A week of not so good luck

Well...we don't really have any investigators anymore. They all moved away. That actually is almost a true statement. You see, one person we found out wasn't in our area, so technically they didn't really move away. Ah man! It's painful! We don't really have anyone to teach anymore! Aargh! Well, this week was pretty goofy. Elder Murray and I are pretty goofy together. We should probably work on being more dignified, but we're mostly just goofy around the apartment and in the car. We are kinda like brothers, so we get along very well at times and then we get in some tussles as well, but they usually are goofy tussles anyway. Oh well, we'll work on it.

We're having a hard time with this Ward. We can tell the bishop doesn't really like us that much as well as our Ward mission leader. Considering this Ward hasn't baptized in over a year and the last person it baptized now avoids the church like a plague, I can see why there isn't much trust. We're trying the best we can to work better with the members and establish that trust again, but I feel like that trust will come when we baptize, but we have a hard time baptizing when we don't have great member support. Oh well, we'll figure it out.

We had zone meeting this week, and that was mostly good. The new senior couple, the Sagers,

gave a really good training on the doctrine and gospel of Jesus Christ and how any question an investigator or less active member asks can be answered by one of the principles of the doctrine of Christ. It was really good. They are good teachers. I played "Ye Elders of Israel" for a special musical number and that turned out well. The only part that kinda bugged me was the Guilford Sisters training and zoned in on obedience, and though they didn't say it, they basically targeted me. Not that I'm a disobedient missionary, they basically just don't like how I played James Bond [on the piano] in the church on P-Day. I didn't know that that was against the rules but I guess I do now. Oh well, they are good missionaries and maybe it's an indication to me that I need to look for more ways to be more obedient.

We gave a church tour this week! It went really well! We took Steve and his girlfriend Dana to

the church and gave them a tour! They were really interested! Then we went by their place two days later and they told us they are moving! Yay! Just as they were really moving forward! Yay! They don't know exactly when they are moving so hopefully we'll be able to get them to church before they go!😐 Other than having no one to teach, things are going pretty well. I'm excited to go and find new people to teach, we just have to find the right place to knock. We also have a new tool to find people this Easter season. #Hallelujah!  I love the church holiday initiatives and the times of year. People really love Jesus down here so hopefully we'll be able to share the video with a lot of people and baptize someone because of it! Only time will tell. Onward and Upward! Love y'all! Have a splendiferous week!

Hahahahaha

I spent along time laughing last night after I heard that dad is the second counselor in the bishopric. Did I know it was coming? No. Am I surprised? Not at all. This week was not great, but not bad. We were able to see the Ellingtons, the family I was talking about last week, on Monday. They are super elect and ready for the gospel. We were going to go and meet them on Thursday, but their apartment flooded, and we didn't want to bug them in all the craziness. The stinky part is they are moving just barely out of our area soon, and when they do that, we won't be able to teach them anymore😩.

We are also teaching Nancy and Lucas, but we haven't been able to meet with them this week because they are out of town. But the good part is that they actually remembered our appointment and called us from out of town and told us they were sorry and promised us they weren't avoiding us😊. So that's good. 

Speaking about avoiding us, there's this less active member we've been trying to see ever since I've been in Summerfield (Elder Nelson actually baptized him when he was here). He's avoiding us. He never answers the door even if he is home and he also never answers his phone for us. We were over there on Saturday and we knocked on his door and of course he didn't answer (he was home too, both his cars were there). So we tracted his street and we saw him drive right past us. We waved, but he made sure not to look at us. Later we were walking back to our bikes and we saw him driving toward us on the way to his house. He must've seen us because he quickly turned into a driveway, backed out, and gassed it. He ran away from us! Wow, are we really that ugly? Well, maybe Elder Murray is 😜. Yeah, we meet some weird people. Why doesn't he just come outside and tell us to never come back if he really hates us so much?

We met another strange man on Thursday while we were tracting apartments (You meet all the weirdos in the apartments👹). He opened the door and we told him we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ. He said, "Who is Jesus Christ?" We told him that Jesus Christ is the son of God. He then asked, "Who is G-O-D?" We were confused, so we asked him who he thought God was. He came outside, and closed the door behind him. This guy had dreads going down past his waist, and they were HUGE and did not smell very good. He started talking about how Ethiopians were the first "Christians" and how he's Ethiopian, and how Ethiopia has the real Bible translated from Geez, an ancient dead language that his brother can speak and translate BTW. Then he talked about how Jesus sounds like Zeus, so Jesus is a mythical person as a result. But there is Jesus (Jess-us), who is like Jesus. And then he finished the conversation by saying that he is Jesus. He then told us he needed to go inside to feed his baby and we should come back some other time. Poor baby...I wonder what his future will be like.

Anyway. Transfers are gone. We have some new people in the district, but they don't seem that cool yet, but we'll see. Well, bike week is over thank goodness, just in time for it to get warm. We always have the bikes during the cold spells. Oh well. It builds character right...whatever. Well, things are going well, hoping to find some more people to teach, and getting excited about the semi warm weather, as well as dreading the summer. Love y'all, I'll talk to ya next week!

A Pretty Good Week

Well, this week wasn't that bad. Yesterday we got transfer calls and I can't believe how fast that transfer went by, especially the month of February! So Elder Murray and I are both safe, we're both staying in Summerfield. Sister Ekstrom is going home, but we all knew that was coming right up. She is a great missionary and she'll be missed. Other than her, only one person got transferred! Sister Johnson is going to Kannapolis to be with Sister Nansel! She was in my last district! She is super sad, but Kannapolis is awesome, and she'll enjoy it. She baptized 3 people just this last month with Sister Krummenacher. Our district got 5 baptisms this last month. Guess what!?! That was 1/4 of the whole mission's baptisms! The mission had 20 baptisms this month. Not great, but better than December and January, so hopefully the mission is back on the upward climb. 

In Summerfield things are going okay. This week was really good. We were able to get five new investigators. We met a family who we are going to teach later today and hopefully they'll be open to our message and improve and get baptized. We also met another couple who we've taught two lessons to and they committed to baptism so that's good. They are really nice, they just have some things that will hold them back if they don't stop'em. Anyway, things are good. Pretty good. We reached most of our goals this week so we were pretty excited. We also got the most amount of lessons Summerfield has seen in over a year! We have dinner appointments almost every day of the month, so that's spectacular! I'm so excited and happy! We are having problems with our Ward mission leader, but things will turn out okay. 

The weather this week has been kinda crazy. It was rainy, then cold, then really windy and cold, then warm, then cold and sort of windy, then moderate, and now today it's pretty warm. Wednesday was super windy! We were at an investigator's house showing him the Joseph Smith movie and the house was shaking and the doors kept flying open. So he had to dead bolt them. We didn't blow away, so that's good, but we did see a couple squirrels fly by though. 

Oh my goodness! The Guilford Elders just got a call from President! Elder Rothenburger is taking off! He is going to University City! That's so sad...Oh man. Well, things are changing. That stinks

because no elder will replace him since he was a tripanionship. Oh well. It's all good.

I hope everything is going well. Love y'all! 

Elders Huff, Rothenburger, Murray, Randall & Hulet
I kinda copied a picture I saw of Craig on his mission with the elders (not nearly as good😀)

Elder Rothenburger (leaving), Elder Hulet, Elder Murray,
me, Elder Randall, Sister Johnson (leaving), and Sister Krummenacher.

The week of going by so slow and fast I don't even remember what we did

I'm having a hard time remembering what we did this week. It was short, because we had P-day on Tuesday...................Oh! We had Zone Conference. That was good. President talked to us about how we need to use the scriptures more in teaching. I definitely need to use the scriptures more, so that was good. Oh! And during the conference, the Assistants gave a training about the key indicators we use to report our numbers each week such as other lessons taught, baptismal invites, member presents, lessons with recent converts and less actives, new investigators, and so on and so forth. So Elder Mautz is an Assistant now, you know, the zone leader in my last area. Well, he demonstrated the board Elder Nelson and I started using in Concord to show our key indicators and goals. I'll show you a picture in my picture email. It's a really handy way to stay organized and Elder Mautz  was in Concord with me, he saw the board and really liked it, and I taught him how to use it, and now he's spreading it around the mission! Elder Nelson and I are still tearing it up!

Well, another insight from zone conference I got is that nobody likes to call me Elder Huff. Everyone is calling me Elder Hulet, a missionary in the Guilford area! And in Concord I had a very similar experience and was always called Elder Hatch, a missionary who had previously served in Concord. Even my companions get it wrong occasionally, I just don't understand it. I guess I'm just not a very impressionable guy. 

I've had a cough my entire mission, but it has been relatively small and non frequent until these last two weeks. I've been hacking up my lungs! It hasn't hindered the work at all yet so I'm not too concerned. It'll go away eventually in one way or another. I might carry it for the rest of my life, but I'll be resurrected and receive a perfect body so I'm good with it. It's temporary no matter what. 

I also bought a cool new thermos to carry around with me. Up until recently, I had been buying a huge pack of water bottles each week because I drink a lot of water and I like to have water on the go all the time, but one day the water I usually buy wasn't there, and I saw these cool water bottles that were on sale, so I bought one and have been using it ever since. It's awesome. I have a water filter too so I've got clean water to drink. It fits perfectly on my bike and well as my bag. 

Speaking of the bag, it broke... It's a good thing it comes from the missionary mall and has a two year warranty. The latch popped of so I have to walk around with the flap open all the time ☹️. I'll send pics of that too.

Well, we had a week full of former finding, and that wasn't too successful so we'll have to try another method. Yikes this is hard. People are just...um.... Oh well, we are all God's children. I have to remind myself that a lot. So many people have just had rough lives and we have to understand that. It's not totally their fault if they are rude to us, or if they don't keep commitments. If they avoid us at all costs. So on and so forth. There are a lot of kind, genuine people in the world as well, they are just not as loud as the cruel, hypocritical, rude, fake voices out in the world. It's always fun to meet a nice, genuine person after a long day of slammed doors and being ignored, even if they aren't that interested in what we have to say. 

Well, still trying to get the members involved in the work and I hope the new Ward mission plan that Brother Eshiet has come up with will be implemented and actually followed. We'll see how it goes. Love y'all and I'll talk to ya next week!

Guilford Elders in the back, Elder Murray w/me in the front

A Week of Cold and Road Kill

Elders Huff and Murray eating peanut butter pie at a nice restaurant

So today is P-day instead of yesterday because yesterday was President's day so people were home yesterday, so we worked. So P-day is today, yay! 

So this week got really cold...right as we lost our car ☃☃. It got really cold on Tuesday in the middle of the day...while we were biking to an appointment... This week was the coldest bike week I've had so far. Going down hills is fun, but not when it is so cold. I've gotten into the habit of picking off all the frozen tears from my cheeks so that's fun. We've been biking a lot this week as well, more than normal. On Tuesday we biked about 30 miles. That was pretty hard. Biking is just cold. Cold cold cold cold cold. Oh well, it probably just feels really cold because we are on bikes. 

We did some service this week for a less active older couple. They only have a wooden stove in their house and they can't really get wood for themselves so we went over there with a member and helped split wood. It was pretty fun. I'm not the best at it, but I was able to contribute. 

We did a lot of tracting this week again. Not really any success. We're really trying to figure out what we're doing wrong and what we should improve on. We don't really have any investigators. We have one guy, Steve and he is a total alcoholic and addicted to cigarettes. Every time we go to his house we knock on his door and he yells through the door, "Who is it?!?" And we say, "The missionaries!" And he says, "Oh, okay, let me get some pants on." Then he comes out with a beer in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth. He curses like a sailor and has had a rough past. He also says he's never going to convert he just likes talking to us because it gives him a good feeling. He knows what he is doing is not the best and he really wants to improve his life. We'll see were it goes. He's the only investigator I've ever had that reaches out to us and asks us to come see him so that's good. 

It snowed Sunday night, and since the ground was so cold because of the cold week, it stuck pretty well. There's some even on the ground right now even though it's almost 50 degrees outside. It was a nicer fluffier snow than the last snow storm and it will soon be gone anyway. We walked all day yesterday because we couldn't ride our bikes in the snow. But it wasn't that bad. We went to a really expensive restaurant last night that a member took us to. It was really good and while we were in there it was, how do you say it...? Freezing raining? Raining...frozen stuff. Freezing rain was occurring? Anyway, it was pretty cool and really slick. I'm happy the member had a nice 4 wheel drive car. It was really pretty on the trees and it froze over all the snow, so when you pushed on the ice on all the cars, it popped and sank down because it was a layer of ice on the top and just snow underneath, we had a bit of fun with that. 

Anyway, this week hasn't been that exciting, but I've seen a lot of roadkill. Well, love y'all, hope y'all have an exciting week. Talk to ya later

Bird w/bunny

Frozen roadkill

4 months

Elder Huff and geese

Yesterday was my four month mark on the mission. We are still trying to figure out Summerfield and looking for people to teach. This week we mostly visited less actives in the ward so nothing too exciting. We did go on exchanges and for the first time I took over the area. Elder Randall came over to Summerfield and we had some good fun. We met this insane lady tracting. She came outside after a long time and said she'd be really interested. So we talked to her and she was crazy. She said she wanted to pray and she asked that we hold hands in a circle. Weird, but not uncommon. Then it got weird. While Elder Randall was praying, she kept yelling, "PRAY HARDER, PRAY HARDER!!" We finally said no, and then she asked if she could pray, so we reluctantly said yes, so she started praying and it was pretty much just yelling. But as we walked away Elder Randall said she was drunk and that we should go back. So we did a couple days later and she was totally sane, still weird, but sane, and she wants to get baptized so that's good. 

I am having a really hard time thinking of anything else that happened this week. I had an interview with President so that was good. The Panthers lost so that wasn't good. We drove around a lot this week and we've almost used 300 miles out of our 500, so that's not good. Sorry I didn't have much to say this week, hopefully this next week is more exciting. 

Oh real quick! We had dinner with a family whose son went to France on his mission and had Bret as his companion! His name is Elder Logan Williams! Well anyway, that was exciting.

Talk to y'all next week!

Happy to get a package!

Lounging with a cat

January is finally gone!

Wow, January seemed like it dragged on for way too long. Not saying that January was a bad month, just a very long one. It seems forever ago when I was in Concord with Elder Nelson. I've come to appreciate him more and more the longer I've been in Summerfield. I love Elder Murray to death, but sometimes he is a slob, which Elder Nelson definitely wasn't. Elder Murray is awesome though. He's really good at talking to people in a goofy way and having people feel comfortable with us quickly. 

There are no solid investigators here, So this week we have done a lot of finding. For the first time in my mission I went tracting. Since there are so many apartment complexes in our immediate area and we don't have the car again this week (Because Elder Fakatou and Murray used up and exceeded all the miles on the car so I have not ridden in the car since I have come to Summerfield😒) we have tracted out a lot of apartments and have met a lot of very interesting people. Nice and not so nice. There are people that are nice , but say they aren't too interested, people that are rude and are not interested, people that are just plain crazy/drunk, people that will only talk to you through the door, old confused looking people, and people that are nice and talk to us and are interested in learning more. I think the most common ones are the first two. The rude ones either make me laugh or make me mad. We had a lady last night that opened the door and proceeded to look at us like we were stupid and told us there is no soliciting. To the best of my knowledge, we are not. We've had a lot of that and I am frankly sick of it. I just need to forget it and move to the next door (unless the people call the office and tell them that the Mormons are bugging them and then we get escorted out of the complex, which has happened before because people are just plain mean). People are people, and people are often grumpy, oh well. We were talking to a lady who said she wasn't too interested but she said she would take a card. So we gave her a card and in the process of doing so, she asked what church we were from and we told her. She looked like a deer in the headlights and she promptly gave the card back and slammed the door. We met this other lady (I'm just now noticing all the rude people are women...weird 🤔) who didn't answer the door, but came out on her porch above us and started yelling at us and crossing her heart unceasingly. She told us she loves Jesus and people like us who don't love Jesus should be shot. We then walked to the next apartment. We have a lot of awkward situations as well. It's really weird when people answer their door with no clothes on, and when people answer the door totally drunk. We usually end up talking to the drunks for a while because we usually get a good laugh from what they say and they are usually friendly, unlike non drunk people.  In fact one drunk lady we met was a little too friendly. She and her friend came outside and started talking to us. Her friend was talking to Elder Murray and they were having a really good conversation about the church. The guy knew a lot about the church and offered to come out on teams with us sometime. While Elder Murray was having a good conversation with the guy, the lady was talking to me. She told me her whole life story and while doing so she was totally hitting on me...gross☢😷☢. She kept telling us to come back when she was alone and that she would "entertain us" and that she was "lively" for a 42-year old. Needless to say, we are never ever going back there again. 

On a better note, because of all the tracting we were able to find a lot of awesome people we are looking forward to go teach again. There is a lady named Michelle that we met, who said she just wanted to read the Bible with us but when we went over here she was very interested in what we have to teach and we were able to teach the Restoration and she was very accepting of it. We left with a prayer and by the end of the prayer she was crying and she told us thank you and that she was excited to learn more. She seems pretty solid and I hope we will be able to meet with her again. We had a really good week this week. The work is a little more slow in Greensboro than in Charlotte, but we were able to talk to a lot of people and teach a lot of lessons. We had the best week Summerfield has seen in a long time. We've been working hard and having lots of fun. 

We were able to go to church yesterday so that was a plus. I was able to meet a good amount of members this last week and I'm slowly getting more familiar with the ward. Dinner appointments are picking up so I am super excited about that. I've had five dinner appointments since I've been in Summerfield. Three of which occurred in the last four days, so things are looking up in Summerfield. 

Nope, I have not had grits yet. I've learned that Mormons cook similarly everywhere. Casseroles are the best! Well, I love y'all and I always look forward to your emails, thanks so much for them! They really make my day! I love to hear what's going on back home! Love ya so much! Bye!

New District: Sisters Godfrey, Ekstrom, Zampieron, Johnson,
Krummenacher, Elders Wilde, Rothenburger, Huff, Murray, Pottle, Randall, Hulet.