Week 99...New Companion, Pittsburgh Pickle & Ghostbusters

April 27, 2015

 Pittsburgh overlook

 Heinz Fiel...home of Pittsburgh Steelers

 Pittsburgh

Wow it looks like your week was quite the adventure and busy as usual.  That’s awesome to hear that Matt won the national championship in wrestling.  He was not in my ward.  He was in the student branch at Penn State, but I know who he is.  Also, Swig sounds like an interesting place…dirty drinks and cookies--sounds like the Mormon bar.  

Well here it goes with another exciting & interesting week in Meadville.  I can’t believe things are coming to a close and soon I’ll be looking back on my mission as just memories.  This week was an adventure for sure.  Plain and simple, Meadville has got some interesting people.  Well, onto the questions…

1. How was your week…what were the highs/lows?  Well this week was a pretty awesome.  In studies I have been studying a lot about the restoration and how Joseph Smith’s first vision marked the beginning of the Restoration of the church of Jesus Christ to the earth.  I’ve enjoyed studying about the Dark Ages in Jesus the Christ and identifying some of the problems that were part of the apostasy.  Also realizing the key role that America played in the restoration.  It was the only country that allowed religious freedom which Joseph Smith needed as he sought religious truth.  Another high this week was regional conference.  We had a broadcast from Salt Lake yesterday.  Again they talked a lot about the importance of family.  Elder Anderson gave a good talk about how people today are slowly starting fall away from God.  Overall, it was a great conference.  I guess the 2 lows for the week come from the weather and a mission rule change.  The weather got cold and snowy again.  Pres. Johnson emailed with another rule change about temple attendance.   They’ve increased the distance/time you can be from the temple again.  Missionaries serving 3 hours away now (used to be 2) can attend the temple.  But just my luck, Meadville is barely over 3 hours to go to Palmyra or the Columbus Ohio temple, but whatever I will be home in 5 weeks anyway.  
2. Introduce us to your new companion… His name is Elder  L and he is from White Horse, Yukon Territory, Canada.  So way up north.  He is in the Juneau Alaska stake.  He is from a small branch that covers the whole Yukon Territory.  He has been out for 20 months and I knew him when I served in State College.  We were in the same district.  It’s pretty weird to be serving with him again, but things are going great.   
3. How are things with your investigators/teaching pool? 
1.  A?  Is she still getting baptized (new date)?  Is she still progressing?  Yes, she’s still progressing, but she has had a slew of health problems.   So we have not been very consistent in teaching her and that has pushed her baptism back.  We have not reset a date with her at this point, but I am hoping to have it done by the end of May. 
2.  RR?  She is doing awesome.  We were invited to her house for dinner on Thursday and that was great.  We had roast and mashed potatoes… my favorite.  But the best part of the night was the lesson we had with her afterwards.  It was pretty cool to hear her conversion story and how far she’s come recently.  These stories are what make a mission worth it.  I have seen the hand of the Lord bless the lives of His children through so many imperfect individuals who are simply just trying to be like Jesus.  She was at a rock bottom low point in her life and had lots of craziness going on.  Eventually she was taught how to pray and she loved that.  She felt so much guidance and hope with the answers to her prayers she was receiving.  As she moved on in life, she realized that the things that the missionaries had been teaching her combined with the light of Christ were making her happy and the rest is history.  
3. ? B She is a lady that Elder  T had been teaching in his first area.  Her sister (a less active) in the Franklin ward met with missionaries in the past.  We started teaching her about a month ago.  We were starting to contemplate whether or not to drop her because she didn’t seem to be progressing.  However, we got an update from the Franklin elders (by way of her sister in the Franklin ward) that she really liked meeting with us and the spirit that she felt when we were there.  I guess she felt pressure to be baptized from prior missionaries.  So we are just going to have to take it slow and easy with her.  
4. Less actives?  Nothing really new there.  Our biggest thing is just trying to get out and meet as many as possible.  We have about 150-200 less active people in the ward.  
5. Any new prospects/leads?  We have a few referrals, one member referral and a media referral we got this morning.  
4. How are things going with the ward/members?  Things are going well.  We have been going around trying to visit members and get to know them more.  It has been fun getting to know people.  We have been fed more the past few weeks.  We have 3 appointments or so this upcoming week so that’s improvement.  
5. What are 5 positive things from the week?  1) We’ve been fed a decent amount this week.  2) We had a few big huge fires with a bunch of old furniture that a member had.  3)  I have a new companion.   4) I survived driving in Pittsburgh.  5)  We have a list of names that the ward wants us to go visit.  
6. Any service opportunities?  We’ve finally found a thrift type store that we are going to start doing weekly service at tomorrow.  We also helped a LA lady move.  She is downright crazy.  She claims the apartment complex that she lives in is haunted and she says all kinds of weird things happen.  I think she is just a bit loco. She was very nice, just very strange.  A kid that lived across the hall that was helping us (he wasn’t crazy) also said the place was haunted, but whatever.  The weirdest part about it all was Elder L smashed his hand against the wall and the next thing you know she was trying to do some crazy healing thing with his hand.  It was rather strange.  All I can say is welcome to Meadville.  I think she may need Ghostbusters to come and visit.  
7. Any entertaining stories?  Let me tell you we had quite the adventure in Pittsburgh.  Transfer meeting last Tuesday was in Pittsburgh.  We decided to go early so we could go to the one of the overlooks and that was good.  I got a few pics for you.  We wanted to go and eat downtown at Primanti Brothers, but we also wanted to stop downtown at the spot where the 3 rivers meet before we ate.  Now here is where the fun part begins.  So we get to this parking lot but when I got to the ticket window I saw the price and I didn't not want to pay that much.  On top of that, the parking lot was full.  Instead of just backing out, I said we can just go around the parking lot and go out the exit.  Let me just say backing out where we started would have been the much easier route.  We could have made one simple turn, but we thought we should follow the arrows instead.  So we did and we got to the next turn and oh my…that lot was way over crammed and so we sort of became stuck because of a few terribly parked cars.  We could not swing the truck wide enough to get around.  So at one point were literally about 2 finger lengths from taking the side of our truck out and ripping off someone’s back bumper.  We finally figured it would just be easier to back up from where we were and go to another spot.  We finally got ourselves out of that pickle and managed to escape with no scratches to us or anyone else.  It was quite stressful.  We ended up downtown and tried to find parking for where we wanted to eat and that was not so good either.  By this time we were fed up with parking and we decided to bag it and we went to Wendy’s by the church where the transfer meeting was.  When we got to the church we found out that we were way early because we never got the memo that transfers were starting later than normal due to the fact that the new missionaries coming were a day late getting into Pittsburgh.  Evidently they had a delayed flight and a cancelled flight.  No worries though…everything is all good and we are back safe in Meadville. 
8. Anything that we can do or pray for?  Please pray that we can help the ward get people active again and have a better relationship with the ward.  

Love you,

Elder Muir