Week 7 Fredonia, New York

You guessed it, it's me again. What's up family and friends!? Holy cow what a crazy week it has been. It's insane to think that my last P day was in Mexico!! So much has happened since then which is ridiculous. First off I hope everyone enjoyed conference! There were so many great messages and it was awesome. Right after conference I flew back to the states. My oh my it is good to be back haha. You forget how blessed we are to be here!! It was so nice to be back on American soil! So I got to Pittsburgh on Monday at about 4 o clock and President Johnson immediately took us to the view of the whole city so that was   awesome. Pittsburgh is BEAUTIFUL! I loved it! Buuuut, it was not to last. Tuesday was Transfers and I got assigned my first area. I'm in FREDONIA, New York which is a town of 10,000 right by Lake Erie! So basically my greatest fear has come true as I'm in the North Pole. It's gonna be cold that's for sure. But anyways my new companion is Elder Renteria, a 22 year old Colombian brotha. Hah he's been awesome in helping me with my Spanish. We only speak Spanish at the apartment so it's really forcing me to learn and use my Spanish! Everyday I'm getting a little better which is nice! I finally had my first contact in Spanish yesterday and I could understand everything he said! Haha I was so pumped. This area is definitely different. I'm trying to figure out what is going on for sure but it's been cool to kind of learn and meet the ward members! Here's a little summary of what happened each day.

Wednesday
We had a good day out visiting some less active members. I'm starting to realize just how big our area really is. We have to drive EVERYWHERE. We drive a Jeep Compass and I get to drive because my companion doesn't have a valid drivers license anymore. Can I just tell you all how great it is to be driving again?? I missed it so much when I was in Mexico!! Anyway we visited two families. Teeth here in New York seem to be a rarity. I think the First Lady we taught had a solid Zero. Hahah people here are super nice. One lady gave us a big thing of ground beef and a taco kit. Needless to say I'm eating pretty well.

Thursday
We started the day off at an animal shelter doing our weekly service. I'm sure for some of you that sounds like a dream come true, but for me I just tried to have a decent attitude! We then went to Jamestown where the ward meets to have our district meeting. Here in Fredonia we only have a group of about 15 active people. Crazy. So once a month we drive to Jamestown for sacrament meeting. I'm starting to see that the ward here has some issues. They have 900 people on the records that are members but about 75% of these people are less active. The goal that the bishop gave us is to bring these lost sheep into the fold! I think it's great! Also we do so much driving here it's crazy. Sometimes we get driving on these back roads lined with trees and I swear it's straight out of a horror movie haha. We honestly drive for about a half hour in between members homes! This mission is HUGE! It's absolutely beautiful though. The leaves are changing colors and we see lake Erie and Chautauqua a ton. I'll try and take a picture soon

Saturday
This was a bit of an interesting day. Haha we had a huge list of less actives and potential investigators that we wanted to go contact so we did! One of them was a lady who lives right on the coast of Lake Erie! She was outside cleaning her car so it was a perfect opportunity to go talk to her! We began teaching about prophets and the restoration and she was really receptive and asking good questions like why the priesthood is important and what not. BUT THEN, Satan in the She form came, AKA her beloved next door neighbor. She goes: "Do you all have a license to be teaching?" We told her that we did (cause we do) and she proceeded to tell us that she was gonna call the cops if we kept teaching her NEIGHBOR. Does anyone else see the problem here?? Haha we asked the lady we were teaching if she wanted to continue and I could visibly see her discomfort with the whole situation. She didn't really know what to do but she copped out saying she wasn't interested. To make a long story short, we decided to leave wondering what in the world had just happened to us. It's days like these where optimism is so important. I think I was blessed with a little too much optimism as some of you know! While my companion was all torn up, I just was like well when they get to heaven they're gonna say: "Dang, those Mormons were right." NEVER GET DOWN!

This was my week!! I hope all is well back home! I'm loving it out here and trying everyday to be a little better!! Go Cougs!!
Elder Halls

Pictures: Lake Erie; Fall leaves from the church parking lot