Week 84

So this has been a great past week. We have been able to go out and work every day and we have found a lot of new people to teach as we do three hours of knocking doors and talking to people in the streets. We have made ourselves quite busy the past couple days and we have found a lot of people that really need the gospel and are going through a really hard time. Elder Keys is my new companion and he is from Washington state and he is a really good missionary. He has been out about a year now and we've gotten along really well so I'm glad this is going to be a really good transfer. We are serving in a really ghetto area so most people are humble and willing to talk with us, we have been offering to have prayers with people and leave a blessing on their homes and it has been a really effective finding tool and a good way to bless people's lives. It softens people's hearts, there are many people who don't want to talk to us at first because they don't want to switch religions or not interested in our message but then we offer to have a prayer with them and they are receptive to that. We had a couple of investigators at church this past Sunday, I keep comparing everything to when I was in Exeter and we were getting 10 or so investigators to church and here we get less than half of that so I need to stop doing that because I feel disappointed every week. I can't think of anything else too exciting from this past week, we've just been doing a lot of finding. We are doing sports today, haven't played anything for a while so I feel out of shape.

Week 83

Well we got transfer calls on Saturday night and I am staying here in Poterville but Elder Mueller is leaving but that is what we expected to happen so no big surprise there. My new companion is Elder Keys and I don't know him but I've seen him before and I know he is a short red head with freckles but that's all I know. I've heard good things about him so I'm excited to be with him. This past week has been a little frustrating as Elder Mueller has been going to the doctors every other day and then for the past four days we haven't been out to work so the area is struggling right now which is going to make things hard on us the next couple weeks. I've been able to study a lot though and I didn't think I would be able to start and finish Jesus the Christ for the third time but with all this study time I might be able to. Did you hear about the fifty-eight new missions being created? One of them is the Bakersfield mission and they will be taking parts of the Fresno mission from it and Fresno missionaries will be taken out and put in that mission in June so I'm glad that I won't be there for that although that is very exciting. The three southern zones of the mission will be in the Bakersfield mission so over 80% of my mission will no longer be the Fresno mission. We had a good showing yesterday at church so that was promising news. Well this week we have transfers on Wednesday and I will let you know how my new companion is. So I got an interesting call yesterday, it was a member from the ward I served in up in Turlock and he called to offer me a job which was super random but he wants to hire me. He owns a marketing company that is throughout the whole valley so he asked for our home phone number so that when I get home he will call me about it, so might have a job after the semester or after I'm done with school. 

That's great news about all the missionary work happening in the ward, no work more important than it so that's good your having success. President Gelwix always says that the most important person in missionary work is the Bishop and the two highest wards in our missions have the two best bishops he says, so no pressure or anything. That's good that I will be able to speak in Sacrament as I would like to and I'm not too worried about not going  to the high council but what does that normally include?. I love you guys and hope that you have a great week. 

Week 82

Sounds like things are going well back home and everyone is doing good. Had a pretty good week and was a lot of fun. Yesterday we had a tri-zone activity and we just played sports all afternoon and it was a beautiful day out for sports as it was in the 70's, that's the good thing about the winters out here, only about 2 months and sounds like your not in tshirt and shorts weather quite yet with the snow. Had a family home evening last night with a family in the ward and we played apples to apples, haven't played that one since I was home so forgot how to play. On Sunday we had a couple investigators at church so that was good but we can do so much better, we are reaching our potential. Church here starts at 1:00 and by the time church is done we got straight to dinner so doesn't give us much time to work on Sundays and no one likes meeting that late, hope I never have 1:00 church, your days are just shot. Our project this past week has been to contact every person on the ward list so we went to the zoning office and got this huge map of the east side of Poterville and we are marking where every person is and trying to make the ward list more organized as it is 6 pages of the abbreviated directory and about a page and a half is active so there is a lot of work to be done. My companion always seems to be struggling with something, if it's not his anxiety, it's a migraine, or his back or stomach and I really want to believe him but it's starting to get a little old. I keep telling him that if he doesn't get over it that he's going to be sent home. We get along, it's just hard to work with him. We have transfer calls on Saturday and then transfers on Wednesday so looking forward to that, I really am hoping for a good companion and someone that wants to work hard. I am pretty certain that I'll be staying and Elder Mueller will be going so this is probably my last area which I'm ok with. The work is slower than in previous areas but were working on improving that and our lessons have doubled so our teaching pool is increasing also. Well I love you all and thanks for your love and support.

Week 81

So another week has flown by, felt like I just emailed you guys yesterday. So we are starting to see a lot of success in our area, the area was getting 0 to 1 investigators at church and we had 4 yesterday and have a lot more for next week as we have found some solid investigators. I got three packages on Saturday, one from you guys and then one from the Desmarais family which was nice to get something from them, I didn't know Emily D. had another one. Thanks for the Valentines Day gift. I also got my Jesus the Christ which I used my American Express to buy it so just so your aware. My companion has been struggling recently and we are very concerned about him as he has had three anxiety attacks and is not mentally stable. He is going to Stockton which is 4 hours from here and outside of the mission to see someone to evaluate his mental health on Thursday. We get along well though, he just has flare ups of anger over little things and may be bi polar also so will good to get him checked up. It has been a good transfer and should be a good next two weeks of the transfer with some baptisms coming up. I'm doing really well right now, I got a little down a couple weeks ago because I have felt like I've been given a lot of difficult companions and I thought this transfer would be one with no set backs but difficult companions really make it tough but I am finally able to find success and be happy with myself even though it's not the ideal situation.

 I just checked my letter from President and he said that my release date is April 25 and that everything is set.  It became very real that I don't have long left after I read my email from President as everything is set in stone now and he is ordering my plane ticket which he will send to you so you will get there in a couple weeks. Thanks for booking the flight to school, I think that it's going to work perfectly leaving on Monday, gives a little extra time instead of leaving on Sunday. So will I be able to report to the High Council and also give a talk? Yea, quite a few people came up after I gave the talk and said it was good, so not too bad for not knowing and just getting up there. That is something the mission has really helped me at, being able to have no notice and give a talk without notes, I'm still not the best at public speaking but better than I was. Sounds like a lot of people went to the Ravens Homecoming and that it was a good time. Hope that you have a great week and look forward to hear from you next week. Love you and see you soon!

Week 80

Thanks for the letters! I'm so happy that the Ravens won! I can't believe they won the year that I'm not there but I will have to watch it once I get home. It sounds like it was a crazy game and that it was fun to watch. Everyone here is a 49'ers fan so I couldn't celebrate at all or else I would of got shot. We taught someone right after the game and she was a 49'ers fan and she was super bummed but she said that she wants to be baptized on February 23.  We had a great zone conference and we have started something called the harvesting blessing where we have to tract for three hours a day and instead of doing a normal door contact we offer to have a prayer with them and their family in their home and it has been a great tool. On Friday we gave the eulogy at a funeral and it was mostly non members so it turned out that a few of them wanted us to stop by so it actually was a good finding activity. 

I love you guys so much and look forward to hear from you next week. I can't believe that I will see you guys in less than three months! 

Week 79

So I got transferred on Wednesday and now I'm down here in Poterville which is the most south part of the mission. It is an all bike area which is good because I really wanted to get in good shape and this will defiantly help out. We have a pretty nice apartment with a washer and dryer so that saves a lot of time and money each transfer. This is the most ghetto city I've served in so far, an extremely poor town and most of the people are low income which can also be a good thing as they are more willing to hear the gospel. The ward is pretty small, probably about 70-80 people there but they seem nice and willing to help out. The work in the area is very slow and we only have 2 investigators here so pretty slim compared to the 20+ in Exeter. We are going to be working on getting our teaching pool up so we will be doing a lot of finding the next couple weeks. My companion is Elder Mueller and he is from Philadelphia so another east coast companion. We went biking the other day and we saw a shortcut through a field so we decided to go through it because it looked pretty dry but we got about 50 feet and then we got stuck in the mud so we had to walk to the other side and we were covered in mud and our bikes wouldn't go because of all the mud so we spent the next hour cleaning them and then finally got on our way. Tomorrow we have a zone conference and then the rest of the week we don't have anything planned so we will just be finding new people. 

Everyone here is talking about the Superbowl and whenever I mention that I'm from Baltimore they bring it up but everyone here is going for the 49ers so hopefully the Ravens win this Sunday. That's crazy that Luke is home, that picture of him doesn't even look like him, he's really changed.

Week 78

Thanks for all the emails and to hear how all of you are doing. It's been a good past week here in Exeter but it is my final day here as I found out on Saturday that I am getting transferred to Porterville which is about 30 minutes south of where I am at right now. I was a little surprised that I am leaving because the work has improved so much since I've been here and we have a lot of people going to be baptized so bummed I won't be here to see them get baptized but I feel good about going to a new area because there are more people I need to meet there. It will probably be my last area as I only have this transfer and then one more after that and this transfer is only a month long as the MTC has changed how long missionaries are there. My new companion is Elder Mueller and I don't know him yet so not too sure where he is from or how long he has been out. I have been feeling good the past week and I think it has just been a very hard couple months as I have had some tough companions and after a while it takes a toll on you. I have been re energized the past couple days as I have been saying goodbye to everyone and how great it is to be a missionary. We did some tiling this morning for a member and moved some stuff into his house and it was a lot of fun. Well tomorrow I am off to Porterville and I will let you know next week how it goes.