Happy Halloween!! It's here again! Hope you had a good week! We were super busy but that's good! Here's what we did:
Monday through Wednesday of this week was all a blur. We picked up new missionaries, moved them around, and then we sent the departing ones home. I really love picking up the new missionaries from the airport! I get so pumped for them being able to start their mission and it's great! We get to spend a lot of time with them on Monday and Tuesday which was a highlight for me!
On Wednesday we woke up at 3:45 to take the departing missionaries to the airport in the mission van. 3:45 is a little early, but it's cool and weird to see your mission friends go home. I love seeing the ones that have no regrets and have given it their all for two years! This was a good crew and I'll miss those guys. The Johnsons let us go back to sleep once we got home which was heaven.
We had district meeting on Wednesday afternoon and it was great! Elder Averett is our new district leader and he's one of my good buds out here! He's a stud and gave an awesome training on extending commitments. It's going to be a good transfer.
On Thursday Elder Renteria and I headed out to Harrisburg. He had to take a test for college and the only place it was offered was conveniently located on the other side of the state. It all worked out because we got in an exchange with the Harrisburg Zone leaders and I enjoyed some time with my mission papi. President let me take him since he can't drive so it was like nothing had changed since the Fredonia days. We got there in the afternoon and immediately split up to blitz the area. I went with Elder Furniss from Herriman and we had a grand old time. Honestly, it was pretty sweet! We tried a bunch of people and got to talk to a fair amount of them! Something I've definitely been missing. The highlight of the day was when we were in a more ghetto part of Harrisburg. Elder Furniss is all about little ghetto corner stores and he wanted to go in there and buy me a Du-rag. It's all about the experience. I agreed, and we went in. He slaps the Du-rag on the counter and the guy just says: "You really wear these?" Without skipping a beat Elder Furniss says: "Yeah man, gotta get respect of the people around here." Haha the guy smiled and we ended up sharing the gospel with him and getting his information! It was great and makes for a good story!
On Friday we had lunch with the Rodriguez family from Panama. They made us some great food and they're awesome people! They're investigating the church and love the missionaries! At the end of the meeting one of the greatest things of my mission happened. I said the closing prayer, and after saying amen Hermano RodrÃguez asked me if my parents were Latino. I can assure you that they're not, (love you Mom and Dad) but that was a major goal achieved. I still have a LONG way to go, but it's good to know there's progress. I have a super strong testimony of the gift of tongues. The Lord increases our abilities when we serve him!
Elder Aitken and I were together later in the day and went street contacting in Harrisburg and we ended up at this cool place called City Island which is literally an island in the middle of the Susquehanna River. There's a double A baseball team that has a field on this island and everything, look it up. Anyways, we had about an hour and a goal to give out two Book of Mormons or Books of Mormon, whatever suits your fancy. Maybe we needed more faith, because we ended up achieving the goal in 10 minutes. Hah we met a few awesome people and I hope they can teach them in the future! After Renteria's test we packed up and made the 4 hour trek back home!
Saturday was the ward fiesta and it was a pretty good time! The cowboys brought their PVC pipe bull to the trunk or treat which was an instant success amongst the members. I think we're on to something here! The kids ransacked us and I don't know what we're going to give out tonight for Halloween. I guess there's always pass along cards...
Sunday was a really good meeting and I especially loved our third hour. We had a combined meeting on missionary work and it could not have gone any better. Our ward mission leader did a great job and I was super impressed to see so many ward members participating and receiving impressions for people they can reach out to! I think a lot of good will come from it! The Ballards fed us that night and the food was all Halloween-y. It was sweet! We met with the Johnson's later that night to go over things for MLC, and President Johnson asked us to give them the sacrament. It was a cool experience to bless and give the sacrament to your mission president and see how important it is for them to take it! They travel so much and have a lot of stake conferences to go to and they haven't been able to take it for a few weeks! It was good.
Random thoughts
- We have 4 Elders that cover our ward and the dynamic has definitely changed with the transfer. It's now 3 cowboys and yours truly from South Jordan, UT.
- After planning one night, the cowboys walked over and practiced roping on a lawn chair.
- The cowboys were not satisfied with a lawn chair and have recently built a bull out of PVC pipe. You have to admire their hard work and dedication. We're practicing our team roping and I need a lot of practice.
Love you all!
Elder Halls
Pictures: Pittsburgh, Harrisburg with Elder Aitken; We call him Bones the Bull; The Cowboys; Taking it to the streets; Good trail by a members house
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