Days and Weeks (11/16/20)

I have been told that days drag and years fly, but for this I will use weeks and months because we are halfway through November and I still feel like it is June. During the day you are slugging around, bored out of your mind, you visit some people and they aren't home, or you call some people and they never answer, or you just go out to the other elders' house and they aren't home. So many things. Then, bam, it's Sunday again and you are confused at where Tuesday-Friday went, but all is well.

We had our nice little institute class on Monday night and another little lesson, and we talked about the Articles of Faith. It was great. They really are great. I remember trying to memorize them in primary. Y'all should go back and do a little refresher on them this week!

I made some more enchiladas and gave them to a few more people. The ward missionaries jokingly said they wanted some too, so we are going to try to have a "missionary meeting" and bring enchiladas. I don't know how excited our leaders would be if we said we were having an enchilada meeting. These are very important things, you know. We also had a little virtual tour of the Newell K. Whitney store (I think). It was super cool!

We had a nice little zone conference this week and because we got split there were like 20 of us there tops. It was very personal, I felt like. I enjoy a big zone, but also having that few was a really nice experience. I met some missionaries who I had never met before even though they live 20 or 30 minutes from me. Weird. 

We helped somebody who just moved in throw away some boxes. We didn't know what we were getting into because what we were told sounded like something crazy and a huge project. Then when we threw away like 15 boxes they were like ok thank you, bye now. Welp, that was nice and quick. I tried cleaning the house because it got a little dirty, and I got basically the kitchen done before being summoned by my companion to do something else. Little by little, right? We had an awesome institute class today. We stayed after and talked to the teacher, and he is so crazy smart because his job is literally reading the scriptures. So there were some really good questions asked, and he explained the whole thing like it was nothing. Learned about the morning of the first resurrection and so forth, what the first and second estates were, and many other things. Kinda an overload of information for my little brain. heh.

The fog last night [Sunday].
We were literally
breathing water.

We had another little tour over Zoom but this time it was of a saw mill, ashery, and a little river stream thing. We played some spike ball, and it is actually kinda fun. It took me a bit to figure it out and get into it, but once I did it was great. We then went to our dinner appointment, got there, went in, looked around, talked to a few people, waited a bit, then called them. 

Hey where are you?

Huh? I'm at my house. Why?
Oh, we are at the restaurant for dinner.
Why are you there?
Uhmm, we have dinner with you, right?
No. That's tomorrow. 
Oh, uh, oops. 

That was a painful convo for my comp. I'm not sure where the mix-up happened or who said it was today as opposed to tomorrow or what, but driving home half of us were laughing and the others didn't think it was funny. It was very funny.

We had the power go out this morning, and usually it goes out for like a few minutes tops. Then an hour and a half later we were like uh ok, time to study I guess. I didn't really want to take a cold shower, but with some more time it came back. We went to a little ward activity and our expectations were, uh, extremely low. But it turned out great! We went to our dinner, and the members were there this time! When they brought out the food, I think they said in the back, "Ok this one goes to the one in a white shirt and tie." They go out, and there's 4 of us in white shirts and ties. They switched mine and Elder Matthews' food, and they switched Elder Matthews' and Elder Williams' food. It was a little chaotic, but we ended up laughing about it. It was a bit of fun too. I guess that restaurant is a laughable one. 

Sunday was nice. It snuck up on me. We went to church, some nice normal church stuff, had our little missionary meetings, all was well, went to the YSA, I gave an opening prayer, and I think I prayed for the presence of the spirit twice then thanked God that the spirit performed the atonement and that we can always have Jesus with us... I hate talking in front of more than 6 people. It never works for me. I'm actually not 100% sure what I said in the prayer, but as I walked down from the stand every single person was looking at me walk to my seat. Oh well. I might have also zoomed through the prayer like a 5 year old. Dunno. My fight or flight kinda took over when I set foot on the stand. It happens when I say the sacrament prayer too. We watched a nice little devotional later in the evening and had a nice little Bible study too. 

Elder Williams while
we drive home.

We played some basketball and tennis today, and I made my first shot in a game today! I think I might quit while I'm ahead now. Even though I have a less than .001% success rate, it's better than my 0% as of yesterday. I also did really really well in tennis until about 6 hits in, and then the inner baseball player came out and, I dunno, I guess it was just instincts. That tennis racquet has a nice sweet spot--that ball was gone. oops. But my parting advice: read your patriarchal blessing and eat some ice cream, or hot chocolate because it's cold in Utah right now. And ask God to give you opportunities where you can act on a spiritual prompting. Those are always nice feelings. Especially when you act on them. 

Lil caterpillar thing

Yes (11/9/20)

I have started saying "yes" to the question, "How's it going?" I'm not sure what it makes people think; maybe they think I don't want to talk to them or maybe they think I am just scraping by. Dunno. I hope they don't think I am depressed and am having a hard time or something haha. It's just something I started saying, I guess. So I hope nobody takes it seriously. Maybe I should stop saying it so monotone. But this last week was a pretty good week. We did some service and made some creations; It was a fun week.

Us on the hike

We helped move somebody today, and it was great until we walked in the house. It was some hardcore cigarettes. I got so nauseous after being there for about 15 seconds. I didn't gag which is a miracle from the heavens. Thank you, Jesus. He is great. I'm serious. Y'all should 1. Learn of Him. 2. Believe in Him. 3. Follow Him. Good stuff there. We then went to a gas station and got a Gatorade because I haven't had one in like a year and a half. I think the dark blue was the best one. I had a long conversation with another elder about marriage, and it was really interesting. 1st, he's been in the mission for like a month. He doesn't need to be thinking about that, hahahaha. He can think about whatever actually. And 2nd, he was like, what if your future wife saw you right now? what would she think? WOAHH, I already know she would say, "Ok stay another 2 years on that mission of yours; you got some more to learn." heh. oops.

We had a nice district council. After, we were eating, and some cops were there, too. They were a lot of fun to hang out with and talk to and they'll just come and hang out at the pavilion because they know that we don't care if they are there and it's a nice, safe place to be. Cool. We texted and called a lot of people today, and none of them answered. Well one said she didn't know how we got her information. huh. ok. weird. 

We woke up to the house being
64 degrees

The Spanish elders got their new companions, and one of them stayed at our house and they seriously would not go to bed. It's like 11 or 11:30pm, and I'm like ok go to bed you turds. I feel like your mom or dad. We had an awesome institute class today, though. The institute teacher waited at Sonic for 30 burritos for an hour and a half. Ok, I'm not trying to be mean, but I think I could make 30 breakfast burritos in less than an hour and a half. Maybe. If I didn't get distracted. I didn't even know Sonic made breakfast burritos. For some reason, when I think of Sonic I think of a blue slushy that's the size of your arm. 

Friday was a fun day. It was my companion's year mark, and to celebrate we went with some other missionaries to Long Horn steak house, and we find out there that my companion has like 12 dollars on his card hahahahahaha, so I paid for him. Good thing budgeting works, but not a good thing how expensive it was there woah. Haha, I spent 50 bucks on the 2 of us heh. oops. After, we played basketball with some brothas. I learned some hood ball terms, like "crossin up" and "das wet." I never thought I would play basketball on the mission or learn some of the hood terms to take to the church ball with the ward. Y'all best be watchin' out because imma cross you up and make a wet shot. HAHAHA I think I'm funny.

Another big pizza that was kinda gross

We did some more service Saturday. We helped somebody move in, and it went super quick. We made an assembly line type of thing and got the whole truck unloaded in like 20 minutes. Good stuff. We went home and ate then went and helped some other people move too. They were moving between apartments, so it was nice and easy. We rode in the back of the truck because they were worried about the TV, hehehe. We weren't supposed to be back there, so I hope I'm not incriminating myself... but we didn't get past like 6 mph honestly. Maybe 10. 

Sunday was an amazing day. Sundays are usually super nice, but we didn't get much time to relax because missionaries never relax (we do all the time though), but we had a linger longer for the YSA and you know how they are--you walk in and talk to like 1 person and awkwardly eat the bag of popcorn they give you and try to drink the water because your mouth is so dry from the popcorn and you feel like a mess, then you just throw the stuff away and start actually talking to people, right? So, then you're getting in the groove, laughing, talking, laughing more, and it's a good time. People start to leave because, well, they have lives, then you end up with like 6 people. The bishop has cleaned everything up and left and it's you guys just chillin' there, talking, having a great time, and oops, it's been hours! And you have a Bible study with somebody t-10 minutes ago... oops. BUT! They already texted you canceling on you, so you keep talking because you have no more responsibilities for the next 30 minutes because you were supposed to be in a Bible study. Long story short: linger longers can actually be fun. Talking to people can actually be fun. Huh. weird. What a discovery. 

I finally got a haircut also

We went on a hike today, and midway through the hike we realized that we had already been here before, but 4 months ago, and there were so many more spiders 4 months ago. Where'd they all go? I don't know and honestly I don't care because I am glad! Those are some scary little guys. We had a whopping elevation gain of like 12 feet or 16 feet, so I can call this one a hike as opposed to some of the walks we have done where it's been an elevation gain of approx. .3 inches. 

Fun Times (11/2/20)

This last week has been rather interesting. We had quite the transfers, and some other interesting things happened. Elder Weaver got booted, and Elder Matthews is here now. Elder Weaver is with somebody who actually served in his mission! So cool! He's going to have way more fun with him than me I think haha. But on to the good stuff.

On Monday we had a little institute class, and it was about Christ's crucifixion. It was very interesting. I realized that I had somewhere learned quite a bit about the death and pain involved in being crucified because you actually die of asphyxiation (not breathing) and you can push on the nails in your feet to be able to breathe a little more and prolong your death. So this is a super gnarly way that Jesus died. It was a torture method to make people die really. So with that bleak and depressing image in your mind, you can ask yourself, "What can I do to show God that I am grateful for Jesus and His pain and sacrifice?" Just a little thought. Another question from this institute class today: "What do I need to do to prevent myself from going past the day of grace?" We were talking about 4th Nephi and Mormon. Especially Mormon chapter 1 verse 14 and 15. 

We called a few people and had somebody tell us to never call this number again. Like, chill out, we're just trying to teach you about Jesus and how you don't need to be sad anymore and you don't need to carry around your guilt anymore and how you can receive comfort and life-long friends, ok? The Spanish elders also got a Momo's pizza. It was 28 inches long. Thing was huge!

So our transfers got a little messed up because of the missionaries who have Covid and the ones who are in quarantine. So today (Wednesday) was the day we were supposed to get transfer calls and then we got transfer emails at almost 1 am (Thursday morning). I had to turn off my hot spot on my phone so my comp would stop checking his phone every 5 minutes when he got a Facebook notification. He, to our surprise, got transferred to Lake City. His new comp actually served in Juiz de Fora, where they were both assigned before this! So cool! Also a bunch of our friends in the district and area are leaving, bummer. That's literally why Facebook was created though, right?

We attempted to do weekly planning, and it was a fail I tell you what. We got like 30 minutes in, and then my comp goes and just starts packing random things haha. We also thought transfers were on Monday (11/2), but they were actually on Friday (10/30--the day after we found out about them). He was stressin'. uh oh. But we had an awesome institute class today talking about the book Saints. I learned that all the way until 1976 in Missouri if you saw a Mormon in the street you could shoot them dead right there and then, no questions asked. Not 1876--1976. That was 44 years ago. If this wasn't Christ's church, the devil wouldn't try so hard to destroy it. 

A really bad picture of the full moon
on Halloween.

I got my new companion today (Friday), and he's super cool--Elder Matthews. He was actually in my district before this, and this is also the first time in his mission he has served in Florida. We had a little departing lunch for Elder Weaver; I ended up buying it for all 4 of us because I had some extra money. Do I get blessings too if I feed the missionaries???? Because I know the members sure do. Hmmmm. We went to Chick-Fil-A that night, and the lady there was telling us about how it's the first full moon on Halloween in over 75 years and lots of other stuff. We were like yeah cool, uh huh, mmm, interesting, can I get a chicken sandwich? No hahahaha, we weren't rude about it because she told us about it after we ordered. I made it sound like we were super rude to her; we weren't. I promise.

We went and did some nice service for a member (Saturday) and moved them from one apartment to the other across the street, and it was the easiest move I think I have ever participated in. We were there for like an hour and a half, and I have been at somebody else's house for about 6 hours moving them. Sooo, this was awesome. Then they gave us pizza after. The perks of being a missionary I guess, right? Do some service and get some food. Nice. We had a little Halloween party for the YSA that we went to and had a little "snowball" fight. They were little foam balls, and there was a little girl that the YSA sisters told her to only attack me with them. So for the next 3 minutes I am running from this little girl who is throwing fake snowballs at me while literally everyone is watching, laughing their heads off. That was the most running I have ever done since baseball in high school. I was so out of breath. I was dead. 

We had a nice fast Sunday, other than the fact that I completely died. I was whiter than my white shirt I was wearing and was super nauseous and bla bla bla. So what do we do? Go to a dinner with a member. I laid on the floor the whole time everyone was eating. Then we watched an awesome devotional in the which we saw some of the YSA members on the actual Zoom call with Elder Bednar and his wife! People texted questions in, and one of the questions was "Where is the sword of Laban?" He proceeded to imply that it was one of the dumbest questions he always gets talking to people, he said it doesn't matter to him, and it shouldn't matter to you either. Somebody also asked about marrying "the one" and he said, "If there was 'the one' out there, do you really think she would want to marry you??" It's a good point; he said we need to become "the one." But church was good today other than the fact I was dying from my fast. heh.

Elder Ortiz and I because Weaver
didn't send the pictures of us.

Today (Monday) was super relaxed. We accidentally stole a can of green enchilada sauce from Walmart. When we went back in to pay for it, a guy there asked if we were running for a spot in the government. I was 100% ready to tell him "No sir, we are actually missionaries and teach people about Jesus," but before I could say that he said, "Because we need 2 honest men in there because we don't have any right now." What a great guy! That experience cost us like $2.36 or something like that. We walked out and somebody asked if we were the Mormons, and we talked to him. He was super cool and asked if we watched Conference. I said yes and asked him if he did because he said he was one of us. He said "No, I didn't. I was just messing with you." uhh ok? I told him that I enjoyed it, and he pointed out that the only social interaction we have is at church and at Walmart haha. He's actually kinda right. We do talk with the other missionaries quite a bit though. 

Anyhoo, y'alls should go watch that devotional. It was so good.