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!

Last full week of September

I can't believe September is almost over! And as a result, that means the transfer is almost over as well as the first half of my mission! What!!!?? Craziness. It's weird to think I've been out that long. Well anyway, this week wasn't too shabby. We did a lot of service again this week. We do it a lot. We went to the Corner Table to do service twice this week then we went to the library on Friday and helped out with that. Service is always pretty fun, I really enjoy it. 

We taught Don again twice this week, he just has to resolve his concerns about the Word of Wisdom and pretty soon he'll be eligible for baptism, but he's having a hard time with it, so we'll see how things go. 

Tuesday we helped a family move right after we ate at a pizza buffet with some members. It was a pretty gross place. I mean, the fresh pizza wasn't bad, as well as the salad (it's hard to go wrong with a salad), but everything else was not great. Well, we moved a piano and that thing was heavy. Jeesh, it took four grown men and me to move that thing. 

On Wednesday we got a phone call from this guy named Joshua Mount. Elder Garrett took the call and he literally got 30 or so words out and the call lasted 18 minutes. The guy just did not stop talking, and he couldn't understand what he was saying either. He wanted us to come by his place and teach his friend the gospel. We thought he was on speed so we kind of forgot about it. The next day we went with some Elders down to Statesville to go to zone conference, and one of the elders (he was on exchange, I think his name was Elder Cannon), after we had told the story, said he knew Josh and Josh had called him before. So Josh is a schizophrenic dude, as well as bipolar, so we hoped he would never call us back, but sure enough he did. He requested that we go see him, so we decided to go visit him one time to gauge the situation, and I really wish we didn't. He had a "friend" who he said wanted to be baptized. Anyway, we went to his adult housing place and had to sign in. The place was full of sketchy looking men, pretty scary. Anyway, Josh does not stop talking. We ended up being there for almost two hours, listening to him talk. His "friend" is a super quiet guy that Josh can boss around, so Josh has basically forced him to accept the gospel. So weird. I'll send a little video I took. That'll explain the situation a lot better than my words can. He's a good guy, just crazy, which isn't really his fault. So yeah. 

Anyway, we taught in Young Men that night, and I think it went pretty well. We basically just talked about how we prepared for our mission and what we wished we would've done. It was good. Thursday we got up and we drove down to Statesville and had zone conference. It was really good. I got to see a bunch of good fellow missionaries like Elder Christiansen, Elder Skinner, Elder Hulet, Sister Vasquez, Sister Sandy and more. We had some good trainings and a good lunch. We got home late cuz our ride had to stay after to talk to Pres so we went straight to dinner. Other than that, this week has been pretty tame, nothing really much to report. By next week I'll know transfer business and General Conference will have already happened . . . crazy! Love y'all!

Busy Week

This week wasn't too bad. It was busy, so that's a positive, I alway like being busy more than sitting around wondering what we should do. On Monday we did some shopping at Target this time, to switch things up a little bit. We got yelled at by a lady (our neighbor). When we're about to head out of the apartment to go to dinner, she knocks on the door and of course, we answer it. She tells us that we go up and down the stairs too loud… Really? That's two times in the last week! We haven't been walking any different than we have for the last two months. So we're kind of confused about why she is suddenly always getting mad at us for being too loud on the stairs. We've also seen the neighbors talking to each other in the parking lot, and pointing at our apartment. Yeah, so… We're trying to be friendly and nice, we don't really know what's going on but we're rolling with it. 

Anyway, we had family home evening with the Corey family that night and we had a lot of fun. The little boy, Ryan, had a Lego set that he couldn't put together, and his family wasn't willing to get into it, it was a kinda bigger set, not really that big, but he asked if either of us could do it. Elder Garrett looked immediately to me and I jumped at the opportunity. It was easy🤓. Got it put together in no time at all. In that set, there was a little piece that you could put a mini figure on and launch him. So we kind of made up a game on the spot. I'll send a video of it. Pretty fun😊. 

The next day we did service again at the Corner Table and as always we had a blast. That evening, our dinner appointment had agreed to pick us up at five, so we got home and waited...and waited...5:30 passed...we called, texted, nothing...6:00...6:30...and we gave up and made our own dinner, which I'm glad we did because we got a text right as we were going back out to work that she had fallen asleep. Oh well. 

Wednesday we had a district meeting. The second to last one before the transfer, kind of crazy. After that we had a lesson with Don. We taught him about the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. He doesn't have any concerns about the first one but the second is another story. We will have to see how he does. 

Thursday we helped set up tables, chairs, and lights for a wedding reception at the church and that night the Spanish Elders slept over again and Elder Washburn came to Newton on an exchange with me. Elder Washburn is awesome. It's sad, he goes home in a couple weeks😢. I'll miss that guy. He said we were going on another exchange before he goes though. Elder Washburn and I had a good exchange. We had a really good religious discussion with a religion teacher, then did service at the Library. The sisters dropped off some fried chicken they got at the Corner Table and we went home and had that for lunch. It was pretty good. We had dinner with the family that had fallen asleep that night. We played a couple different games (they are huge into games). That night Elder Garrett came back and Elder Washburn went back to Denver. We taught Don again on Saturday morning. We taught him the plan of salvation. We talked to a couple less actives then Brother Turner picked us up and took us to a really fancy restaurant. It was delicious. We helped him move a mattress out of his house then he took us home. 

Church was good yesterday. Donna was there again and Elder Garrett gave a talk, it was pretty good. There's this weird gas crisis of some sort going around here in North Carolina. I don't exactly know what happened, but it has to do with some gas leak in Texas or something like that. There are a bunch of gas stations down here that have run out of gas. They put a zero on the price sign and put bags over all the gas pumps. Kind of weird. There are still a lot of gas stations that have gas, so I don't know what the deal is. 

Today has already been a big day. Right after study was over we did a quick shopping trip, went home and changed, then drove out to Baker's mountain.  We did a hike there with the district, and that was really fun. When we got to the top of the "mountain" (Pretty much just a big hill), there was a lookout point and we were able to see for a long way, which is something you don't see very much here in North Carolina because there are trees everywhere! So yeah, that was pretty cool. Afterwards we went to a place where the Hunger Games was filmed! Well at least a little bit of it. We went to the little town where District 12 was filmed. It was really cool. We got to walk around all the little houses and go inside and explore. It was cool to see some things that I remember (which isn't much) about the movies. We took a lot of pictures this morning, but I don't have all of them now, I'll get them to y'all probably next week. I'll send a couple pics that I do have. 

Well, that's about my week. I'm looking forward to zone conference this next week and general conference coming up pretty soon! Yay! Love y'all! Have a great week!

Pho

So, this week wasn't too shabby. We served at the Corner Table twice this week, Tuesday and Wednesday. That was fun. On Wednesday we also helped a member in the Ward with some yard work and we ate dinner with him. After that we went to the church and had a meeting with all the

Ward missionaries, then after that we went home. So a pretty different day Wednesday, but it's good to get out of the monotony sometimes, especially during bike week. 

Thursday we both did Facebook posts and I had fun with mine. I talked about football since the NFL season started that day and how it can compare to us needing to be on the winning team, God's. That was fun, a lot of people complimented me on it at church yesterday so that's good. 

Anyway, that night the Spanish Elders came over and that's always fun. The next morning we got up and got ready for zone meeting. We were getting ready when someone knocked on the door. It was a lady that lives next door and she told us to not be so loud going up and down the stairs. Really? We weren't being loud or anything, just going up and down the stairs like regular. We are always hearing huge loud thumps from that way anyway. That's the second time they've complained that we were too loud, and we were just walking around like normal. Oh well. They always have the cops over at that apartment, so I don't know if they are all there. Zone meeting was good. We talked a lot about the Doctrine of Christ. I thought what a senior missionary said was pretty interesting. She said that repentance wasn't just changing from bad to good, it could also be changing from good to better. I thought that was interesting and pretty thought provoking. We also talked about being master planners, finders, teachers, etc. The zone leaders dressed up as ninjas and did a little fight to start their training. 

No wonder people think missionaries are weird. We are just a bunch of crazy 18-19-20-year-olds living and working together with little adult supervision and guidelines that ask us not to do things that normal 18-19-20-year-olds usually do. Of course we're going to be weird in one way or another. Anyway it was good. 

Speaking of weird, I went on Exchange with Elder Galbraith after the meeting. He's a good kid though, he means well.  He has served in Newton in the past so basically the whole exchange was looking for people he used to teach, which was good. On Saturday we taught this guy, Don Dollarhide at the church. We are pretty excited for him. Last Sunday a member in our ward came up to us and talked to us about Don. Don is his brother in law and has investigated the church on and off now for years. He now is having some trouble in his life and wants to investigate again, more seriously this time. So we got his number from the member and called him on Friday. He didn't answer, but 10 minutes later he called back! He said he had a question for us then he talked about how he was driving in Conover, which he said he knows like the back of his hand, and got lost. He kept on driving, trying to find himself, and he ended up in the church parking lot. He asked me if that was a sign from God. I told him that sure was! We set up an appointment for the next morning at the church and when we got there (10 minutes early) he was already there! We taught him and he accepted it. We set a date for him to be baptized on October 29th! He also came to church the next day. We have an appointment with him this week and we'll see how things go from there. 

After we taught him we biked home. Elder Galbraith had gotten in contact with a guy he used to teach and became good friends with, John Yang. John picked us up in his nice BMW and took to a place called Saigon Garden for lunch. It is a Vietnamese restaurant and we all got eggrolls, spring rolls, and Pho. It was pretty good. John's a cool guy, he didn't get baptized because of his parents, but he still goes to Institute and the singles Ward sometimes. After we ate he got us some bubble tea (doesn't have tea in it) which was super good. I got the coconut flavor. He then drove us all the way to Denver to drop off Elder Galbraith and pick up Elder Garrett and then took us home. 

Yesterday was a good Sabbath day. Don was at church, Elder Garrett and I got to bless the sacrament. I haven't done that in a long time. Then during third hour we were responsible for filling the baptismal font for a boy's baptism. That's a lot of water. Took up almost all of the time we had to fill it up. Then as we were filling it up the mom asked us to sing some hymns between when her boy got baptized to when he was ready. So we did. We thought we would only have to sing one song, but we ended up singing four. It's a good thing we're both musically talented🎶🎶🎶🎶 They really liked it, I was glad we were able to do that. 

Anyway, that's about the week. I'm sad BYU kept up at the one thing they are consistent at: losing to Utah. I hope that they fix things up, if they don't, they are going to have one rough season. Hope y'all have a good week! Love ya!