Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot YUCK!

This week was so HOT! Luckily this week was car week, but we didn't get to use the car that much because the previous elders used most of the miles in one week. I have never sweated as much as I have this week my whole life. Temperatures were in the nineties all week long with humidity usually in the eighties, pretty miserable. We biked a couple miles last night and when we stopped and got off, I literally was dripping sweat. I could feel it running down my back, it kept getting in my eyes, and whenever I would try to wipe my hands off on my pants or shirt, nothing happened, because my clothes were soaked as well. 

Well, enough with all the heat, this week has seemed to go by pretty quick. I can't believe there is less than a week until my birthday. I don't want to be nineteen! That's too old for me😅. My sister's gonna be a teenager too! 😱Lauren is too young to be a teenager! Time is starting to go by pretty quickly here on the mission. When writing these emails, I have to refer back to my journal to remember what we did each week. Luckily I write in my journal every night, but sometimes I can't even remember what we did that day. Maybe my mind is just going🤓. 

So Tuesday wasn't too crazy, we did service at the Corner Cafe (a soup kitchen in downtown Newton) and that was fun. There are a lot of crazy people that go there, but it is a fun way to do service in the community. 

We met a Hmong family that goes to our Ward and they gave us a loaf of bread, a box of microwaveable burgers (they actually were really good😋), and a bunch of Hmong candy, just for stopping by their house! I don't know much about the Hmong culture, but I really like it so far!😆 Our Ward has a very high concentration of Hmong people, it's pretty neat. 

That night, the Spanish Elders came and spent the night, Elder Najera and Elder Johnson. They are over the whole Hickory Stake, so they cover all over tarnation. Elder Najera is a district leader (not ours), so they come over and spend the night before each district meeting, so he can be close to the stake center (which is conveniently our Ward building😊). So that's a fun little tradition we have. It's kinda cool to see how Elder Johnson has changed. He came out with me.  I really enjoy spending time with him, he's pretty cool now. 

On Wednesday morning, a man in the Ward, Brother Short, came and picked us up and he took us out to breakfast. He took us to a little cafe, it was pretty good, then he dropped us off at the church for district meeting. We had a good district meeting, and then we went on exchange. I went over to Lincolnton with Elder Piutau and Elder Washburn went with Elder Garrett to Newton. Elder Piutau and I biked a good bit and talked with a crazy guy for a while, who was just talking about philosophy and stuff like that, then we had Ward correlation for the Lincolnton Ward and I just sat there. After that, while we were waiting for our ride, we played around the world, and I won...of course. 

The next morning we visited a less active, then went and exchanged back. I really like Elder Piutau, he's a fun guy. On Friday we did some surprise service for a sort of less active lady. We were biking around and she called us and asked us to mow her lawn, so we went in our white shirts and ties and mowed her lawn. I drove the riding lawnmower, Elder Garrett used the push mower and Sister Buff used the weed-whacker. I got pretty good with that riding lawn mower, it was a bunch of fun. I was thinking Elder Garrett and I should start a lawn mowing company called, "The Guys in White Shirts and Ties." We got pretty filthy though so we went home and showered. 

That night Brother Hurley took us out to a place called Western Steer. It is a buffet that focuses on meat. Man that place was good! I stuffed myself with so many delicious meats as well as other things. We got home and we were so full. The next morning we were still feeling some effects from the night before. But we were fine. 

On Saturday we had a Pioneer Day event at the church, at the pavilion outside. We had food and pioneer games, and we were able to get to know the Ward a little better. A bunch of these people are crazy! It's a good crazy though I guess. They make me laugh. The farther away from the big cities you get, the less western transplants there are, and the more southern people there are. 

We were able to find some new investigators this week. We got a referral from the Conover Sisters and we went by and shared a quick message and asked if we could come back. She said we could, so we went back and taught the whole family. Nina is the mom, Chris is the husband, and Elijah is the rambunctious little boy. We had a good lesson with them and they want us back! Hopefully we'll be able to do so! We'll have to see. 

Yesterday was pretty good. Elder Garrett and I did a musical number in sacrament meeting. We performed Choose the Right. I played the piano and he sang. It was pretty good, considering we put it together the day before and practiced just a wee bit. We worked they rest of the day after lunch, and we went to the more ghetto side of town. I played pickup basketball with a bunch of little black kids, it was so fun. 

Well, what is up with this whole Pokemon Go thing? Is it a big thing out west, cause it sho is here. Everywhere you go you see people walking around playing that game, it's crazy. Maybe I'll have to get is when I get back home😉. 

Well, looking forward to another scorching, sweaty, full-bike week. Stay cool y'all! Love ya!

Elders Huff & Johnson

Whoa! Things are different now.

Elder Skinner took this on my IPad and I found it in Newton-Conover. He's a good guy.

So this week was the week of transfers. So I am now in Newton-Conover! It's a lot different than my last area. Summerfield was super rich and everyone was well off. This area is a lot more like Concord. We are really close to downtown Newton. Newton is a pretty smallish city, and surrounding the whole downtown area is old, lower class houses. But instead of African Americans the surrounding city is mostly rednecks. But I keep having flashbacks of Concord, it's kind of funny. Well, last Monday we didn't do too much, but we did go to Hops burger bar. I guess it's one of the best burgers in the nation and I was ten minutes away from the house, so we just had to go before I left. It was super good. Filled me up right good too. Then I finished packing that night, said some goodbyes, then the next morning, Brother Bellamy drove us down to Charlotte. It was pretty hard to leave Summerfield. We got to The Mission Office in Charlotte and said some goodbyes to some missionaries that were going home. There were a ton of Elders that went home. Just to name a few I've served around, Elder Pottle went home, Elder Wilde went home and a bunch of other great elders. Even my mission dad, Elder Nelson went home😢. I got to talk to him a little before we had to leave. It's so weird to think my trainer is home! Yikes. I then put all my belongings in Brother Turner's car from the Newton-Conover Ward and left with him. He's a good guy. He's always willing to help the missionaries. We got to Denver, NC and we picked up Elder Garrett, who was working with the the Elders there. We then went to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch, then he dropped us off at our apartment, and I'm now in Newton-Conover! 

This week has been kind of rough. Elder Garrett had only been in Newton for less than two weeks. He had been emergency transferred to Newton near the end of the transfer, so basically neither of us know barely anything about the area. So we are whitewashing. Without wifi as well. So everyday we have to go to the library downtown to plan, to send in numbers, to sync our Area Book and LDS Tools, to map out the area and members/formers, and/or message someone on Facebook. What makes it worse is that we were on bikes this whole week! It was very hot and very humid this week. Right now I am exhausted and so ready to get the car. In this area we have a car share with the Hickory Sisters. So one week on, one week off. So I will do more biking here than in any other area, and it is also the biggest area I've been in. Doesn't make much sense if you ask me. But oh well, at least the members are good here. The Ward is pretty good sized and a lot of good members. But the Ward has a lot of interesting people in it too. Newton-Conover Ward is a little crazy to tell the truth, so I think I'll fit right in😜. 

We had district meeting this week on Friday. It went pretty well. It's good to be in the same district as Elder Washburn again. He's my district leader now. In our district we have us, the Newton-Conover Sisters (We have to share the Ward with the STLs again🙄😏), both sets of the Lincolnton Ward Elders (Lincolnton and Denver) and the Hickory Zone Leaders. A pretty big district again, but it's mostly Elders and the Sisters are awesome so that's a plus. We aren't really teaching any solid people right now now, so we are mostly going around, trying to see members and introduce ourselves since we are so new to the area. We do have a part member/less active couple we are working with. The wife says she wants to get baptized, but she has some things holding her back. They said they were going to be at church this Sunday, but of course, they weren't☹️. Oh well. We are just concentrating on part member families and getting referrals from the members. 

Elder Garrett is a good guy. He's a little different, but not bad I guess. We get along pretty well, no big problems. He's a really deep guy, he's always going in depth about spiritual topics. In companionship study, when we share what we studied in personal study, I probably talk for about 5 minutes and he goes on for about 20 sometimes. 

We had a pretty wet week this week. Almost everyday will start off sunny and hot and then in the later afternoon/evening, dark clouds roll in and we get thunderstorms. Well on Saturday, we had just the same thing, but much larger. We just got out of the apartment after lunch and were biking around when these nasty black clouds started rolling in. We thought it would just pass by, it looked like it was going to blow right past us. We had a good number of people tell us we should find somewhere to take cover. It just started getting darker and darker and the thunder was getting louder and the lightning was clearly visible. Then the winds started to pick up. We had some lady yell at us from her porch, "Y'all better get in some shelter boys or else y'alls will jus blew away! Quick quick! The guy said 60 mile per hour winds!" So we decided at that point we should probably follow the people's advice. So we booked it to the library and I'm so glad we did. Just minutes after we had got inside, it started pouring and lightning started going crazy real close. The wind and the rain was so intense at one point, we couldn't even see out of the window at all. It was pretty crazy, and it lasted a long time too. We had to take cover in the library for over and hour. It was pretty big storm.

Well, everything is going well, and I hope things only get better! Love y'all!

 

From front to back: Elder Garrett, Sister Johnson, Sister Marshall,
Elder Washburn, Elder Holman, Elder Turner, Elder Piutau, and me!

The Change

So you might have guessed it already, but transfers are tomorrow! And guess what? I'm leaving Summerfield! Yikes! I've had an amazing six months in Summerfield and I have made a ton of friends. There are wonderful people in this ward and I will miss them dearly😢. But alas, it is time for me to move on to a new frontier! The Hickory stake! I am being transferred to the Newton-Conover area. Tomorrow we are having a member come pick us up at about 9:45, and then we are driving down to Charlotte! It's so weird because I haven't seen Charlotte in six months! I'm pretty excited. We are going to the mission home, and a member from the Newton-Conover Ward is going to pick me up from there and I will join Elder Garrett at my new home. I'm pretty excited for the area change, I think I need a change of scenery, but I'm not too excited about my companion. Elder Murray was MTC companions with Elder Garrett and he said he couldn't stand him😬. I'm sure it will all work out. Hey, maybe he'll be a great companion. I can't judge before I really know him. He was in my first zone and I can see where Elder Murray is coming from, but I'm sure I'll be fine. Anyways, I think we are white washing an area too. On last month's companionship roster, it says that Elder Wilde and Elder Liddell were there this last transfer, so I think both of them were transferred and we are opening the area again. That'll be interesting. I'm not quite sure if we are or not so I'll get back to you on that next week. 

Yikes, it's weird to think this is my last day in Summerfield. Even though I've had a really hard time in this area, I will miss it a lot. I've already packed mostly, so I'm almost ready to go. This week wasn't bad. I went to the Out of the Garden place I guess for the last time, and afterwards the Sagers took us to eat at Big Burger Spot. It has such good burgers. I want to come back to Summerfield to eat there again, and visit some people of course. 

The Summit Elders came and had a sleep over with us at our apartment on Tuesday night. They came and brought a new planning board that is being implemented in the mission and planned with us. The next morning we all got up and studied, then we went to the church and met the Guilford Sisters and set up hundreds of chairs for the Aloha event we were having. So the mission president in Raleigh is related to a big Polynesian family that lives in Hawaii. The family went to the Raleigh mission and did a bunch of shows there, and President Alexander asked them if they could do a couple shows in our mission, so they came to Greensboro and Charlotte. We of course went to the Greensboro one. So we set up the chairs for the event then later that night we went to the event. It was packed! The performance was really good. It was a series of different dances and songs from different Polynesian cultures and at the end they did a fire dance out side. I'll send pics and videos. Afterward, all the missionaries that were there helped clean up everything then went home. It was fun. 

On Friday we had zone meeting and afterwards, a bunch of the elders went to Red Robin and ate there. Afterwards the zone leaders came to our apartment and we exchanged. I went to Summit with Elder Rasmussen and Elder Skinner stayed with Elder Pottle. I had a good time with Elder Rasmussen and finished the night with him with Cook-Out shakes. Yum. The next day we studied then we went and picked up the elders and we had lunch at IHOP (Man, I did not eat healthy this week). Then we split ways. That night we got transfer calls. I feel bad for Elder Skinner. His new companion is a piece of work. I've heard some pretty horrible things about him, but I'm sure Elder Skinner will be fine. He's a good guy. We were just talking and joking about that this was the longest exchange ever, it seemed to go by so fast. He just became my companion didn't he? Well, I'm sure we'll cross paths again someday. 

We taught the Goins twice this week again. Now there is only one principle that still needs to be taught. After that, all they have to do is actually come to church and then we can work towards baptism. They said they might come to church this week but we all know what that means, it means that they didn't show up. I've been in this area for six months now, and I have never had an investigator at church, sad day. Oh well. I'll just have to work hard in my next area. 

Well. That's my crazy week, I'm sure the next one will be even crazier! Love y'all!

Apparently didn't feel bad about eating all the unhealthy food last week . . .
here's today's burger from Hops Burgers.

Happy Independence Day, from the nice, hot, humid, wet, and rainy state of NC!

Hello y'all! We've had a pretty hot, humid, and so forth week this week. It's rained at least once every day. I woke up Saturday night to a huge rain and thunderstorm. It was pretty cool, and I was trying to keep my eyes open so I could see the lightning, but it was impossible. 

We did some more moving on Tuesday. We went and helped a YSA move out of his apartment, until we had to go so the Sagers could pick us up and go help another YSA move in. After that we went to the Out Of The Garden warehouse and Elder Skinner and I got to load pallets onto a truck. We are sort of part of the regular team there on Tuesdays and everyone who works there knows us and they're having us do many different jobs around the warehouse. It's a blast. 

We helped a priest in the ward prepare for a missionary experience this week. He has a speech counselor that he has become friends with and he asked her if he could "practice" the lessons on her. She agreed, and he's really nervous, so we went over there on Wednesday and helped him out. It was pretty fun doing role plays with someone other than a missionary. 

Thursday was zone conference. Three zones were there this time, so a lot of missionaries I knew were there. I got to catch up with Elder Murray, Elder Hulet, Elder Buffaloe, Sister Flaherty, and Sister Beal. It was a good zone conference. We mainly focused on planning, which was good because planning is something that I need to work on. At the conference, the departing missionaries gave their departing testimonies. There are a lot of missionaries that are leaving the mission. I'll really miss Elder Pottle, he's been a really good zone leader.  We both came into the Greensboro zone at the same time, and we've been in the same district the whole time. He's the only missionary that was in the district when I came into the area. Man, we've been here in Greensboro for a very long time, six months is a long time. Well, after the conference we caught a ride home with the Sagers and then had dinner with the Smiths, and they prepared fried pufferfish for us. Man, that fish was soooo good. No doubt, the best fish I have ever had on my mission. They prepared a lot too, so by the end of the night, I thought I was going to explode! 

Well, anyway, we talked to this guy this week named Kevin Henry. We've seen and taught him before, but it never went anywhere. We just decided to drop by this Saturday to see if he was there. We caught him packing up for college actually. He's going to Virginia Tech to play football. So if you see a player on Virginia Tech named Henry next year, I know that guy😉. 

So yesterday I got up in church and bore my testimony, which is something I haven't done since September, when I got up in my home ward and sobbed about how I was going to miss my home ward and yadayadayada. Well, considering this was probably my last chance at bearing my testimony in the Summerfield Ward, I thought I might as well. 

We were able to teach the Goins again twice this week. Things are really starting to progress. They said they would come to church next Sunday, which would be great, because then in my whole six months of Summerfield I will be able to bring someone to church. They are getting pretty close to baptism and I'm excited for them. 

Well, today has been a pretty busy day. This morning we got up and went and served pancakes and sausage at the ward's pancake breakfast. It was pretty fun and the food was delicious. That was probably the first time I've had pancakes for breakfast in almost 9 months! So that was great. Afterwards we had a district activity at the Greensboro Science Center. It's a pretty cool place. It's an aquarium, zoo, and museum all mixed into one. We really enjoyed it. It was probably the best district activity I've had on my mission. There was even a Red Panda there! And a whole lot of other animals too! I'll send some pictures. 

Red Panda

We then went and played basketball with Elder Pottle and Elder Rasmussen at the church. So we've had a pretty busy 4th so far, but nothing else exciting today. 

Love y'all, by next week I'll know the transfer business! I can't believe that the transfer is already over!  Yikes! Talk to y'all next week!

The Week of Moving People

So this week wasn't super exciting and not much happened either. Our AC broke this week, but we made sure to go to the office real quick and we came back later that night and it was fixed already, so we dodged a bullet there! We had district meeting this week and that was good. During one of the trainings Elder Sagers kicked Elder Skinner in the butt, so that made district meeting great. We taught the Goins again this week. It went pretty well, but they still haven't come to church, something's holding Bother Goins back, I don't know what it is, but it's something. I wish I knew, but alas, I don't. 

The exciting part of the week came Friday night when we went to help Sister Cordell move. This was a long anticipated and dreaded move. It's a single sister living in a three story house with a lot of stuff. We showed up a little late because of our dinner appointment and when we got there the whole block was filled with cars. There were probably fifty people there helping out. There were still a lot of things to do but it was great to see the Ward rally like that to someone's need. 

The next day we helped the Mitchell's move, and that was tough. We had a pretty good turn out, about ten people, and we were only moving them from an apartment to an apartment, so there wasn't that much stuff to move, but they were moving from the third floor apartment, to a third floor apartment😐. We moved a lot of stuff that day, and I sweated like a fire hydrant. It was good through, it changed things up a little. Well, that's pretty much all of my week, nothing much happened, hoping for a more exciting week next week! Love y'all!