Tuesday, March 9, 2010

March 8, 2010

Its funny that you ran into Marley. A sister missionary came out that reminds me a ton of her and ever since she came out (about 7 months ago) I've been thinking, I need to get Marley's address somehow. So if somehow your able to get hold of her address I'd love to send her a letter sometime to see how she's doing. Also a sidebar to that, I wrote Kaylee Stephens a letter and she hasn't replied yet, so now she owes me a letter, and she doesn't have any excuses of not having my address!

The traveling was way fun. All the assistants went together and it felt like a road trip. I always kept in mind where I was but its weird because you get the feeling that you don't have a home. That feeling is probably going to be more familiar soon because Elder Hansen and I got reassigned this transfer to be traveling assistants. So now we go on two exchanges a week with all the Zone Leaders in the mission. That'll be really fun because we get to proselyte more but I'll miss the training opportunities. By the way I taught Path to Action at ZLC and spent most of the time having a discussion on mastering our stories, I used the example of the epistles between Moroni and Pahoran where Moroni where Moroni gets way mad at Pahoran and Pahoran didn't do anything in fact he's been run out of town. Moroni didn't have malicious intent though, he just didn't have all the data to formulate the proper story.

The weeks of war went good. They boosted the numbers really well, but not quite as much as we had hoped. Well I've got an hour to get the interviews schedule worked out before 6, but I love you and hope your week is great!!!

March 1, 2010

Hey, sorry this is coming in so late. We've been doing what we're calling the weeks of war. We're focusing on the war chapters and all the assistants are traveling around the mission and doing exchanges for all last week and all this week. Its about 6:15 now and we'll be leaving at 7 for the McMinnville zone, I'll be going to Manchester till Wednesday morning and then I'll be going to Franklin and from there we'll head back to the mission home for ZLC on Friday and then Saturday we're off to the Nashville zone. We've set some crazy high goals like 2000 potential investigators and 840 new investigators 80 dates set etc. Most of these goals are double our normal averages so we're really pushing for them but its been really fun.

I'm glad to hear that Grandma is doing better and that she can get out. Its a bummer that Ali is going to have to do more physical therapy. What you said about her curfews reminded me of something that happened last night. It was about 8:00 and some missionaries gave me a call to ask if they could go over to a neighboring area and spend the night so that they were all there on the morning of P-day. However in the handbook it says that P-day doesnt start till 10 so I talked with them about it and told them no. They kept pushing and I asked, "well why do you want to have a sleep over so bad?" and they responded, "Just for fun." and I said that it was not an adequate reason and they'd just have to leave their apartment after 10 a.m. the next day. Then I thought to myself, wow, Mom and Dad said that exact same thing to me all the time. But when I did it it wasn't breaking mission rules :).

Anyhow nothing too crazy has gone on this week and I've still got to write an article and make some spreadsheets before we leave in 30 min. But I love you and hope your week is fantastic.

Feb. 15, 2010

So our trip down to Tullahoma and Fairview was crazier then anticipated. Some of the crazy stuff that you would normally see down there are just crazy southern homes and all the redneck stuff. What we actually saw was a crazy big snow storm! About when we got to Murfreesboro it started to snow way hard and huge flakes like you'd see in the mountains. Totally out of the norm here. It continued to snow like that all night.

So when we got to Fairview it was about 10:00 PM and Elder Hansen and I wanted to go home. However President said that we shouldn't drive anymore in the snow and just stay the night with Fairview. Having intended on going home we didn't have anything to stay the night, such as blankets a change of clothes toiletries, contacts solution, etc. So we found some extra blankets and slept on the floor for the night hoping that in the morning the storm would've passed and we'd be able to drive home.

Upon waking up our hopes were quickly dashed to pieces. It had snowed most of the night and was still snowing. So we had our studies there while Elder Smith was unpacking his stuff and getting ready for the day and then we decided to throw the clothes that we had in the washer and dryer so we wouldn't shower and then put back on dirty clothes. We didn't know at the time that the slowest dryer in the world resides at their house. P.S. they live in a two bedroom house that is the most rickety place I have ever seen. When we turned on the washer one of the pegs is missing so it rocks back and forth when it washes. That motion literally causes the entire house to shake.

Also their shower is what has been dubbed "the croucher" because it doesn't have a place for a shower-head so what they've done is attach a hose to the faucet and a shower-head to the end of the hose. The hose is attached via tape, lots of tape. So you get in and turn the water on and it comes out this nice little hose/shower-head but if you pull the shower head above the faucet you lose all water pressure and it all comes through the tape at the faucet. Also the drain in the tub doesn't work unless you hold it down. So you have to crouch down in order to get any water on you and you have to hold down the drain or the tub starts filling with water. So I found the best way to bathe is to hold the taped faucet with one hand to get better water pressure, hold the hose with the other hand, stand on one foot and hold the drain down with the other foot. It was quite an experience.

Then after we got out of the shower we were still left without any clothes for round about an hour. So we continued to study wearing bedsheets until we got dry clothes. Then President called and approved us to drive and right as we hung up the phone the dryer finished. It was a crazy experience. That was pretty much the highlight of the week as far as excitement goes. I took a video of the house so you can see it when I send of this next card it was really fun because it was totally off the wall.

Then just normal work. The two Sr. couples who work in the office are going home and their replacements just got here today so thats going to be a little chaotic in the switch-off but probably fun, the new Sr.s are really excited to be here and they'll do awesome. Well I love ya and have a great week.