A Week in the Life of Harrisburg

Charlotte Central 'Ranch' (Zone)

So this week was pretty good. I actually rode a bike for the first time in three months, and now I remember why I liked buses a whole lot better than riding bikes. You know, when you bike across your area to get to an appointment, and you arrive, and you're all tired and sweaty, then you go up and knock on the door...and wait...knock again...wait some more...call them...no answer...then you are so happy, because you wasted your time and energy biking to an appointment that fell through, bummer. Oh well, I keep telling Elder Bollschweiler, "its all in the life of a missionary." I mean, sure stuff like that bugs me, but I've come to learn you just gotta roll with the punches and be happy about getting slugged in the gut a couple times, it'll only strengthen your abs, right? 

Anyways, looking back on the week, it was actually kind of a rough week, but it ended well, so I guess that's what really matters. Last Sunday our car kind of had a fit, so we had to take it to Firestone on Monday, and the Firestone guy told us it was a leaking water pump, and we had to get that fixed at the dealer. So Monday we had to show up at the dealership without an appointment, turn in our car, then wait until they could squeeze it into the schedule and fix it. It took about two and a half hours of us sitting in the waiting room before the car was fixed, so that took a big chunk out of the day. Oh well, we had some extra time to study I guess. We then had to turn around and give the fixed car to the other Elders, and bike the rest of the day, and week. It's pretty hard to bike here in this area, right outside of our apartment complex is a pretty big highway. We still bike on it occasionally when we need to, but we try and avoid it. 

Wednesday was kind of crazy. That was the day we biked to the missed appointment, and while we were biking home, it started raining, really hard. By the time we got home we were soaked, chilled, and muddy. Then that night we walked to the church in the rain, but luckily we didn't get as wet. We had a lesson at the church with a guy named Kelly and then played some basketball with the young men while we were waiting for the Bishop cuz we had a meeting with him that night. The meeting went well, our ward mission leader and bishop are both extremely on top of things, but they are also pretty critical, especially the bishop. So we have to make sure to remember everything he wants us to do, I've got to start writing things down. 

Thursday was super windy and muddy because of all the rain the previous day. We biked down the highway to go do service at Habitat for Humanity. It's a fun place to do service. Friday we had zone meeting and president showed up, it was a pretty good meeting. Saturday stunk. I woke up in the morning, was feeling fine, then got up ate breakfast, then I threw it back up. I felt sick all day long so we just had to stay in the apartment all day long. Those are the worst days on the mission. 

Sunday was good though. Bishop asked me to give a talk and so that's what I spent my sick day doing, I was preparing it. I gave the talk and I think I did pretty well. Since it was the first time I attended sacrament meeting in Harrisburg it was a good opportunity to introduce myself. I got a lot of complements on the talk afterwards and I even had a lady ask for a copy of my talk...strange. We also helped teach Young Men during third hour and that went really well as well. After church we biked around all day, and didn't have much luck. We are right next to the UNCC campus, so we have a lot of good college kids sticking their heads out the window and yelling at us. Yesterday while we were biking, some guy stuck his head out the window and screamed, "God does not exist!" I just chuckled and kept biking because obviously, God does exist. I just feel sorry for people who don't believe that. Last night we found some guy from Africa and his wife. They seem pretty interested and I look forward to teaching them. They were the last thing we did last night and was able to make our new investigator goal, which makes me happy. 

Well, that's the week. It was kind of rough but it ended well! Love y'all!