A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

Elder & Sister Zwick, President & Sister Alexander, and a bunch of missionaries.  Can you find Elder Huff?

Hello y'all! How ya doing! I'm doing alright alright alright! We started off the week on Monday by totally rearranging our apartment and deep cleaning. It took a while but it was fun. 

On Tuesday we had an eight-hour meeting with four zones in the mission. Elder Zwick and his wife came and did some trainings and role plays. President and Sister Alexander both spoke and gave trainings as well. It was a really good meeting. They covered so much. He talked about the mantle of our callings and how the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency pray for us every day and how we should pray for them as well. He has a grandson who is preparing to go on a mission and he came. The kid's other grandpa is Henry B. Eyring, goodness. Well the meeting was really good.  Elder Murray got to talk to a lot of missionaries he knew while I kinda stood off by the side. I feel like I still don't know anybody in the mission. I guess I'm just not a very impressionistic guy. Oh well. I did get to see the three sisters that were in my MTC district, so that was fun. They seem to be doing well. Two of them are companions, and it made me think about how Buffalo's doing. I wonder how good of companions we would be. So that meeting was great, and afterwards while we were cleaning up, the AP's told us that the Alexanders and Zwicks were coming to inspect our apartment!😬 I'm really glad we deep cleaned on Monday. We went up to President and asked how he wanted to get to our apartment, he told us he would just follow us with the Zwicks in his car, then he looked at us and said, "Is your apartment...presentable?" We said yes and he said, "I knew I could count on you Elders." So we all went to our apartment and they were super impressed! Yay! They said it was one of the cleaner apartments they have been in! Yay! It was kind of cool to have a seventy and President in our apartment and to be able to chat face to face with Elder Zwick. He's a cool guy. Well, that was very exciting, and know I can say our apartment has a stamp of approval by a seventy! 

Right after they left we did an exchange with the Guilford elders. I went to Guilford with Elder Randall. It was pretty slow in Guilford, even slower than our area. We kind of just wandered around the UNCG campus and talked to random people. We had a long exchange too just because Elder Murray wanted to extend it so we had a 36 hour exchange instead of a 24 or less hour exchange. So I got back home on Thursday and had a long weekly planning day. Things are picking up in this area, and hopefully soon we'll see some baptisms! 

So we got transfer calls yesterday! Elder Murray and I are staying for another 6 weeks! In fact, most of the district is staying the same except for the Summit Sisters. Sister Goodrich is going home and Sister Brown (who just got emergency transferred here two weeks ago) is leaving as well. So all the cool sisters take off and the Guilford Sisters both stayed! Yay! Whoopie! Splendid! Goody Goody! Oh well, it's all good. Hopefully we'll kill it this transfer! I finished my journal this week! And I'm almost 200 days into my mission! Yikes! Oh man! Well, love y'all, have a great week!

We were riding on a Greenway and we found this. I asked Elder Murray
to take a picture of me and while I was rubbing it a bird pooped on
the IPad screen while Elder Murray was holding. Good luck my foot.

How-Dee-How-Dee-Doo-Dee-Doo

Logan with his new tie from Guatemala!

Hello Everyone! 

This week was crazy, and seemed to last forever!! Monday was pretty calm, but Tuesday it really picked up. We started off the week with exchanges with the Guilford Elders. Elder Hulet came over to Summerfield with me! Beforehand all four of us and the Sagers went to a big food warehouse and did some service. We put together bags of food for less fortunate kids. Basically, this place takes all the leftover foods from places like Panera Bread and Little Caesars that they would've just thrown away and packages them for kids. You'd be amazed at how much food these places just toss away! There were HUGE garbage bags of assorted Panera Bread items!  And a ton of them, too. And also stacks upon stacks of Little Caesars Pizza! It's amazing how much food in this country just goes to waste. 

The exchange with Elder Hulet was good (especially because I got to drive the car😉), we were able to get in contact with a part member family! The next day we went to district meeting (I gave a training on our calling as missionaries, I thought it went pretty well) and it went well, and at the end of the meeting the Assistants show up! They were going on exchange with the zone leaders, but since there are three of them, one decided to come with us for a day!😬 Yikes! So Elder Clarke came back home with us...He's a super nice guy and he has a crazy life story, but we still were on edge the whole time. Not that we had anything to hide, but we aren't really proud of the area we are working with. We had planned to go tracting that day, but he shot that down, 'cause tracting is just a waste of time. So we just wandered around all day talking to people. We also played a game of pick-up basketball with a kid on the street. It was fun. That night we took our beds into the study room and put them on the floor, and Elder Clarke slept on the couch. We stayed up till about 12:30 just talking, which is something I don't do very much because I fall asleep so fast. That's something I've gotten really good at on my mission, sleeping, anytime, anyplace. Now, I could fall asleep in a less than two minutes. It's good for short power naps😀. He then had weekly planning with us and he set our goals really high for this week. Too high. Oh well, trying isn't gonna hurt. We then gave back Elder Clarke🖖🖖 and had a pretty good Thursday. 

We then did a bike switch-a-roo. So Sister Brown's bike (She's new. She got emergency transferred here because in her last area someone got murdered in a room just next door to them. Needless to say, there are no more sisters in Salisbury😬) broke, and they asked the Guilford Sisters to borrow a bike from them. The Guilford Sisters said yes, but they said that the Summit Sisters had to find a way to come and get it, which wasn't very fair to the Summit Sisters, because they were on bikes, and the Guilford sisters had a car and they have plenty of miles to do things like that because they are STL's. So we (we don't get any extra miles by the way, even though Elder Murray is a district leader) had to drive all the way to the Guilford Sisters' apartment to pick up a bike, then drive all the way across Guilford and Summerfield to get to Summit to drop off the bike😡, wasting a ton of miles. I just love those Guilford Sisters... We took Sister Brown's bike with us (the derailer had some problems) to take it to a shop we knew of. While we were driving around, we drove on a freeway (I don't know if it should be called a freeway if the speed limit is only 55😴) onramp, and while we were on the onramp, one of the tires on Sister Brown's bike just fell off!!!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Nooooooo!!!!! We didn't see where it went so we never found it. Needless to say, we felt really bad. We took it to the shop the next morning and we had to buy a part for it to re-fasten the derailer, then buy a new wheel, tube, and tread for the bike. Yikes! It cost a good chunk of money, so I have $14 for the rest of the month! Yay! Oh goodie! It'll be fine. We have a lot of backup food in the apartment. We then dropped off the fixed bike, then had to drive back to Guilford to drop off the other bike. 

Well, we were able to meet a lot of new people this week. Mostly part member families, and we started to teach one. He is a less active member and he had three girls, two of which are baptism age and have not been baptized. We'll see what we can do. So we finally have things to do, which is good, we'll see if it lasts🎉. 

So this week was good, but long, and now we have no money. I think it was a great week! We accomplished a lot! Hopefully this next week is even better! Love y'all!

Our district, from left to right, top to bottom: Elder Sagers, Sister
Sagers, Elder Hulet, Elder Randall, Elder Murray, studMcmuffin, Sister
Goodrich, Sister Krummenacher, Elder Wilde, Sister Sherwood, SisterGodfrey, Sister Brown.



If you're interested in Elder Huff's missionary bag, here's a video:

Another slow week in Summerfield . . . EXCEPT FOR CONFERENCE!!

We followed a greenway straight to this, I didn't want to risk biking
on it, though I'm sure Brian Thomas could have pulled it off😬😀

Yay! I just love General Conference. For us missionaries, it's better than Christmas! We get to sit in a stake center for four to six hours a day and listen to the inspired words of the prophets and leaders of the church. They are awesome men and women. I loved being able to just sit back, relax, and listen closely. It was so great. Now it's over...😥. But hey! Elder Holland told us all to enjoy tomorrow and to not dread it, and tomorrow is today! P-Day!😆 So yeah, conference was great. The Guilford Sisters, bless their hearts, actually had an investigator to bring to conference (unlike the rest of us). His name is Jeff, and he is super solid. He said General Conference changed his life! He came to all five sessions! Which is better than a lot of Mormons. Between each session, he went out to the pavilion or a classroom and studied the Book of Mormon. We had a pizza party before the priesthood session (Orson Scott Card bought a ton of pizzas) and he shared his testimony with us. It's crazy! How did the sisters find him! WHERE'S OUR JEFF!?!?!?!  He has to be out there somewhere right? Man, we just can't find our Jeff. He must be hiding from us or we are really blind. 

This week was pretty rough. We only taught two investigators this week, and we didn't find any new people to pursue. There were bright spots in the week though, as always. We had interviews with president this week. They went pretty well, almost too well😄. President said that if I improved this next transfer as much as I have improved this last transfer, I'll be one of the better missionaries in the mission. I don't buy it. Considering I've been in the mission six months now and I've never taught the fourth lesson with any investigator, I don't feel like I've really done that much at all. I wish I saw the improvement that President saw, cause I just don't... But it was good, and he gave us some suggestions we'll have to follow up on. 

This week we also got to teach the Abdelhaq family, a great returning member/part member family. We showed up and they invited us in and to dinner. The father invited, even though we had already had dinner, so we ate more. We got to know the husband better though. He is a Muslim and a super nice guy. I don't know why he married a Mormon,  but they work it out. They are a cool family. 

Well, not much else happened this week. I went on exchange with the zone leaders. Elder Pottle came here to the wonderful snailish land of Summerfield. He called it that as well. We had a lot of fun and I really like him. 

Well conference was great, the work is slow, and I will be out six months on the 7th. Yikes! I'm 1/4 through the mission! Weird. Well, I'll talk to y'all next week. Love ya!

This is like most of the roads in my area.
Skinny lanes with no shoulder whatsoever.
I wish I could've included the speed limit in the picture.
It was 45. Yay! 

Easter week

Elder Huff with his Easter tie

Well...Easter is over. Oh well. This week has been super busy, but not necessarily successful😥. This week was bike week (thank goodness it is over!!😄!!) We biked A LOT this week. Added it all up on Google maps and we biked over 60 miles this week! 25 of those miles were in one day! I'm so happy my bike is awesome, but it's starting to wear. The gears are shifting slower and slower and the brakes are getting softer and softer. I might have to get a tune up relatively soon. We'll see. My bike isn't the only thing that's wearing out. My shoes are getting there too! I think they'll at least last me to my year mark, and possibly (hopefully) longer. My blue Costco pants have a bike seat outline on the seat, but they'll last me longer(I'm just happy all my clothes still fit 😬). Now I've seen how winter wears the clothes out, I am not excited for summer😣. 

Well, this week was pretty slow. We met this guy named Erik tracting and he let us right in! We taught him a lesson and it went really well, then he told us he was just visiting a friend! He actually lives in Maine 😡. Who lives in Maine? Come on!! So we sent another referral out of our area, when we still don't have anyone to teach. 

We did have a pretty cool miracle story though this week. We got a Book of Mormon referral from this guy named Jack and we went to his apartment complex and knocked on his door and he wasn't home. There you go, that's the miracle story! Just kidding. Anyway, the next day, we were walking in to the complex toward the building he lived, and we passed this guy and didn't plan on talking to him (even though we should talk to everyone, and we usually do) then we felt that we should turn around and give him an Easter card so we did, and we got to talking about how he always wanted to know about Mormons and he just doesn't trust the Internet and how he wanted a Book of Mormon to find out for himself. We asked what his name was and he said it was Jack! We found him. Also, the address we had was the wrong address. So we never would have found him if we didn't talk to him. Crazy. Anyway, he wouldn't give us his new address or phone number, so the ball is in his court, which stinks because people aren't very good at doing things they say they will, especially when they are talking to missionaries. We'll see if he ever contacts us. 

Well, I had a pretty good Easter. We went to church then went to a member's house afterward and they, of course, stuffed us full. This ward is gonna kill me. It's impossible to stay a healthy weight in this area! The members associate us with eating a lot of food so they prepare huge dinners and expect us to eat it all, and then they have us take the leftovers home and eat them! They also randomly give us junk food! For example, on Saturday we went and did service at a member's house with a lot of the priesthood dudes from the ward. The sister bought 6 dozen Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! And when only four of the six boxes were finished and everyone went home, she gave the last two dozen to us! Not cool! I now understand why my mom wouldn't buy many treats at the store or make any other than on calorie free day! Because if you have them in your house, you eat them!! Let's just say they are all gone now. Another example is after church yesterday, a young women leader gave us the leftover cupcakes from young women! Aargh! They are gone too! But I would also have you know, I buy a big bag of lettuce, a lot of cherry tomatoes, and at least 12 bananas a week, and they are all gone at the end of the week too. It's probably the only reason I am not dead right now. I also think part of the promise that missionaries will be protected is that somehow God prevents us from having heart attacks. Speaking of protection, I am so glad the missionaries in Brussels all are okay. It's terrible that things like that have to happen, but I just got to realize, its not really because of God, it's cuz people are not nice.

We got kicked out of another apartment complex this week by a very unpleasant unhappy lady. She approached us in a complex while we were heading over to a less active's apartment and chewed us out! She kept going on and on about how she could call the cops (even though we were just visiting a person, not tracting, and the cops legally couldn't have done a thing) and get us arrested and put in jail! It took a lot of restraint not to talk back to her and get angry but we just smiled and told her to have a nice day. She then started talking about how it wasn't very Christlike to be in jail and stuff like that (which isn't very valid because if you remember in the scriptures a lot of extremely Christlike people spent time in jail {Paul, Aaron, Joseph Smith, and even Christ himself} even though I still don't want to go to jail of course) so we just got on our bikes and rode off. I don't really know how we'll see the less active, maybe we'll just have to be sneaky😉. A lot of crazy calloused people in the world, but hey! They're all God's children, no matter how troublesome they are. 

Well, things are going okay in Summerfield, transfers are coming up! 🙏🏼 Love y'all! 

Happy after Easter!

Elder Huff and Murray with Easter eyes

Hello

Well, this week was okay...I guess. We didn't really get that much done this week. We did some service for people. We spread pine "straw" for a lady. It's really weird. Since when are pine needles wanted? It was really weird throwing down pine needles on someone's yard when back home we just tried to get rid of them. Well, we got some pizza for it and some soda as well and the lady was super happy! She put this post on Facebook about how she loves how the yard looks. The only problem is people are seeing the post and asking us to do some pine straw for them too. Oh well, at least we'll have a lot of service hours right?

We helped out the Neeses around their house this week as well. The Neeses are hilarious! They are an old weird couple that are always yelling at each other and telling us weird things. They crack us up! This Friday was Elder Murray's hump day! He's been out a year! He's on the downward slope now. We didn't really do anything special.I made a cake and a member gave us some ribs so we celebrated that night with cake and ribs. 

Mmm, so healthy!

Well, Steve was in Jersey this week and Nancy and Lucas were "never home" so we didn't see many investigators this week. We mostly worked with less actives and recent converts. We were finally able to get in contact with a returning family this week, well just the dad and son. So that was good.

The stake put on a really good Easter musical program. The people are really talented and the choir sounded so good. We were asked to usher at both Saturday's and Sunday's performance so we were able to go to both. It was really good. Did you know Orson Scott Card can sing? Really well? He sang a solo in the program, his wife also conducted the choir. They are very active members of the church and I think that's just so cool. The building that we go to is the stake center, and he donated a lot of art to it so the church has really unique art in it you won't see anywhere else.

Well, I can't really think of anything else we did, this week wasn't super exciting. Hoping for a

better week this next week...

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!