The Week of Weird Weather

Oh man it's freezing, oh wait, it's nice and warm, oh, it's chilling down again, nope, never mind, I'll warm up again. That's basically what this week has been. When I emailed last it was in the teens and we were wearing big coats and by Thursday we were biking around in almost 80 degree weather wishing it was colder. North Carolina weather is strange, that's for sure. 

We had a pretty crazy week. We had our good days and we had our bad. Tuesday was great, we were able to catch every single bus that we went for, some were super close and we probably shouldn't have made it, but we did! We were also able to find two new investigators that day. We saw one, Mike, last night again. He doesn't have amazing potential, but we can hope. We are seeing one of them tomorrow with a priest in the Ward, so I'm excited for that. 

This week was one of the only weeks in my mission we didn't have one meal in the week. That's probably because of the fact that church was cancelled the previous week due to the "dangerous" conditions. 

I lost two more pounds this week. I'm getting closer and closer to where I want to be. 

We did service again this week and of course had a blast again. I'll make sure to send the pictures. 

On Friday we as a district helped move a friend of a less active member who got evicted from her house. It was a mess and a long day. We had to pack everything up, the sisters mostly did that, then we had to move everything down to the truck and pack the truck. We then drove to a self storage place and had to take everything back out of the truck and move it into the unit. It took most of the day. We started in the morning and got home at about dinner time. Kinda crazy. It was fun though. 

We were on the busses a bunch this week because it was bike week. 

Elder Fox came here on exchange and it turned into a 48 hour exchange, it was pretty fun. Elder Fox and I biked across all of Charlotte to get to service because we missed a bus. Today was pretty fun. We had a zone activity and played a huge game of volleyball. It's a fun sport. 

I had a couple members text me last night and one of our investigators called me and all of them mentioned the Green Bay Game. I guess it was a pretty good one, and they are in the semifinals, that's pretty fun. The investigator told me all about the teams going for the super bowl. I

bet Drew is happy to hear that the Falcons are doing well this year and they play the Packers next week to go to the super bowl. Anyway, I guess I talk about football a little too much with people😬. Oh well. 

Well, I had a pretty good week, and I hope for a great week this upcoming week. Love y'all!

The storm has come and it's pretty cold, but it won't last for long

So, that's right, this week we actually had snow! Yay! On Friday night things started to get pretty cold and it started raining/hailing and we woke up on Saturday morning with snow on the ground. It was only a couple inches, and the sun came out pretty shortly after that and melted most the stuff off the roads. Charlotte is also a little better at clearing off the roads than Greensboro was last year, so it didn't affect the work that much. It's hit the single digits here the last couple nights, and the last three days have not gone above freezing. But it's supposed to warm up this week. By Friday it's supposed to be close to seventy degrees! The weather here is so wacky, it can't seem to make up its mind. 

This week the work was pretty slow. Just a combination of people just disappearing and bad luck. Friday was one of the most unlucky days I've ever had. We had weekly planning and then we had lunch. I was super tired so I told Elder Toone I was going to take a nap, and either stay up and wake me up when it was time to go, or set an alarm and take a nap too. Well, he took a nap, but he didn't set an alarm, so we ended up sleeping 30 minutes past what we were supposed to. We then hurriedly got ready and ran and caught the bus to Uptown. We got to the transportation center and it turns out we missed the bus we wanted by two minutes, so we ended up waiting at the transportation center for 30 more minutes. By the time we got to our appointment, we were lucky to be only about 20 minutes late, but unluckily the guy who we were going to meet with (we called to confirm that morning) wasn't there. So we barely had missed the bus back when we were knocking on the door, so we decided to walk to another bus stop for a different bus and we ended up waiting for that one for 30 more minutes, and it was raining, and cold. But we caught the bus and had to catch another bus that only brought us halfway home, so we waited in the increasingly chillier rain for our dinner appointment to pick us up, and he got stuck in traffic, so it took longer than expected. During dinner we got a text from our appointment for that night telling us that he couldn't meet with us. Luckily the members we were having dinner with are awesome, so that made up for it. 

We did service again this Tuesday and Thursday, and that was fun as always. 

And we found a couple new investigators yesterday, so we're pumped about those (even though we gave one away to the sisters cuz she is an older single lady). But just looking forward to the warm weather this upcoming week and the exchange we have set up for this Wednesday. Hopefully y'all out west aren't freaking out about the snow like the people out here, because I've heard y'all have been dumped on with snow! 

Well, things are good, hopefully they'll get even better! Have a great week! Love y'all!

Transfers Again

So this week has been pretty crazy. So Monday night, after email time, we were driving home, and President called and guess what!? Elder Richins was called to be a zone leader in Greensboro, sad sad day. And guess what else? Elder Bingham got called to be a zone leader in the Charlotte Central Zone. So then Tuesday night we figured out who was coming....Elder Toone...oh boy... Elder Toone came out the same time as I did and look at us now...oh well. 

On Wednesday we went around so Elder Richins could say goodbye to all the awesome families in the Ward. Sad sad day.

Elders with the Klein family

 We spent the night at the Huntersville apartment and reminisced on some good times we had together. The next morning we got up and a member in the Huntersville Ward drove us all up to Salisbury and we did the transfers😢. I'll miss Elder Richins and Elder Bingham. 

Richins, Huff, Fox & Bingham "The Squad"

We got Elder Toone and Elder Guandinign  (?I don't know how to spell his name?) and we went back. Elder Toone is a good guy, he's just...quiet. Needless to say, I've had to take the reins in this area and do all the talking. It's kind of a big switch for me, but I'm liking the part of talking more. It's really actually kind of fun. We had district meeting on Friday. It went well. It turns out Sister Valentin is in our district now as well, which is kind of cool because Sister Valentin, Sister Vasquez, Elder Toone and I all came out together, we make up half the district and we are the oldest missionaries, too. It's my first district I've been in where I am the oldest missionary, (but three other missionaries are also). Anyway, It's good to reconnect with old MTC buddies like Sister Valentin and Vasquez. 

This week was pretty rough missionary work wise. We had a bunch of appointments lined up for people, but they all fell through, kind of sad. So we've just been running all over the place trying to contact potential investigators but we never seem to be able to catch anyone. 

This year for New Year's Eve, we weren't told to stay in our apartments, just be careful. So we worked all day, and we ended up getting stuck in the Uptown Transportation Center at 8:30 at night, because the bus that was supposed to take us home didn't show up, so we got to see a little bit of the craziness going on in Uptown. There was a very strong police presence and a lot of people walking around. We finally were able to catch a bus that took us close to our apartment, and we then had to walk a couple miles to get home. 

Church was yesterday. Our ward switched to 9:00 church now, so that was good, because it gives us more time to work afterwards, pretty great. Well, anyways, today we hung out with the Mtn. Island sisters and the Huntersville Elders. Elder Fox is having a hard time with Elder G (I'll just call him that from now on). I feel bad but there's not much I can do, just be his friend whenever we are together. Well, that's a wrap! Love y'all! Have a great week! 

Merry Christmas!

Elder Richins and Elder Huff in the street on Christmas Day

Hello y'all! Email this week will probably be a little shorter cuz I did talk to my parents yesterday ...so...yeah. Christmas was great of course. I had the opportunity to confirm Edward yesterday on

Christmas, so that was a great opportunity to give a gift. 

We were able to have Christmas dinner with the Duncans and they are such a great family. 

We had a Christmas Eve activity at the bishop's house as well and that was pretty fun. We had our mission conference on Tuesday as well. It was great. I was in charge of putting together all the musical numbers for our zone, and it turned out pretty well. Some Elders came an hour late so they weren't able to practice with us beforehand and they messed a couple things up, but other than that it was pretty good. We were able to do some service and build food boxes for some less fortunate families, and two of those families were in our area, so we got to deliver those boxes it was pretty fun. Well, anyways, we are still waiting on transfer calls, transfers have been moved to Thursday, so we'll see what happens. Love y'all, hope you had a great Christmas!

Elder Garrett wanted a picture of his past companions at the Christmas conference.
We decided to do some of his favorite poses

The baptism of Edward

Yes! It happened! This week was great. We started out the week with a dinner lesson with Edward at the Fowler's house. The Fowlers have been great in fellowshipping Edward. We had a great lesson with him on Monday night and finished teaching all of the principles necessary for baptism. That's the quickest I have ever taught anyone all of the principles, in fact, that is the first time that I have taught all of the principles needed for baptism. And everything just clicks for him, it makes perfect sense to him. We got a little worried in the middle of the week because we lost contact with him. His phone wasn't working so we were kind of freaking out a little. His baptismal interview was supposed to be Friday, and luckily Thursday night he called us! He got his phone fixed and he told us the first thing he did was call us. We went by the next morning and went over the baptismal interview questions. We also learned some pretty sad news. It turns out he has moved to south Charlotte, which is in a different stake😢. So we talked to President and the bishop, and we decided to go forward with the baptism and the confirmation on Christmas Day then transfer his records to the Sharon Ward. That's pretty super sad news, considering how people have embraced him in this ward, and we won't be able to teach him the new member discussions, but I am sure he'll be totally fine. People will love him in the new ward, too. That night, Brother Potter (another amazing fellowshipper) picked him up, took him shopping for a suit, shirts, socks, and some ties. So great. He had the baptismal interview, Elder Johnson, one of the Zone Leaders interviewed him and said it was one of the most spiritual discussions he's ever had. Needless to say, Edward passed with flying colors. Saturday morning he came to the Ward Christmas party. It went pretty well, except it was so crowded that we had to sit in a different room with the Fowlers and Edward and a bunch of crazy kids. This ward is so big, and the building is average sized. Anyway, Sunday came and he came to church and right after church he got dressed into his outfit, and we had a good baptismal service. We had Brother Fowler baptize him. It was pretty rough since Edward has only one good leg and that one isn't even that strong. Edward had to hold on to Brother Fowler in a weird way for it to work and Brother Fowler had to squat in a weird position to get it done. They had to do it two times because the first time Edward's hand didn't go under. But it got done and Edward was super happy. We had him bear his testimony afterwards and he bore a super amazing testimony, he told us his whole story. 

So he was born in Ghana and he was a popular guy in high school. He even came out with a

couple music albums that got pretty popular. He was also super good at soccer and had scholarships to plenty of schools and was planning on playing soccer for the Ghana soccer team. But all of that changed when he got hit by a wayward car. He lost the strength in his legs and he only is able to hold his weight on one for a short time, hence, crutches. He moved to South Africa with his mom when his mom and dad split because the mom wanted to practice Christianity and his dad wanted to continue worshiping African idols. He wanted to get baptized but no one would baptize him because he was crippled. He worked as an English teacher in South Africa until he uncovered some sort of scam and exposed it and he started getting death threats so he moved to America. The rest is history. He had such a powerful testimony. He started reciting scriptures from the Doctrine & Covenants and the first four Articles of Faith. He is so ready for being confirmed next week. 

This week other than that was good. I had two exchanges, one with Elder Seely and one with Elder Bingham. They were both pretty fun. Now that Edward is baptized, we are back to looking for more people. We got a new referral from someone so we'll see how that goes. Well, honestly, I can't really think of what else happened this week I am just so excited for Edward! Love y'all!

Feliz Navidad

Hello! This week was pretty good. This week was pretty wet and chilly. I had to break out my winter coat this week, it was nice though, the summer was so hot. 

Anyway, Edward is so great! We had three appointments with him this week and he came to church. Two of the lessons we had with him were at members' houses. We taught him most everything this week, and we actually talked with him and moved his baptismal date up to the 18th! So after church next week he'll be baptized! So that's super exciting. He is the most solid person I have met on my mission, it's so great! 

Last night we went caroling with the YM and YW. We had a bunch of fun with them visiting less active or lonely members. We had a really fun group. We had Interviews and district meeting this week, they both went pretty well. That's about all that happened this week. I'm so sorry it's such a short email, but we have an early dinner appointment with Edward, so I got to go. Love ya!

Wow!

So this week was so good! Now that November is over we are going to have an amazing December! So I guess I'll just start off with the most exciting part, and his name is Edward!!! So on Wednesday I was at the mission office and I was about to get going when a senior sister came up to me and asked if I was in the Mountain Island Ward. I said I was and she got super excited. It turns out while I was there, a man named Edward showed up in a taxi cab. He explained to her that he was from Africa, and he had gone to our church in Africa and he really liked it, but he didn't think the church was here in America. He was looking for it one day and he found one in Asheville, which isn't even in our  mission, and he was going to get a cab ride all the way out there to find a church. Luckily his brother corrected him and told him there was one on Hilliard which is the mission office. So he took a taxi there. It's a good thing that out of all the churches around Charlotte he went to the Hilliard one because it would be the only church with people inside of it at the time, and even better, it was full of missionaries! So that afternoon we called him and that night we saw him with a member. We saw him twice this last week and he committed to a baptismal date of the 24th of this month! Christmas Eve! He also came to church yesterday. The member we initially brought with us picked him up and sat with Edward. We were sitting in the back with some other investigators and they were sitting at the front, and before we knew it Edward went up to the pulpit and bore his testimony! He said he already knows the church is true! We are super pumped for him.

We also had the Juarez family at church and a guy named Bol and his girlfriend came too, so that's great.  

It actually rained a bit this week. It hasn't rained much for a while. Tuesday morning we got up and biked over to a Bible referral and gave them a Bible. We were biking back and it started raining, pretty good, by the time we got to the bus stop we were drenched. I had to air out my shoes for a week before I could wear them again. It's been a pretty chilly week. I had to break out my sweaters and ear warmers. We did service a couple times this week and as always, we found some crazy clothes and I just had to try them on. I'll send some pictures. 

We went on  exchanges this week. I went with Elder Fox to Huntersville, we had a pretty good time. I made banana bread this week, it turned out pretty good. Anyway, that's about the week, Christmas is awesome, love y'all!