short email, but we have an early dinner appointment with Edward, so I got to go. Love ya!

Wow!

So this week was so good! Now that November is over we are going to have an amazing December! So I guess I'll just start off with the most exciting part, and his name is Edward!!! So on Wednesday I was at the mission office and I was about to get going when a senior sister came up to me and asked if I was in the Mountain Island Ward. I said I was and she got super excited. It turns out while I was there, a man named Edward showed up in a taxi cab. He explained to her that he was from Africa, and he had gone to our church in Africa and he really liked it, but he didn't think the church was here in America. He was looking for it one day and he found one in Asheville, which isn't even in our  mission, and he was going to get a cab ride all the way out there to find a church. Luckily his brother corrected him and told him there was one on Hilliard which is the mission office. So he took a taxi there. It's a good thing that out of all the churches around Charlotte he went to the Hilliard one because it would be the only church with people inside of it at the time, and even better, it was full of missionaries! So that afternoon we called him and that night we saw him with a member. We saw him twice this last week and he committed to a baptismal date of the 24th of this month! Christmas Eve! He also came to church yesterday. The member we initially brought with us picked him up and sat with Edward. We were sitting in the back with some other investigators and they were sitting at the front, and before we knew it Edward went up to the pulpit and bore his testimony! He said he already knows the church is true! We are super pumped for him.

We also had the Juarez family at church and a guy named Bol and his girlfriend came too, so that's great.  

It actually rained a bit this week. It hasn't rained much for a while. Tuesday morning we got up and biked over to a Bible referral and gave them a Bible. We were biking back and it started raining, pretty good, by the time we got to the bus stop we were drenched. I had to air out my shoes for a week before I could wear them again. It's been a pretty chilly week. I had to break out my sweaters and ear warmers. We did service a couple times this week and as always, we found some crazy clothes and I just had to try them on. I'll send some pictures. 

We went on  exchanges this week. I went with Elder Fox to Huntersville, we had a pretty good time. I made banana bread this week, it turned out pretty good. Anyway, that's about the week, Christmas is awesome, love y'all!

Thanksgiving is over! And November almost is too! And even the year is almost over! What!!!

This week wasn't too bad, not too shabby at all. Things went okay this week. We kind of wish we would have found more people to teach this week, but we have December in front of us and the new Christmas initiative! So we can find a whole lot of people this next month! #lighttheworld! Check it out on Mormon.org. This year the initiative is all about service. On the website there is a calendar that has some acts of service for each day of the month. There are a lot of good ideas so get out there and serve this Christmas season! It'll be a blast. 

Anyway, I honestly can't really remember much before Thursday, probably because not too much happened, but thanksgiving was great! We got up and we were able to go to a tri-ward Turkey bowl. It was a blast! I haven't played football like that for a good little while. I forgot how much I love that game. I was happy with the fact that I wasn't too extremely out of shape either. I kept up pretty well and had some good plays. And, I didn't get hurt either. I was a little sore afterward, but it wasn't too bad. 

We then were invited to a recent convert/investigator family that the Huntersville Elders are working with. We went and had thanksgiving lunch with them and that was fun. After that we had two other dinners lined up but both of them canceled, which was probably a good thing because we were still pretty full from our lunch. 

For dinner we went to the Heilperns. They are a crazy family! They had most of their kids there for thanksgiving and it was crazy. Elder Richins and I just sat there and listened to the conversation. It was very entertaining. We went home stuffed. 

The next morning we got up and pulled out the Christmas decorations that we have in the apartment and put them up. I'm super stoked for Christmas. 

We taught the Juarez family a couple times this week. I don't know what to do with them. The two older boys that got baptized say they aren't ready to receive the Aaronic priesthood, whatever that means, the girls are just kind of brats, the younger boys want to be baptized but don't want to do anything for it, and the mom is just overwhelmed with it all. It's kind of a tough situation. 

Sunday was pretty good. We had an early appointment with a Bible referral. We got there, gave him his Bible, and a Book of Mormon and taught him the Restoration. We asked him to pray to know it's true and he blurted out, "It is true." We set up a return appointment for next Sunday so we'll see how that goes. 

We then went to Ward council. President and Sister Alexander gave a training on how the Ward council can work with the missionaries. They then gave talks in sacrament meeting. Elder Richins gave a talk too. We then had dinner with a fun family to end the week. 

This morning we went to the Huntersville apartment and played Risk with the Elders. I destroyed all three of them in less than two hours, the perfect game of Risk:  short, and I won😆. Well, anyway, that's the week! Hope y'all have a great one!

Sick Week 2.0

So yeah, this week has been pretty rough. I woke up on Tuesday morning pretty stuffed up and I didn't think much of it, but Wednesday I woke up and I feel like I got hit by a truck. I could barely breathe and for some reason my eyes would just water like crazy randomly and spontaneously throughout the day. It's been like that all week, and I'm pretty sick of being sick. 

So Tuesday we got up and watched Elder Lopez pack up all his stuff then at noon we drove down to the Hilliard building and dropped off Elder Lopez. It was weird, it wasn't like I loved the guy a bunch, but I have to admit I'll miss him a little. The apartment has felt pretty empty this week. We were supposed to have the car this week, but the sisters scrunched the car up a little a couple weeks ago, and the car people called in the car on Tuesday. They said it would take bout 3 days, and it's been six...it's not even our car week any more, oh well. So we spent a lot of time on the busses again this week staying busy.  

We had correlation with the Ward mission leader for the first time since I've been here. He's been pretty busy with a new baby and so forth. He had us and the sisters over for dinner and then had correlation. Then both the sisters and us went out and invited a lot of his neighbors to a nativity our Ward and other close by wards are putting together. We have a lot of invitations we have to give out before December 2nd and 3rd. I'm super excited for the Christmas season, not bagging on Thanksgiving at all, I'm super pumped about that as well. 

On Friday we went to district meeting. Our district stayed pretty much the same. Only Sister Parker left and Sister Warner replaced her. Other than that all the missionaries in our district stayed. Afterward I went on exchange with Elder Bingham in Huntersville. We had a good exchange. We painted someone's house a little and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows at a member's house for dinner. The next morning we found a Christmas tree in their closet and set it up. They are lucky, they have a full size tree! We exchanged back and Elder Richins and I had a packed day. We biked and bussed from place to place. Saturday morning was super warm so we didn't get any coats or anything, and just suddenly a super cold front came through and the temperature dropped a lot. We got to a bus stop and the bus didn't show up for 30 minutes. So we stood outside in the pretty dang chilly wind for 30 minutes in our shirts. Let's just say it wasn't very fun. The bus then picked us up and we got dropped off at the next bus stop. That one was 30 minutes late, too. So we had to wait another thirty minutes. Then the bus came and just drove right past us, so we had to get on our bikes and book it as fast as we could around the block to get to the next bus stop. We got on...phew. The busses are nice and all, but sometimes they stink. 

Yesterday we went to the group meeting for the last time for at least a couple months. The room we usually meet in has to undergo renovation, so they are stopping it for a while. It wasn't doing so great anyways. 

Anyway, the week was pretty good, excited for thanksgiving this week, hope y'all have a great one! Love ya! 

The Andersons sent me an awesome package, so I took a picture. The Andersons are the best!!

Uh-oh, I Forgot My Journal

So we are at the church right now emailing and I realized I left my journal at our apartment, so I can't remember barely anything from this week, so I apologize in advance if this email is a little short. 

We served at the Crisis Assistance Center twice this week. On Tuesday when we were there and the Charlotte Spanish sisters were there (Sister Beal and Sister Valentin) and the Charlotte Spanish Elders, the Mountain Island Sisters and us, a total of 9 missionaries serving at the same place. Crazy. 4 out of the 5 missionaries from my MTC district were there. Fun. 

Umm, I'm trying to remember, so on Friday we had zone meeting. It was pretty good. I was sure busy for that meeting. I had to conduct the music for the opening hymn, play the piano for the special musical number, and then I had to play the North Carolina song for the closing song. It was pretty hard. 

Gastonia Zone

On Saturday we helped a crazy family split wood from a big tree that fell down on their property. Some guy pushed a stump onto my finger and it exploded. It was oozing nasty clear looking paste, not even blood. Weird. The lady knows her medicine though and she put some stuff on it and covered it with a bandaid and it healed up pretty good. Now there's just a bruise and a bunch of skin missing. 

Yesterday was good. We went to church twice again and then afterwards we went out with a priest from the Ward named Zach. We took him all over the place and we ended up in a kind of run down little part of town and he was kind of freaking out, he wouldn't get out of the car. I guess we are just used to a little more sketchy situations. 

Anyways, sorry for the super short email, but that's all I can remember for this week. Love ya! I'll remember more next week!

A Pretty Quick-like Week

So this week is already gone, it seems like it went by really fast. We started off the week with a 2 day exchange. Elder Lopez and I dropped off Elder Richins at the Huntersville Elders' apartment and went home. We did Salvation Army service that day. The next day we went all the way down to South Charlotte for a meeting. We didn't want to waste miles, so we took the bus down there. It was a long bus drive. It took Elder Lopez and me 2 1/2 hours just to get there, then the same amount of time on the way back. On the way back the bus got super full, jam packed, and I was the only Caucasian person on the bus, and there had to be at least 60 people on that bus, that's Charlotte for ya. 

That night we tried to help a recent convert learn how to read, but we ain't no school teachers, so it was kind of a mess and it tried my patience. The next morning we finally picked up Elder Richins and we did service at the Salvation Army place again. We sort clothes there and we find some super funky clothes some people donate. We goofed around a little and put on some funny clothes. I'll send some pictures. 

The next day we had zone conference! Yay! We had a combined conference with the Hickory Zone, which was kind of strange, because I just left that zone, and I know that zone better than the one I am in now, the Gastonia zone. It was fun to meet up with some old Hickory zone buddies and chat with missionaries in my new zone that I didn't know before. 

Old Greensboro Buddies

We had a really good zone conference. We talked about thrusting in our sickle, and President actually brought out a sickle! Kind of funny. Sister Alexander gave a training about music and how important it can be in missionary work, she really loves music! And they also revealed the new Christmas initiative the church is doing for this year! I think it's called #LightTheWorld if I'm not mistaken. It's all focused around service this year, so I'm super pumped for it!

Saturday was a pretty busy day. We taught this guy named Michael about faith and the Holy Ghost, then had to run over to a part member family and try to commit the children to work to get baptized, then we had to run and take the bus back home. There was this lady on the bus, so crazy. There are ramps on the bus for people in wheelchairs to get on the bus, and a paraplegic person was trying to get on the bus so the bus lady was trying to lower the ramp for her, but this super rude lady was yelling at the bus driver to let her on so the bus driver had to put the ramp back for her to get on, then lower it again for the paraplegic. Then that lady just complained about this and that loudly the whole flipping bus ride. I wanted to slap her, and I can't imagine what bus drivers have to go through, there are so many crazy people in Charlotte. We were talking to a bus driver yesterday morning, and she was telling us all the horror stories that she'd had since she's been driving a bus. She said, "You name it, it's probably happened on a bus." Yikes. 

Tired on the bus

Saturday night we got some CookOut to start our fast. I like CookOut. I'm gonna miss it when I go back to Utah. Sunday was pretty good. We went to the group meeting down in Uptown, then went to the Ward. As always, there were good testimonies. Elder Lopez bore his testimony because it is the last testimony meeting on his mission. He goes home in less than two weeks. Kind of crazy. This transfer has gone by pretty quick! So much has happened. Well, that about wraps it up for this week! Bye-bye✋, have a great week! Love y'all!

Sick Week

This week was okay, we started off the week on Tuesday by having exchanges. Elder Johnson, a zone leader came and joined me and Elder Richins in Mtn. Island, and Elder Lopez went with the other guy, Elder Seely. We had a pretty good exchange. Elder Johnson is a great missionary. We taught a bunch of lessons and got a couple new investigators. It was a pretty good day, pretty busy. 

Then that night I started to not feel so great, and then Elder Richins threw up. He said he felt fine afterwards, but I wasn't feeling so good. The next morning I got up and threw up and had other bowelicular issues as well. We went to district meeting and they just pulled up a couch right outside the room and I laid on it while district meeting was going on. It was a pretty miserable day. 

After district meeting we went home and took a nap, none of us were feeling great, and then we had to get up and get ready to go to a baptism that Elder Richins was asked to baptize someone, so we went to that and by the time we got home, I was so beat. 

The next day wasn't much better, I wasn't throwing up anymore but I still was sick. We still did things, just at a slower pace. We went and did service and saw a couple people, but not too much. Friday I felt a lot better and that morning we saw someone in our apartment complex that was moving by themselves so we offered to help and we got them all packed up and I still felt pretty good so we went through the day normally and saw a good amount of people. We had a lot of miles to burn this week so we went all over the place looking for people. The next day we helped another family move. 

After that the sisters told us to go to the store to get some spider web. That night we had the Ward trunk or treat. I wore my Star Wars tie and we had a little table there that we and the sisters set up. We had candy and pass along cards for the kids so that was a bunch of fun. I played football with a bunch of kids and I dominated! And I'm sure it had nothing to do that I was at least a foot or so taller than all of them😏. We helped clean up and then went home. 

The next morning we got up and we drove down to Uptown Charlotte. There's a little group meeting that is held in a hotel right in the middle of Uptown. It was really small but they have permission to do the sacrament so that's cool. Sacrament meeting was 45 minutes and Sunday School was as well. After that meeting we went to the big church meeting and afterwards we were invited to stay for a kid's baptism and by the time we got home and had dinner it was pretty late, so we only visited one person and went back home. 

Not a very exciting week, and we'll see what happens next week! Love y'all!

What a Flippin Crazy Week!

This week has been nuts. So crazy... Last Monday was really busy, we went up to Hickory and played basketball with the Spanish Elders, Hickory Elders, and Hickory Sisters. We had a good amount of fun then quickly went shopping and the Spanish Elders dropped us off at home. We had dinner with the Keller family then went home. 

An investigator in Newton is a photographer so he took our pictures

The next morning we got up and that is when things got crazy. We had studies and a little while after that we got a call from President. It was Elder Everett's birthday so I thought he was calling just to wish him a happy birthday, but boy was I mistaken. He wanted to talk to me. So he told me I was going to be emergency transferred! What!?! I did not see that coming and honestly, it kind of made me a little mad. Elder Everett had just become my companion two weeks before that and he and I were getting along pretty well. And not only was I getting transferred, but Elder Everett got transferred too! We got the call after ten on Tuesday and we had to find a member to pick us up at 6:30 in the morning, the next morning! It was just a crazy situation. We had to set everything in order and it took a good lot of calls. We weren't able to say goodbye to basically anyone. That night we were up super late packing up and getting everything done, and then we got up at 5:30 to get ready. At 6:30 the Lemings picked us up and we locked up the apartment and drove to Charlotte. We drove down to the Mountain Island area of Charlotte and dropped me off with Elder Richins and Elder Lopez. 

We went to district meeting that morning so I got to meet the rest of the district, it seems like a pretty cool district. We have sisters in our ward, Sister Parker and Sister Vasquez, they seem pretty cool too. Elder Richins reminds me a ton of my cousin Scott. He looks kind of like him, he talks like him, and he has a lot of the same phrases and mannerisms. It's pretty funny. Elder Lopez is sometimes funny, and he goes home at the end of this transfer. So the area I am in is called the Mountain Island Ward. We live really close to Uptown Charlotte and our apartment is tiny. It is the smallest apartment I have been in on my mission. The address is 8836 Meadow Grove Way apartment 307, Charlotte NC 28216. It's a pretty interesting area. We have about half of Uptown Charlotte in our area and we've spent a lot of time around there this week. Pretty fun. 

We get bus passes from the mission so we go on the busses all the time. Our area is pretty big and this week was bike week so it was pretty handy. The busses kind of take a long time, but so does biking, so it works out pretty good. I've been able to meet a couple members this week, but it was stake conference Sunday so I didn't get to meet as many as I wanted, but that's okay. 

We already went on exchanges this week. I went to Huntersville with Elder Bingham. He's a cool guy. Anyway, that's about the week. Talk to y'all next week! 

 

Elders Huff, Lopez & Richins

A Week

Well, honestly I don't have a lot of time this week, but I'll do what I can with the time I have. This week we have been knocking a bunch of doors and trying new things. The few investigators that we had dropped us so we're basically working on an empty slate. This is no new thing so we'll figure it out somehow. Hopefully. 

The Spanish Elders stayed at our apartment twice this week. They had a late dinner in Newton on Tuesday night so they decided to spend the night. The next day they left and then all of their appointments in Hickory cancelled on them, and the next day we were going to have zone meeting at the church, so they decided to stay in Newton. We had dinner together then I took Elder Johnson and Elder Everett took Elder Peleaz and we blitzed our area. We split up and just knocked doors for two hours. We talked to a lot of people, a lot of them mean, a lot of them nice, and none of them really interested. 

The Elders stayed the night again and the next morning we went to zone conference. We had a lot of role plays. We are focusing as a mission on preparing short powerful statements that we can say to peak someone's interest. I think I got a couple good ones up my sleeve. 

It was good to see some missionaries that have transferred into the zone. I spent a lot of time with Elder Hulet there, I like him. After the meeting we did exchanges and Elder Hurst (our new district leader) came and joined me in Newton. We helped the Spanish Elders move apartments. They moved from a really old kind of crappy apartment to a huge, super nice one. I'm a little jealous. We knocked a lot of doors and then went to bed. The next morning we exchanged back and Elder Everett and I served at the library. 

Nothing much happened for the rest of the week, except for yesterday I guess. We were sitting and sacrament meeting had just ended, and there was a tap on my shoulder, I turned around and my cousin Emily was right there! What! That's crazy! We had a fun little conversation and she gave us some fun gifts. It was pretty exciting and fun. Lightened up my week a bit.

Anyway, that's about it for the week. Sorry it's such a short email, but not much happened. Hopefully next week will be super exciting! Love y'all!

A New Transfer

So yes, I have a new companion now. On Tuesday Elder Garrett and I got up and he finished packing, then we just walked around the neighborhood a bit. He was really nervous. Though he said he wasn't, I could tell he was. Brother Melonakas then picked us up, and we packed all of Elder Garrett's stuff in the car and left. We stopped and ate at Bojangles and then went to Charlotte. We dropped off Elder Garrett, picked up Elder Everett, and we went back to Newton and got dropped off. When we walked in the door, I noticed there was something behind the door, turns out it was all of Elder Garrett's garments and toiletries! Sheesh. 

But Elder Everett is pretty cool. He's a little hyper and not a super hard worker, but he doesn't bug me too much, so that's good. He's from Anchorage Alaska and he came out one transfer after me. He's my first companion who's been out on the mission less time than me! Weird, so I am officially a senior companion now. It only took me half of my mission😏.  Wednesday we were able to go to the Corner Table and serve and showed Elder Everett around. 

We have a new sister missionary in the Ward too. Her name is Sister Brown. If you can remember, she was the sister who was up in Greensboro for a couple weeks and Elder Murray and I lost her back tire when we offered to fix it and we had to buy her a new one. I was happy to see that she still had that tire on, but anyway, she's cool. 

We had interviews with president on Thursday. Since he was doing our zone interviews kinda far away in the Lenoir building, we did Skype interviews, it was kind of weird but it worked out good. Sister Alexander recommitted me to run every morning. So I have been. Elder Everett doesn't want to run in the morning, but he rides his bike behind me. 

On Friday I gave a training in district meeting about the importance of the Book of Mormon. I have read the Book of Mormon all the way through once on my mission and I've decided to do it again. I'm excited. 

Also, Friday was my hump day!! Craziness. We didn't do much for it, but I did get an awesome package from my mom with a stuffed camel in it so that made the day. 

We were walking around that day and this crazy guy hobbled up to us and asked us if we were Mormons. We said yes and he said, "Here!", gave us two nickels, asked for a card, and wobbled off babbling nonsense. We walked away and not long after we looked back and he was gone...weird. Anyway Saturday was a little crazy because of the hurricane, but we were able to do some work. The weather was crazy but not too bad. So the week before conference, our ward did fast Sunday, and then as a mission we fasted this last Sunday too so that was good. 

Anyway, gotta go, I'm running out of time! Love ya! 

Transfer Week

Well, another transfer is already over! Craziness!! This Friday is my year mark! I cannot believe I have already been out that long! I'm having a hard time accepting it! 

So we got transfer news. On Saturday we got a call from President. He asked Elder Garrett to be a district leader in Providence, a ward in south Charlotte. He's pretty excited. I am staying, but half of our district is leaving. Sister Johnson is leaving, Elder Washburn is going home, and Elder Turner is going. Those are my favorite people in the district. It's kind of sad. But I think I'm getting a pretty cool companion. His name is Elder Everett, he's from Alaska! Pretty cool. Anyway, he's my first companion who is younger in the mission than I am. He came out one transfer after I came. I've been a junior companion my whole mission, I guess it's time for me to step up a little😊. 

We've had an okay week. On Tuesday we did exchanges with the Denver Elders, I went to Denver with Elder Washburn, so I could go on exchange with him one more time before he goes home 😢. I'll miss that guy. We had a fun exchange. We were at the post office and a lady confronted us and talked at us for an hour. She had been a member of the church for 39 years but she is totally lost now. She found something she didn't really like about the church and it just festered and festered until she became totally anti. She yelled at us for an hour about how the church isn't true. It's kind of scary to think of how much she knew. We couldn't really defend ourselves because she knew so much about the church she would just throw some random unimportant fact at us as an excuse. Needless to say, we got really tired of it. It was sad to see. We got in the car though and we just started laughing, not that the situation was funny, it's just we couldn't believe how crazy that situation was. We talked about a bunch of her points and disproved them to each other. It's good to know that she was just one lost person and I've got a lot of great friends like Elder Washburn who will always stand by our beliefs. I'm glad Elder Garrett wasn't there, he gets really shaken up by anti. 

Anyway, the next day, Elder Washburn and I got up and drove to Lincolnton to pick up the Lincolnton Elders, right before we picked them up we stopped by Ross and got some matching ties and signed them.

We went to district meeting, which was good as always. Afterwards we took pictures and signed books and stuff and went to Cookout for lunch. 

We served at the Corner Table twice again this week. Everyone is getting to know us really well, and then Elder Garrett is leaving, oh well. Saturday finally came and you know what that meant . . . GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! I have never looked forward to conference as much ever before in my life, and it didn't let me down either. It was so good. A lot of basic principles were taught, and I just loved it! Some talks I really enjoyed were, well, there are too many to list, in all reality I loved them all! I really liked Cornish's talk, as well as Uceda's. I was so sad when it was over. Last night Elder Garrett started packing and I reviewed some talks that I had kind of spaced out during. Elder Garrett and I traded ties and today we went shopping for the last time together.
Oh well, I'm excited to work with Elder Everett. That's pretty much my week. The highlight being General Conference! Review the talks! They are great! Love y'all!

Last full week of September

I can't believe September is almost over! And as a result, that means the transfer is almost over as well as the first half of my mission! What!!!?? Craziness. It's weird to think I've been out that long. Well anyway, this week wasn't too shabby. We did a lot of service again this week. We do it a lot. We went to the Corner Table to do service twice this week then we went to the library on Friday and helped out with that. Service is always pretty fun, I really enjoy it. 

We taught Don again twice this week, he just has to resolve his concerns about the Word of Wisdom and pretty soon he'll be eligible for baptism, but he's having a hard time with it, so we'll see how things go. 

Tuesday we helped a family move right after we ate at a pizza buffet with some members. It was a pretty gross place. I mean, the fresh pizza wasn't bad, as well as the salad (it's hard to go wrong with a salad), but everything else was not great. Well, we moved a piano and that thing was heavy. Jeesh, it took four grown men and me to move that thing. 

On Wednesday we got a phone call from this guy named Joshua Mount. Elder Garrett took the call and he literally got 30 or so words out and the call lasted 18 minutes. The guy just did not stop talking, and he couldn't understand what he was saying either. He wanted us to come by his place and teach his friend the gospel. We thought he was on speed so we kind of forgot about it. The next day we went with some Elders down to Statesville to go to zone conference, and one of the elders (he was on exchange, I think his name was Elder Cannon), after we had told the story, said he knew Josh and Josh had called him before. So Josh is a schizophrenic dude, as well as bipolar, so we hoped he would never call us back, but sure enough he did. He requested that we go see him, so we decided to go visit him one time to gauge the situation, and I really wish we didn't. He had a "friend" who he said wanted to be baptized. Anyway, we went to his adult housing place and had to sign in. The place was full of sketchy looking men, pretty scary. Anyway, Josh does not stop talking. We ended up being there for almost two hours, listening to him talk. His "friend" is a super quiet guy that Josh can boss around, so Josh has basically forced him to accept the gospel. So weird. I'll send a little video I took. That'll explain the situation a lot better than my words can. He's a good guy, just crazy, which isn't really his fault. So yeah. 

Anyway, we taught in Young Men that night, and I think it went pretty well. We basically just talked about how we prepared for our mission and what we wished we would've done. It was good. Thursday we got up and we drove down to Statesville and had zone conference. It was really good. I got to see a bunch of good fellow missionaries like Elder Christiansen, Elder Skinner, Elder Hulet, Sister Vasquez, Sister Sandy and more. We had some good trainings and a good lunch. We got home late cuz our ride had to stay after to talk to Pres so we went straight to dinner. Other than that, this week has been pretty tame, nothing really much to report. By next week I'll know transfer business and General Conference will have already happened . . . crazy! Love y'all!

Busy Week

This week wasn't too bad. It was busy, so that's a positive, I alway like being busy more than sitting around wondering what we should do. On Monday we did some shopping at Target this time, to switch things up a little bit. We got yelled at by a lady (our neighbor). When we're about to head out of the apartment to go to dinner, she knocks on the door and of course, we answer it. She tells us that we go up and down the stairs too loud… Really? That's two times in the last week! We haven't been walking any different than we have for the last two months. So we're kind of confused about why she is suddenly always getting mad at us for being too loud on the stairs. We've also seen the neighbors talking to each other in the parking lot, and pointing at our apartment. Yeah, so… We're trying to be friendly and nice, we don't really know what's going on but we're rolling with it. 

Anyway, we had family home evening with the Corey family that night and we had a lot of fun. The little boy, Ryan, had a Lego set that he couldn't put together, and his family wasn't willing to get into it, it was a kinda bigger set, not really that big, but he asked if either of us could do it. Elder Garrett looked immediately to me and I jumped at the opportunity. It was easy🤓. Got it put together in no time at all. In that set, there was a little piece that you could put a mini figure on and launch him. So we kind of made up a game on the spot. I'll send a video of it. Pretty fun😊. 

The next day we did service again at the Corner Table and as always we had a blast. That evening, our dinner appointment had agreed to pick us up at five, so we got home and waited...and waited...5:30 passed...we called, texted, nothing...6:00...6:30...and we gave up and made our own dinner, which I'm glad we did because we got a text right as we were going back out to work that she had fallen asleep. Oh well. 

Wednesday we had a district meeting. The second to last one before the transfer, kind of crazy. After that we had a lesson with Don. We taught him about the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. He doesn't have any concerns about the first one but the second is another story. We will have to see how he does. 

Thursday we helped set up tables, chairs, and lights for a wedding reception at the church and that night the Spanish Elders slept over again and Elder Washburn came to Newton on an exchange with me. Elder Washburn is awesome. It's sad, he goes home in a couple weeks😢. I'll miss that guy. He said we were going on another exchange before he goes though. Elder Washburn and I had a good exchange. We had a really good religious discussion with a religion teacher, then did service at the Library. The sisters dropped off some fried chicken they got at the Corner Table and we went home and had that for lunch. It was pretty good. We had dinner with the family that had fallen asleep that night. We played a couple different games (they are huge into games). That night Elder Garrett came back and Elder Washburn went back to Denver. We taught Don again on Saturday morning. We taught him the plan of salvation. We talked to a couple less actives then Brother Turner picked us up and took us to a really fancy restaurant. It was delicious. We helped him move a mattress out of his house then he took us home. 

Church was good yesterday. Donna was there again and Elder Garrett gave a talk, it was pretty good. There's this weird gas crisis of some sort going around here in North Carolina. I don't exactly know what happened, but it has to do with some gas leak in Texas or something like that. There are a bunch of gas stations down here that have run out of gas. They put a zero on the price sign and put bags over all the gas pumps. Kind of weird. There are still a lot of gas stations that have gas, so I don't know what the deal is. 

Today has already been a big day. Right after study was over we did a quick shopping trip, went home and changed, then drove out to Baker's mountain.  We did a hike there with the district, and that was really fun. When we got to the top of the "mountain" (Pretty much just a big hill), there was a lookout point and we were able to see for a long way, which is something you don't see very much here in North Carolina because there are trees everywhere! So yeah, that was pretty cool. Afterwards we went to a place where the Hunger Games was filmed! Well at least a little bit of it. We went to the little town where District 12 was filmed. It was really cool. We got to walk around all the little houses and go inside and explore. It was cool to see some things that I remember (which isn't much) about the movies. We took a lot of pictures this morning, but I don't have all of them now, I'll get them to y'all probably next week. I'll send a couple pics that I do have. 

Well, that's about my week. I'm looking forward to zone conference this next week and general conference coming up pretty soon! Yay! Love y'all! Have a great week!

Pho

So, this week wasn't too shabby. We served at the Corner Table twice this week, Tuesday and Wednesday. That was fun. On Wednesday we also helped a member in the Ward with some yard work and we ate dinner with him. After that we went to the church and had a meeting with all the

Ward missionaries, then after that we went home. So a pretty different day Wednesday, but it's good to get out of the monotony sometimes, especially during bike week. 

Thursday we both did Facebook posts and I had fun with mine. I talked about football since the NFL season started that day and how it can compare to us needing to be on the winning team, God's. That was fun, a lot of people complimented me on it at church yesterday so that's good. 

Anyway, that night the Spanish Elders came over and that's always fun. The next morning we got up and got ready for zone meeting. We were getting ready when someone knocked on the door. It was a lady that lives next door and she told us to not be so loud going up and down the stairs. Really? We weren't being loud or anything, just going up and down the stairs like regular. We are always hearing huge loud thumps from that way anyway. That's the second time they've complained that we were too loud, and we were just walking around like normal. Oh well. They always have the cops over at that apartment, so I don't know if they are all there. Zone meeting was good. We talked a lot about the Doctrine of Christ. I thought what a senior missionary said was pretty interesting. She said that repentance wasn't just changing from bad to good, it could also be changing from good to better. I thought that was interesting and pretty thought provoking. We also talked about being master planners, finders, teachers, etc. The zone leaders dressed up as ninjas and did a little fight to start their training. 

No wonder people think missionaries are weird. We are just a bunch of crazy 18-19-20-year-olds living and working together with little adult supervision and guidelines that ask us not to do things that normal 18-19-20-year-olds usually do. Of course we're going to be weird in one way or another. Anyway it was good. 

Speaking of weird, I went on Exchange with Elder Galbraith after the meeting. He's a good kid though, he means well.  He has served in Newton in the past so basically the whole exchange was looking for people he used to teach, which was good. On Saturday we taught this guy, Don Dollarhide at the church. We are pretty excited for him. Last Sunday a member in our ward came up to us and talked to us about Don. Don is his brother in law and has investigated the church on and off now for years. He now is having some trouble in his life and wants to investigate again, more seriously this time. So we got his number from the member and called him on Friday. He didn't answer, but 10 minutes later he called back! He said he had a question for us then he talked about how he was driving in Conover, which he said he knows like the back of his hand, and got lost. He kept on driving, trying to find himself, and he ended up in the church parking lot. He asked me if that was a sign from God. I told him that sure was! We set up an appointment for the next morning at the church and when we got there (10 minutes early) he was already there! We taught him and he accepted it. We set a date for him to be baptized on October 29th! He also came to church the next day. We have an appointment with him this week and we'll see how things go from there. 

After we taught him we biked home. Elder Galbraith had gotten in contact with a guy he used to teach and became good friends with, John Yang. John picked us up in his nice BMW and took to a place called Saigon Garden for lunch. It is a Vietnamese restaurant and we all got eggrolls, spring rolls, and Pho. It was pretty good. John's a cool guy, he didn't get baptized because of his parents, but he still goes to Institute and the singles Ward sometimes. After we ate he got us some bubble tea (doesn't have tea in it) which was super good. I got the coconut flavor. He then drove us all the way to Denver to drop off Elder Galbraith and pick up Elder Garrett and then took us home. 

Yesterday was a good Sabbath day. Don was at church, Elder Garrett and I got to bless the sacrament. I haven't done that in a long time. Then during third hour we were responsible for filling the baptismal font for a boy's baptism. That's a lot of water. Took up almost all of the time we had to fill it up. Then as we were filling it up the mom asked us to sing some hymns between when her boy got baptized to when he was ready. So we did. We thought we would only have to sing one song, but we ended up singing four. It's a good thing we're both musically talented🎶🎶🎶🎶 They really liked it, I was glad we were able to do that. 

Anyway, that's about the week. I'm sad BYU kept up at the one thing they are consistent at: losing to Utah. I hope that they fix things up, if they don't, they are going to have one rough season. Hope y'all have a good week! Love ya!

Blah

New district: From left to right, front to back->
Elder Garrett, Sister Johnson, Sister Lovell, Elder Mastin, Elder Galbraith ,
Elder Turner, Elder Washburn, Elder Mecham, Elder Jefferson, me, and Elder Grieves

This week wasn't very exciting. It just...happened. We served at the soup kitchen again, that was great as always. That day was Sister Johnson's birthday, and that night right before nightly curfew, we dropped off a gift for her (A lot of chocolates😋). We had district meeting on Wednesday. Elder Garrett and I did a training on helping people keep commitments, and I think it went pretty well. Elder Garrett and I have a new morning routine. Sometimes we have trouble getting up quickly in the morning and exercising, so we got these little Nerf guns. What we do in the morning is as soon as the alarms go off we have to get up, turn off the alarms, make our beds, and go get our Nerf guns. We have a quick sudden death battle then we go out running. I really like it. It really gets me up and awake so much faster in the mornings. It's fun too! 

Anyway, Thursday morning we got up and went and mowed some lady's lawn. She gave us some pound cake and some cherry tomatoes but they both smelled like smoke so we ended up throwing them away. We did service at the library again on Friday, that was good. It was super nice on Friday, some people were even wearing jackets it was so chilly, but of course, we get the bikes this week and it's going to get into the 90s again, even this whole last week was nice and cool. Argh. Oh well. We met a super cranky lady on Saturday. We were walking down the street when we saw a lady doing some yard work. So naturally we stopped and offered to help. She looked at us, shook her head, and said, "I don't need any Mormon  help!" Elder Garrett responded, "Oh, sorry about that." And she snapped back, "Don't be sorry, I know my savior Jesus Christ! Do you?....NO!"  So we walked away. Yesterday we had a good day at church. Both of us bore our testimonies and we taught young men.

Elders with Young Men

 We had a delicious dinner at the Moukassa's, oh my goodness, that lady can cook! We had some of the best, least chewy, most scrumptious pork chop I've ever had. Really good potato salad too! A great way to end the fast for sure. But that's about it for the week, pretty boring. Hopefully we'll have an amazing week this next week! Love y'all!

May The Force Be With You

I don't know why, but this week I thought a lot about Star Wars. I really miss it... Oh well! Considering right now I am sitting at my study desk and I can see 6 things that are Star Wars, I'm doing okay😄! 

Things this week went pretty well. Every dinner appointment this week has been out to eat! Joy! We biked a good amount this week, but mostly the very beginning of the week when it wasn't too hot. It finally got down in the 80's for a couple consecutive days this week, so that was nice, but then it warmed up later in the week. I can't wait for the weather to get to what it was like when I first came into the mission, it was perfect! It's coming pretty soon . . . pretty crazy! We served at the Corner Table again this week. I always look forward to that, it's pretty fun. We are going to be there tomorrow as well! Yes! Oh yeah! This week was transfers. We got some new people in the district, in fact, Elder Garret and I are the only companionship in the district that didn't change at all. We've got some pretty interesting missionaries in the district now. What's weird to think is that there are four Elders in the district older than me, and four that are YOUNGER!😱 It's almost as if I'm an old missionary, but I just have to pinch myself and then I realize I've only been out for a couple months...right? 

Friday we had district meeting and interviews and Elder Garrett and I helped clean the church, so we were at the church a long time. 

Saturday morning we went and helped someone move. The people we were moving weren't even there most of the time. It was just us and their older parents doing all the work, and of course, right after we had finished moving all the heavy stuff, the owners came and helped. Oh well, at least we got the opportunity to serve right. Then the dad, Brother Mullis took us to Burger King for lunch. Elder Garrett and I are both trying to stay healthy so he got a veggie burger and I got a grilled chicken sandwich. It's not very easy to eat healthy at fast food, but you can find healthy-Er options. We had dinner with the Winters that night (a family we didn't know, so we were excited to get to go to their home right?), they took us out to a Mexican restaurant! I got a taco salad, I'm doing my best😏.  Yesterday was good. A Hmong sister (we call her Momma Vue) came up to me and gave me a little gift bag. She told me she was sorry she hadn't given me a birthday gift sooner! She gave me a sweet Hmong tie! Now I have a Guatemalan tie and a Hmong tie, pretty exciting! We taught Elders' quorum. We talked about temples. It wasn't that good, but that group is pretty hard to work with. They are a bunch of single depressed guys, Hmongs, or the presidency, every other Elder is either in the young men's or primary. 

We were able to see Lizz last night. We haven't been able to meet with her this week, this week has been pretty tough for her. Her son brought home lice from day care, man she's having a real hard time getting them out of her hair. She was wearing a bag on her head when we talked to her. She hasn't read anymore of the Book of Mormon, but she has been reading out of the children's version with her son. So that's good. Hopefully she'll be able to figure out the whole lice thing. Well, that's about our week, nothing too exciting. Have a great week y'all!

Car Week is Over

Well, this week wasn't too bad, probably because we had the car. We had exchanges on Tuesday! Elder Washburn came to Newton with me! He's probably one of my favorite missionaries. He was in Kannapolis when I was in Concord, so I got to know him then. We didn't have a super amazing exchange, we only saw one less active part member family, but it was nice to have someone you can goof around with and talk about old times and Elder Nelson😀. Good times. 

The next day for district meeting we were supposed to have a bake-off between the four companionships, so Elder Washburn and I both made some treats later at night after we got home (he made peanut butter bars and I made red velvet cookies) and that was a lot of fun. But the next morning at district meeting no one else had brought anything, so that was kind of a bummer, but our stuff was good. We then all went out to a NY Hibachi buffet, which wasn't really that good so I didn't really eat much. Then we exchanged back. 

We talked to Lizz a lot this week. On Thursday night we went over with our Ward mission leader, Brother Melonakas, and taught her about the Book of Mormon. It went really well. We gave her a regular Book of Mormon and one of the children's version as well. The next morning, during personal study (about 8:30) she messaged us with some questions about the chapters she had read. Apparently she had read thirteen chapters from later at night on Thursday to early morning on Friday, pretty crazy!She had great questions that we were able to answer and we are teaching her over Skype tonight. I'm pretty pumped for that. 

On Friday we did service at the local library. We sorted books and put them back on the shelves

and other little jobs like that. I enjoyed it. We are going to go do that every Friday from now on. I finally got my suits dry cleaned! The first time on my mission! There is a Hmong family that has their own dry cleaning place and they dry clean our stuff for free! Pretty nice. My black suit doesn't fit me very well though, so I don't really ever wear that one. It hasn't really fit me since Concord. It was okay in the MTC, but I hadn't really gained that much weight at all and it started being uncomfortable. I don't think missionary mall did a great job tailoring the suit, because my gray suit fits me perfectly still, but my black one never really has. Oh well! 

We saw this guy on Friday who was pretty crazy. We were looking for some less active members, but they moved. This guy came out and started talking to us and obviously he was drunk. He told us we should lose our ties and go to Crazy Horse. I thought he was talking about the huge stone monument in South Dakota, so I told him that was too far for us and he looked at me strange and told me it was down the street. He was talking about the local strip club😳! He also offered us a beer. Eesh, people are so crazy out here! 

We went to Golden Corral for dinner with a member on Saturday night. He picked us up in a brand-new WRX! Pretty sweet car. I"m pretty tired of people taking us out to eat though. This month we have had 16 dinners with members, and seven of those have been out to eat! I've eaten at this one place called El Paso four times since I've been here, Golden Corral twice, and then a bunch of other random places. It's so hard to lose weight when you are eating fast food, a buffet, or huge Mexican dishes every other day! I could eat well all day and then we go to dinner, it's crazy. I've only been in six different homes this month for dinner, it makes it really hard to share spiritual thoughts, and that kind of bugs me. That's the whole reason why we have dinner appointments, I could really be okay without the food, it's just a great perk😋. Oh well. 

Transfer calls came Saturday night...Elder Garrett and I are both staying. Elder Garrett has only been in this area two weeks longer than I have so we might be together for a while... Sister Marshall is leaving to go to Winston-Salem and Sister Lovell is coming to Conover. It's kind of funny cuz she was in my last district in Summerfield. Well, that's about it for this week, hope y'all have a great upcoming week! Sure love ya!

Weird Week (15 August)

This week was a different paced week, even slower than usual, if you could believe that. We did service at the Corner Table again this week. There was an interesting lady there who confronted us asking for money. I think I may have a phobia of women with beards (she had a pretty darn visible one) because I froze up and I couldn't get a word out. That isn't the first time that's happened either...interesting.

Anyway that day we biked a pretty far way over to a older lady's house and finished trimming her yard, then biked back. By the time we got back home and got showered, our dinner appointment picked us up. It was with the Setzers. They are probably one of my favorite families in the Ward (not that I have any favorites of course), but they are the family I talked about with all the dogs. They had only got rid of one puppy since I had been there last (which was a month ago, can you believe I've been in this area for a month already! I can't) so they had almost as many puppies this time, but they were twice the size! So that was a blast. They enlisted Elder Garrett's help with giving the puppies shots, and they tried to get me to help out, but I couldn't, I just looked away. 

Wednesday we just biked all over tarnation and didn't get much done or meet any people. 

Thursday was so boring. We were asked to clean out our phones before zone conference, because they were switching services and giving us new phones. So Thursday we got up and did studies, then we did weekly planning. That went until 12:30, we had lunch till 1:30 then I started the daunting task of cleaning out the phone. There were so many contacts in there it was crazy. I had to go through and look at each contact, see if they were still in our records, see if the phone number was still valid and so forth. I did that from 1:30 to 5:30 when dinner picked us up, we were gone at dinner until 7:15. When we got back I started cleaning out the phone again and I finished at 9:15. So I guess I had a busy day, I was doing something I was supposed to be doing the whole time, but it was definitely something I would rather not spend all my time on. 

That night the Spanish elders came and spent the night, then we got up early the next morning, piled in the car, and drove to Mooresville for zone conference. It was a combined conference, with three zones in attendance. President taught about how we might not have it easy, but we should never give up, because when we are rejected and pushed away, we are walking side-by-side with Jesus Christ himself. He also emphasized the online proselyting a lot more and we were encouraged even more to use the technology we have. There were a lot of good ways to use it shared, and hopefully Elder Garrett and I will catch that fire. After the conference, the Spanish elders dropped us off at a restuarant, where we had dinner with two less actives. Then after that we biked home. 

Yesterday was a pretty good day though. We of course went to church, and PEC went very well, as well as all the other meetings. We went home, had lunch. Then biked all round tarnation and couldn't find anyone to talk to.  We were on our way home when we saw that in downtown Newton there was a big car show going on. On the main streets of downtown were hundreds of old, antique automobiles. They had closed off all of downtown to traffic and just a bunch of people were meandering around, looking at the cars and buying snacks and stuff with vendors lined up on the street. It was pretty packed. So we locked our bikes up and tried to talk to people, but trying to talk to these people was like trying to talk to Easton when he is playing a video game. It was virtually impossible, they just didn't want to talk to us. We did see a lot of cool cars though😉. Then we went home and had dinner, then biked around to end the night. We were able to stop and talk to this one lady named Lizz, and she seemed very interested in what we had to say, so we taught her, and we friended her on Facebook and we are going to teach her over Facebook tonight! So we'll see how that goes. I really hope it goes well. 

Well, that's about it for this week. We've had some fun today at the church playing basketball and eating some delicious Burger King! Hope y'all have a great week! Love y'all!

Elders Garrett and Huff boating?

The Hastening of the Work (8 August)

Hickory Zone

So this week has been a pretty good week, A super wet one too! Every afternoon or evening dark clouds roll in and it either rains, or comes close to raining. I think it's cooling down, which is good because we now have the bikes for this week… Yuck. In this area I feel like we are always biking, because we kind of are. 

Tuesday was pretty good. We did service at the Corner Table again,  that's always fun. We drove around a lot that day and we stopped in to a less active Hmong family. We talked to the mother/wife outside and tried to ask whether we could come over and teach her family, but there was a slight language barrier and she ended up giving us these weird squash/melon thingies. She gave us a bunch on a plate and looked at us to see our reactions. We both started eating, and we both pretended that they were really good, when in fact they weren't. They tasted like raw pumpkin mixed with zucchini and a little bit of cantaloupe, oh and maybe some cucumber too. I ate the whole plate, which I didn't think was too hard, but wasn't easy, and Elder Garrett couldn't stomach his whole plate. I probably shouldn't have finished my plate because before I knew it she was getting quart sized Ziploc baggies and filling them full of these melon-squash thingies for us to take home and eat. It was hard but I stopped myself from breaking out in laughter. Needless to say we went home and dumped them out on our back lawn for all the interesting critters that live behind the house to eat. That night we met this guy (super old by the way, with a lot of health problems as well) who was baptized by Dale Murphy (a famous baseball player). He also was on a church committee and he came up with the idea of putting the words, "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" on the front of the Book of Mormon. He also contributed to making the two words, "Jesus Christ" in the church's logo, bigger. So that was pretty cool. 

On Wednesday Elder Garrett got sick, so we had to wait it out a little before going out and working. That night a guy in the ward, Brother Scheller (the elders quorum president, and a dentist) took us to a super fancy restaurant and got us each a $32 steak. It was super good😋. I then had a big piece of key lime pie… Really good. That night to work it all off I push mowed a less active lady's yard, in proselyting clothes. 

I sweated a lot, so hopefully that got some weight off of my body. Which is something I really need. At this point in my mission I've almost gained 40 pounds. Pretty scary huh? I was looking at a picture of me and Elder Buffaloe in the MTC and I was a lot skinnier back then, weird to think that was only 10 months ago. Well we have this thing in the mission called "Six months to sexy." Which basically means our last six months are not only devoted to preach the gospel with increased fervor, but to lose a lot of weight so we look good when we go home. So I still have eight months before then so I'm totally fine… For now😬. 

Elders Garrett and Huff with their double chins

Thursday we did service at the soup kitchen again and then on Friday we had zone meeting. 

It was a pretty big deal zone meeting. The whole meeting was taken up by a big new technology initiative training that our mission is participating in. As of right now our mission is one of the few in the entire world that is using Facebook. So the training was basically to brief us on how to properly use Facebook and other technologies on our iPad. I was excited for this training because I've not really known how to use Facebook for good missionary purposes, but now the mission is really pushing us to stay connected with our investigators and connect our investigators with members through apps like Facebook, Facebook messenger, Skype, and others. It's pretty exciting. The Arizona Tempe Mission was the first mission to get this training and it was extremely successful there. So our mission is one of the few others that has this pilot initiative training. 

In zone meeting I participated in a musical number. I'm doing that more and more and it kind of concerns me... It went well. 

After zone meeting I went over to Hickory because we had an exchange with the zone leaders. I went to Hickory with Elder Grieve. He's a good missionary, but he is kind of a stick in the mud. I kind of feel bad for him though because he is a younger missionary than I am and already a leader over a zone. I think it's kind of got to his head. That's why I am kind of happy that I am not in a leadership position because there's a lot of pressure on you and you have to correct other missionaries sometimes. That's not something I want to do. On the other hand though it's weird to think that he hasn't been out as long as I have, that he has had a lot of leadership responsibilities already, yet I have had none. Not something I'm mad about, but something I'm just curious about. 

Well anyways, we did some service for some elderly sister in the Ward. We did some weed whacking for her. She had a battery powered trimmer, I had never seen one of those before. 

That night we had dinner with a Hmong family. They are awesome. We had a good dinner where most of the food was delicious. They had these things they called "bitter watermelon" and oh boy they were bitter, wow! I had never had anything so bitter in my life. Grapefruit has nothing on this melon, yikes. It's supposed to help with diabetes though, so I guess it had some sort of purpose. Sunday started out pretty interestingly. Ward council was very heated yesterday. It's weird to think how young and inexperienced we missionaries are, but how we are heavily involved in the ward's business, and we get to see all the crazy things that go on in Ward council and people ask us about the status of people in the Ward. Being a missionary is a weird calling.  Well, that's about it for the week. We're just chilling here at the church playing games of all sorts with the district. Well, I hope y'all have a great week! Love y'all!

The Week of Stuff

Oh my goodness! I opened up my package and I had a bunch of letters
from friends/family! Best part of the package! Thank y'all for all the
birthday wishes and encouragement! I love y'all!

Sorry this email might be a little shorter, we had a big zone activity today all the way on the other side of the zone, so traveling back home takes forever. We did the activity at Bo's. We paid 9 bucks and got to do unlimited bowling and laser tag for three hours. It was pretty fun. The laser tag equipment was pretty crappy and didn't work half the time, and I really stink at bowling, but we had a lot of fun anyways. 

This week was a blur. I can't believe it is already August! June and July flew past. This week was full of biking and sweating profusely. I have never sweat so much in my entire life. The humidity is crazy. I am so glad we have the car next week. I think bike week has worn me out pretty good. 

Wednesday we had district meeting, that was good. We are working on memorizing the 42 principles in the Preach My Gospel lessons as well as the baptismal interview questions and scriptures for each of the 42 principles. This last week Elder Garrett and I got really far. I almost have everything memorized. On Thursday we mowed some inactive lady's yard for her. Well, Elder Garrett mowed and I talked to the lady. We were able to do service at the soup kitchen twice this week. On Thursday when we did it, the power went out to the entire city. Since the meals in the oven weren't done, we just made sack lunches and handed them out. It mixed things up a bit. 

Friday we biked all around Timbuktu and didn't talk to barely anybody, just sweated a whole bunch. I got a birthday package though and that made my day! There were so many goodies and awesome cards. It was awesome. I was pretty sick on Saturday so that stunk, but Sunday was great. We had a linger longer after church in the Ward, and the Ward mission leader told everyone about my birthday and so everyone sang for me. The Sisters got me a gift and a nice card. They are awesome sisters. That night we had dinner with the Vues, and the Sisters had told them that it was my birthday, so the Vues had a cake for me and a gift. They got me some socks and a tie . . . pretty awesome. 

Well, I had a great birthday, sorry the email is so short this week. Love y'all!