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!

The Week . . . of DOOM! Not really

This week wasn't bad, and it seemed to go by really fast and really slow at the same time. June is flying by and before you know it'll be July. Crazy! 

This week we did service again with the Sagers. It's been a while since we have. This time we went with the Summit Elders instead of the Guilford Elders. We are hanging out a little more with them this transfer, probably because they feel bad because we have no one to chill with anymore. They actually showed up at our apartment today and are hanging out with us. Well, anyway, the power went out at the food warehouse and we packaged in the dark, so that mixed things up a little. We went to a hot dog stand in the middle of downtown Greensboro, and it was really good. 

The next day we had interviews with President. It went well and I learned I need to plan better, so I have something to work on. Later that night we had dinner with the Sagers, and President Alexander had nowhere to go so the Sagers invited them over for dinner, so we had dinner with a past mission president and a current one, so it was a little nerve racking but wasn't that bad. So Friday was spend time with President day! Dinner was good, but the lesson afterward wasn't so hot. That's what happens when you are a little nervous. 

Friday we also went to the Neese's and tried to fix Brother Neese's bike but probably ended up making the problems worse. A rain storm came out of nowhere while we were there and we had to bike home in it. It was fun, and I'm just glad that it was on the way home instead of the way there because we could change when we got home. 

We cleaned some rain gutters on Saturday. It reminded me of the good old times when I worked for Troy. I was pulling a clump of mud out of the gutter when a little frog jumped out of it. I don't know how he got all the way up in the gutters, but that was crazy. I tried to pick him up, but he jumped down the downspout, so that was the end of him. 

We were finally able to get back in contact with the Goins! We had two appointments with them this week and they followed through with both of them!!!!!! It was great! We had two really good lessons and they said that they would come to church sometime in the future. We'll have to see, but at least that's progress! 

We had a pretty good Father's Day yesterday. We ate at the Lindsay's and as always, they had a ton of food prepared and expected us to eat a lot of it. I ate two huge bowls of the pasta and some bread, I was pretty stuffed, but I still felt pretty good. Elder Skinner on the other hand ate three huge bowls and felt real sick. That's the third time I've driven home in the car with my companion in the passenger seat, groaning, moaning, and telling me to go faster. Every time we go there we stuff ourselves because they prepare so much food, and it's tradition for the Elders to eat as much as they can. It's always super good stuff though, so it's well worth it. 

So that's pretty much the week. Love y'all!

Elders Skinner and Huff eating too much

Things Are Heating Up

This week started out a little differently but it wasn't bad. So on Monday we had a zone activity. It was called pioneer paintball. To play it we got a bunch of nylon socks and filled them with flour and colored chalk, tied it off, then threw them at each other. We played capture the flag and that was pretty fun. 

Then on Tuesday, Elder Skinner had to go down to Charlotte for a mission-wide MLC (Mission leadership council) and I had to find someone to stay with for the day. Since the Guilford Elders are no more, it wasn't very easy. I finally got placed in Colfax and I packed my things and the zone leaders took me there. So I hung out with Elder Bishop and Elder Anderson for the day in Colfax. It was a little weird at first considering I didn't know these elders because they aren't even in my zone, but they are awesome missionaries so it turned out pretty fun. We did a lot of biking that day and it turns out, Colfax doesn't have very many trees at all, so I ended up getting a little burned. It's always fun to be in a trio, so I actually was a little sad to come back to Summerfield Tuesday evening. In Colfax we had a super busy day all day long and I have kind of forgotten what that feels like. I miss it. But Summerfield is where I'm supposed to be and that's where I'll stay...for now. 

On Thursday we went to Claxton Elementary's fifth grade graduation ceremony. It was being held in our church gym (which is conveniently right across the street from the school) and we were asked to sort of welcome people and tell them where the bathroom is and water fountains are. It was pretty fun. We saw Melissa there for Aiden's graduation. It was kind of weird because we have stopped trying to see her because she isn't really interested right now, but at least she said hi to us. Afterwards, we had to clean up all the chairs and tarps that had been laid down and put them away. It was just six missionaries, a sister from the Guilford Ward, and President Hiatt (stake president, awesome guy). It was a lot of work for not that many people. The gym was PACKED with chairs from all over the church building and we put them all away. At one point Elder Skinner ripped a huge hole on the seam of his pants all the way from the mid thigh to the knee. He he he 😆. Then to finish the project off, we had to pick up a chair rack full of chairs and lift it to the stage. It was super heavy but we did it. Afterwards the Summit Elders and us went to IHOP. It was really good, I haven't been there for a very long time. 

On Friday we had zone meeting (So I got to see Elder Murray two times this week) and it was pretty good. It had a "Finding Nemo" theme related to us finding new investigators, which is something Summerfied really needs, so I enjoyed zone meeting. Well, this past week the temperature has raised quite a bit. It went from seventies earlier this week, to nineties in the last half of the week. On Saturday, with humidity, it got up to 107 degrees...ouch. And it hasn't gotten that hot yet either, I can't wait until August! I'm just so glad we have the car right now, maybe in August I'll be in a full car area...we'll see. 

Sure love ya! I'll talk to ya next week!

How gangsters drive down here in their super old, lifted Taurus cars
with bling rims...no joke

How I drive...jk

The New Transfer!

Huff & Murray

Monday was the last day with Elder Murray😭. It was sad. On Tuesday morning we got picked up by Brother Freeman and we loaded all Elder Murray's stuff into his Buick station wagon. We then drove the hour or so drive to Salisbury where we met at the church building there. A ton of Elders and their rides came to that church building. I was even able to see Elder Washburn and then Elder Nelson! That was pretty cool. Then Elder Murray and I said goodbye and he went up to Danville. (I'll get to see him today though at a zone activity, so that's cool!) Then I said bye to Elders Hulet and Randall, picked up Elder Skinner then drove back to Summerfield! He's a lot different than Elder Murray, but he's chill. He's really good at talking to people so that's fantastic, because I am still a little awkward. He's not as clean as Elder Murray though, but that is easily remedied. He's a great guy, and it's fun to serve with him. It's also fun to reminisce about the good'ol Concord/Kannapolis days. It's so weird to think how long ago that was. I just caught myself this morning talking about Need for Speed Rivals with Elder Skinner and I was telling him it maybe came out about six months ago, but then I realized, I was on my mission at that time! I have that game at home and had it for a couple months before I left for my mission, so it's probably been at least a year! Time is really starting to fly. Ever since May hit it's been a blur. Before I know it, I'll probably be in another area and I'll be 19 years old! I don't want to hit 19! I like being 18! Oh well! 

We did a lot of drop bys this week to introduce Elder Skinner and I think the ward will really like him. Talking to people comes so easy to him. He seems like a pretty good district leader and we had a pretty good district meeting this week. Our district has totally flopped! Elder Skinner and I call it the sistrict. Other than the zone leaders (who rarely come to our district meeting anyway) we (along with Elder Sagers I guess) are the only Elders. We have two companionships of sisters! Yikes! 

Well, not much else happened this week, we're just driving around, trying to get Elder Skinner accustomed to the area as quick as we can because we think I'll be getting the boot this next transfer! I'll actually send some pictures this week, unlike last week when I forgot. Love y'all!