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!