1.
How
did transfers go? I can't
answer that one yet because they are not officially until tomorrow
7/30. So next week I can answer the other questions. But
what I know is one sister is staying the same in our area and she
will get a new comp tomorrow. Also another elder in our district
will be getting transferred but I don't know where to yet. What’s different? Did you get new sisters? What are their names and where were they
serving? Where are they from?
2. Is your zone leader still the same? Yes, zone leaders
are still the same, but transfers are tomorrow and he is getting transferred
and going to be training for the rest of his mission. He goes home in October (aka known as dying in
mission terms). Also, I did another exchange Tuesday.
Since Elder J is the district leader, once a transfer we go on exchanges with
the other elders in our district. So we did that Tuesday. I went to
the other area and Elder J stayed here. I went to the Lewisberry walk area
that borders our area. They have bikes instead of walking. The ward
bought them bikes but I’ll just say they are cheapo Walmart bikes meant for a
person who is 14. So they were really really small. I was very sore
after that because they were so small.
The brakes on the bike that I rode did not work very well so it was very
hard to stop fast. I crashed once because of that but I was ok, just a
scrape on my knee. To add insult to injury, I ended up blowing the tire
out while I was riding it. It was not the first flat tire that bike had
seen. What happened was I got going really fast on the sidewalk and at
the end it just had curb you went off. Unfortunately, it was like that on the
other side to go back up onto the sidewalk and I did not realize that and I
could not stop fast enough to carry it up so instead I hit the curb really hard
and made it up and over the curb. But I hit
so hard that the tire popped. So I had to walk with the bike about a mile
back to the apartment.
3. Do you still have the car? Did you or Elder J drive? Yes, we have
the car. Elder J drives. But we basically ran out of miles so we
did not do use it a whole lot. We barely had enough miles to make it the
library and back. We lose it tomorrow night and the sisters get it
back.
4. Do the sisters drive you around when needed again? Yes, they will drive
us around for pday and when we have to go the church.
5. Do you have another zone conference soon? No, zone
conference is only every couple of months when the president and his wife come
down and we get statistical stuff from the mission. But we have something
every month called zone teaching where the zone leaders teach about some sort
of principle given by president.
6. How was your BOM class this week? Well nobody
showed up. So we are really trying to spread the word so it will gain
popularity.
7. How is your teaching going with the sisters’ investigator? Yes, we taught their investigator Saturday at the Bishop’s house.
We taught him the last lesson and then he was done with the lessons. Now
he just needs to be baptized. Are
you still seeing him or did the sisters’ take over again? The sisters will have him again starting
tomorrow. Are you and Elder J
becoming more unified as companions and in teaching? Yes, slowly but surely but we are much
better than we were in the beginning.
8. Are you teaching anyone? Met anyone new? Still the one
investigator we started teaching on dad's Bday. Also tonight we may have
some new investigators. I have not met him yet but Elder J did when I was
on the exchange in the other area. I guess the guy was in
the church until he was about 6 then his family left the church.
I will let you know what happens next week.
9. How many members are in your ward? Do you have very many
youth in the ward? Yes, there are quite a few youth, mostly primary and nursery and a fair
amount of YM/YW. The reason there is a lot of little kids is because there
are a lot of young couples just out of dental school or in hospital residencies
at Penn State Hershey, the big trauma center for the area. Not exactly
sure, but I think there are about 200 or so active, but I don't really remember
so I will get back to you.
10. Do you have to help with the sacrament? One of the elders at
Tahoe helped pass the sacrament, the other was the Spanish translator. One of
the sister missionaries played the organ.
No, usually there are enough deacons but blessing they just get people
from Elders’ Quorum and then there are a few priests.
11. How was the haircut check with the sister that cuts your
hair?
Did
she have to make any repairs or have you now been certified as a barber? Please
tell me you’re certified, that means I won’t have to cut your hair anymore and
no more complaining about my services. By the way, the haircut story was funny
and score one more for Flat Zach…he never needs a haircut and he doesn’t complain
when I clip or cut anything. Have not checked yet we have dinner with them tonight.
12. What are the highs/lows for this week? Lows...probably
no one showedup at the BOM class. Also, it was a bummer pretty much
having no miles left on the car to drive anywhere. Highs…that a lot of
the week was about 75 to 80 and it didn’t feel like there was a ton of
humidity. Another high was in district meeting last week we gave
everybody in the district blessings so we could work in unity and feel the spirit.
Also, the exchange and the bike was quite fun.
13. What are your 5 positive things for the week? Well the exchange was
fun and the district meeting was great. I really like the puzzle idea
that you sent and we got most of a less active family to church
yesterday.
14. Are things still going well for you and do you still feel
like you’re moving forward and happy?
Yes, slowly but surely things are moving
along and I have survived the first transfer, just 16 more to go.
15. How did
you like Elder Holland’s talk that I sent? I loved it.
16. Has the
weather cooled down a bit? Is it still hot and humid? As I said before, it
cooled down quite a bit for a couple of days and it felt like Utah again with
not a lot of humidity even though it still was probably way more than Utah.
I could not feel it though. Also, I forgot to tell you on Friday 7/19 it
poured rain with a big thunder and lightning storm. Luckily, we were in
the car for it. But on Monday night, as we were out walking for the
night it began to thunderstorm again. We got poured on that time and we
got pretty wet. We were able to get into a person's house and talked with
him and we dried off. On Saturday it rained again.
Luckily when it was pouring really really bad we were at Chipotle with a
member for dinner. We still got rained on a little after dinner but the
brunt of it was when we were inside.
17. Is there
anything that you need that I can send?
Well I thought of a few ideas.
First off, you should send me some otter pops. Those sound really good right now. Also,
if you ever see Gatorade or Powerade on sale for cheap send me some of
those. I find them occasionally here and I bought some. I don't know if you have ever seen something
at Costco called Hi-Chew but the person on exchanges had a bag
of them and I forgot how much I liked them. So if you can find
those I would like them. Also, I was wondering if you could send me my
seminary scriptures (in the cupboard above my locker). I want them because they have some good notes
and stuff that I want to put in the new scriptures I got before I left.
Also, I was thinking maybe you can send the pack of books that has Jesus the Christ
and Our Heritage etc.
