Coming Home

I'm coming home!

This week kind of didn't quite go as planned. I was planning on going hard my last week. BUT...yeah. Tuesday I woke up starting to feel sick. Coughing and congested. Which was whatever. We spent some time street contacting and planning for zone meeting.

Wednesday we did Zone Meeting. I didn't have to do it this week but I wanted to do work! And it gave me something to focus on. So our Zone Meeting was Whose Line is It Anyway themed. It turned out pretty good. Not nearly as bad as I was worried it would flop to being. Mostly because I was nervous no one would get out of their shell. Almost everyone got out of their shell. Basically the whole goal was to get people to realize that street contacting isn't awkward. Get over that mental hurdle. Also just get people more familiar with improv. Because a street contact needs to be more of an improv than a set speech. We also did door approaches and everything. Everyone loved it. It just got little too goofy at points. I managed to run the thing without dying even though I sounded and felt like it.

Thursday I woke up with no voice. At all. I couldn't really talk. Mostly whisper. We were on exchanges and I was with Elder Crowley. So we went out and visited a bunch of people in their area and took advantage of having a vehicle. I went to their missionary correlation which was the Buffalo ward. So it was cool to hear a few familiar names.

Friday we went to pageant with the YSA! We went up with Aaron early to get the pizza and wings. So we went to a temple session earlier. It was pretty nice to be able to have one last time in the Palmyra Temple. I feel like that's MY temple. It's been quite a ride that me and that temple had together.

Saturday we rode up with Matt and another set of missionaries to Pageant. Matt was our investigator and the other two were using that as their "freebie" night to go. It was a party! We went up early and checked out the sites. I snuck in to the Latter-Day Harvest store and bought some last minute souvenirs. We went to Chill N' Grill and Matt/I got medium sized ice cream cones. Which is like an XXL in any other size of ice cream place. So it was a lot of ice cream! It was weird because there was like 30 mormons around us. Because everyone was going to pageant. Very few said anything to us though which was interesting. I got to see Frank though!!! Frank Dorsey from Cheektowaga. That was awesome! I got a picture with him as well.

Sunday was my last time at church as a missionary. Josh our EQ President gave a talk and his Brazilian Fiance bore her testimony and he translated for her. I said like a hundred prayers in each meeting/class because "It's his last time!" We had a less active Vicky at church though! So that was awesome! She came to church too! Peter's Australian girlfriend flew in from Australia and was there!

Basically a sick week. I might still have slightly sick symptoms when I come home. I'm not kicking it as fast as I would like despite my faithful efforts in taking anti cold drugs.

9 Days?!?!

9 days?? Say what?

This week ended up being more of a service packed week. It was interesting!

Tuesday we taught Niall again. It was a pretty good lesson! He actually brought up baptism again which was pretty sweet! He has the concern that he feels like he has already received the Holy Ghost. Which is an easy question. So this week we plan on just doing a super solid lesson on the Light of Christ and see if we can get him to start coming back to church. He is a great guy. Super solid guy. I really hope he gets the answer he needs and decides to be baptized. It would definitely change his life for the best.

We also had lunch with a random guy that we met while street contacting named Scott. He said he wasn't interested but took a card with our number and said he'd buy us lunch. Then he actually texted us and said he'd buy us lunch! I thought FOR SURE that we were walking right into an anti. But it turned out super sweet. He is a member/used to be. Extremely inactive. But he served a mission in Oklahoma. Married a girl at Utah State. Etc. I think he just wanted to pay it forward as he had people buy him lunch on his mission. Good guy. Hopefully it sparks a light in him again.

Wednesday we had stake missionary Coorelation meeting. It kind of sucked because President Pace wasn't there but he is a huge advocate. But I had to throw down a little. Of course I did it correctly and politically but 2 of the units in my zone aren't really supporting the missionaries. The one Ward basically will be mad if missionaries bring investigators to church. I guess it revolves around lots of baptisms of people that were borderline accountable. They think missionaries are just after the numbers. Then the other unit still hadn't gotten this solid family of Recent Converts home teachers assigned and it had been over a month and a half. Which is beyond ridiculous. The missionaries asked every week for them to get home teachers. So we threw down at the stake. The Stake R.S. President totally wants to help us. HT/VT is a huge problem around here. Like 5% completed HT/VT. Basically missionaries are the ones that visit everyone. The stake YM leader was a huge advocate for us. The High Council rep kind of just said "well, we trained them!" And we were like, well.... The problem is still here. It was a good meeting. Buffalo on the Stake level is very supportive.

We spent a couple hours on like 3 days this week at one of our returning member's parents house. They are about to start renting it from a couple that are in the Cattaragus branch. But they had a bunch of delays and everything wasn't finished. So they were trying to get it done by yesterday (Sunday). So we helped them paint, do baseboards, put in the kitchen flooring, etc. It was super fun! I like renovating. And they were super grateful. Their son is serving in the mission that covers our house. Elder Jensen. He's a redhead if we ever run into him.

We met a crazy guy named Paul. Got a return appointment and taught him at a coffee shop. I was hoping he wasn't crazy and just under the influence. But he was crazy. So we taught him the restoration and then dropped him.

My last MLC was Friday. It was a shorter MLC as well. I think it was shorter because the sisters had their site assignments to go to. Since it was so short we basically just do zone reports and a little bit of counseling. One of the topics they wanted to counsel on was having a Elders help cover the sisters area during Pageant and the crazy times there. It was kind of frustrating because we spent 20 minutes on it and all we needed was 60 seconds. We just told them, have your sisters give them a bullet point list of to-do's and they'll do it. Just communicate it to the elders. Simple. But there was a couple Elder-hater sisters in there that dragged out the conversation.

I had dinner with Aaron (2nd counselor in Branch Pres) at Anchorbar. Anchorbar is the home of the original wings. I pounded probably about 20 of them. So good! Not as good as Duffs but simply classic. Gotta love it!

Fourth of July was super sick! We went to Canalside with the YSA. Matt took us and the sisters. It was a party ride. Matt is the best! We finally found parking under the highway and it took like a 24 point turn to get the car in the parking spot. But we got it! Canalside was packed. Tons and tons of people. A large amount of them were under the influence of alcohol and... Probably some other stuff. Ha! But they put on quite the firework show. It was pretty intense. Right above the water so that was cool! Sister Storms brought glow sticks for everyone. Matt ended up getting a parking ticket though. Which was a super bummer. He wouldn't let us help pay either. It was a failure to pay the parking toll. Which was crazy because we didn't see any toll gate or anything. Also crazy that they had a cop going around doing parking tickets on a night where there was tons of DUI's and other crazy stuff.

Almost got my goal of 120 Book of Mormons handed out before I go home. We are at 104/120. But 16 should be doable this week. We've actually handed out 1/10 of the Book of Mormons our mission has handed out.

Quote of the Week from our Elders Quorum President: "Or... Like Elder Haws over there who looks like he is poster boy for Nazi propaganda." Hahaha!

Modesty and Stuff

So last P-day we went to Niagara Falls. Super sweet. I've already seen it but it was fun. We got pretty much the whole zone there except the sisters. So it technically wasn't a zone p-day. So we weren't breaking any rules of having a zone p-day when we already had one this month. Ha! There was also 4 chill elders from Rochester that this super sick member drove them out to the Falls. It was fun! He was pretty cool.

For the FHE activity we went to this little "park" in downtown buffalo. It's a free golf course that is made up up different holes designed by local groups/artists to resemble some of the great things of Buffalo. It was pretty fun! It was a large turnout. Turns out my mini golfing skills has drastically gone down over the two years.

Tuesday we spent most of the day helping the sister's investigator. Her name was Sister Nancy. She was like a 70 year old hippie lady. It was pretty interesting. We were helping her with some yardwork. Her husband passed away only a couple weeks ago. I got to use a riding lawnmower and start to dig out a hole in the ground that she wanted to build a pond in. And also plant some trees. I think the pond was supposed to be a memorial pond for her husband. The funny part is they were all grateful that we came to help. I kept telling them that I was all excited and happy to do it so I could get my tan on! Then sister Nancy was like "Well then take off your shirt!!" Haha! I like gave Sister Rogers a "What the crap?" Look and she just laughed. But then Sister Nancy was all "Oh I know you guys like your modesty and stuff." I was more of just thinking 1. I'm a missionary. 2. My stomach hasn't seen the sun in 2 years. I don't want anyone going blind.

Tuesday night we got dinner from our R.S. President Jen. I don't know if I mentioned a couple weeks ago how me and Elder Whatcott came up with her proposal story about how Ammon from the ward would propose to her? And how their celebrity name was Jammon? And how the whole proposal revolved around a candlelight dinner and jam/toast. Well she invited us over for dinner. Ammon was there. We had a candlelight jam/toast dinner. It was super super funny! It was their sweet revenge. But that's okay. I got a free meal. We had other breakfast things too but it was super funny.

AP's exchanged on Wednesday. That wasn't too bad. They blitzed our area. Pretty much we just both went street contacting in different areas. So it was pretty effective. Elder Littlefield and I worked really well together at getting some super solid contacts and handing out a ton of Book of Mormons. So that was nice! Wasn't too bad for an AP exchange.

Then back to back exchanges with Amherst. I went with Elder Fauga. He is a Polynesian. He is super funny. He is kind of a devia. We tease him about it all the time though. He likes it. Ha! Turns out that his companion (our district leader) is not very fond of me at all. hahaha I don't really care though. It was because I defended his last companion as a good missionary and gave him suggestions on how to work with him rather than just letting him complain about him and telling me about how he was a bad person. But it was a simple exchange. I helped him map out his area so they were more organized on their list of potentials.

Friday was pretty simple. Saturday was pretty interesting. It rained a ton. Like it literally never stopped raining. 100% all day. Wasn't too hard the whole entire time but it was pretty hard rain for a good chunk of it. We ended up having 2 moves to do that day. A missionary correlation meeting was a no-show with our mission leader. So that was awkward. But a solid fun day.

We have a plan for our next Zone Meeting to be Whose Line Is It Anyway? version of a training. I'm thinking that it will be like a bunch of games like Whose Line Is It Anyway but have the situations be missionary situations. Mainly focusing on the street contacting/tracting situations and handing out Book of Mormons. We really haven't gotten all the details crammed out yet... But yeah.

The rain has slowed us down a little. We are doing a lot of finding. There is a shocker haha! Do that a lot out here. But It seems to be doing well. We handed out 49 Book of Mormons this week. So that's pretty cool. The mission is pretty much already out of Book of Mormons. So that's a problem. ha!

Elder Haws had a really cool experience. At the stake missionary fireside on Sunday evening at the Buffalo chapel he got to see an old Less Active Member that he worked with. The guy used to be a biker, long hair and just all tattooed up. But he was clean shaven, cut hair, tattoos covered up by the sleeves of his suit. Almost unrecognizable. He looked like a high councilman. He came up to Elder Haws and was telling him about how he (Haws) had played a major role in changing his life.

Book of Mormon Giveaway

Monday was a huge hit! The marshmallow war with the PVC pipe went great. We had tables overturned everywhere in the gym for obstacles. It was great. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it. We recruited the senior couple from Niagara Falls (the ones that hooked us up with the Lindsey Stirling) because they are much more chill and fun. The other senior couples were always awkward and just seemed to be annoyed that they had to babysit us. Which is reasonable because it is annoying that we need babysitters. It was super funny because we had a barricade of tables so everyone burst into song from Les Miserables. "Red! The blood of angry men!" It was hilarious. The clean up was kind of rough. All the marshmallows stuck to the ground and a ton got smashed in. So we had to do some quick scrubbing. But with 20 people it went by pretty fast. The floor was covered in marshmallows. I bought 5 bags of mini marshmallows for it and we used them all. The funniest part was how much the sisters were getting into it.

Tuesday we spent a lot of the day preparing for Zone Conference. It was a little frustrating as preparing for Zone Conference doesn't increase any key indicator. Which is TOTALLY fine for me. I'd rather fulfill a purpose than have a higher weekly call in report (which we ended up having anyway). Some would disagree though and got in a bad mood to "waste" all day preparing for zone conference.

Zone conference seemed super long but it went pretty decent. We set a goal for 350 Book of Mormons handed out. Which I think is a good solid goal. That ends up being about 2-3 a week per companionship. Which I think is very reasonable but will also get them focused on handing out Book of Mormons. Much better than the other zone's goals for 1500, 1000, 1001. The mission goal was 1000. It's just really important to set a good goal that the missionaries can accomplish and feel accomplished. We set too many goals too often that are setting ourselves up for failure and just discourages missionaries. I had to bear my testimony at the end of zone conference.  I just bore my testimony revolving around the picture of "Faith is the power. Love is the motive..." that I gave everyone. For Zone Conference rather than training how the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion which everyone already knows I just gave out a ton of different tools that can help them to hand out more Book of Mormons and make the ones they hand out more effective. So we gave them Book of Mormon inserts that had some suggested readings on it. We made sure everyone had one of those laminated cards to keep in their own scriptures that had a list of chapters from the Book of Mormon to leave the people they teach with to read between lessons. We also gave them little organizers for their car to hold their Book of Mormons and other supplies. I made them out of the boxes that the Book of Mormons come in and used the flaps to make dividers then super glued it. Then we also made little posters for everyone that had a spot where they could set a companionship goal for the number of Book of Mormons handed out and then they would color in a giant Book of Mormon as they handed them out. Companionship goals to help the larger zone goal. Flooding the Mission with the Book of Mormon. It was a lot of work to get all those done but I thought it was worth the time and every penny.

Exchanges with Elder Rushton on Thursday. That was great! It was super nice and relaxing.  He is such a solid guy. We went street contacting for a good portion of the day. It was great. Handed out a ton of cards and 11 Book of Mormons. Which I was super happy about because it helped pump of Elder Rushton for the challenge. Helped him to really get excited and feel like he can do it. I also had my first Philly steak sub at ETS (Elmwood Tacos & Subs). It was good. But wasn't worth $10.

We ended up street contacting for 3 days in a row. That was rough. Not nearly as fun. But Saturday I did hand out 14 Book of Mormons. So that's pretty cool.

So we ran into Hannah again on Elmwood. We seem to always run into her. She was sober this time. She was on her way to the bar. She started teasing us for always being on Elmwood. We had a good chuckle and she asked some questions about being a missionary. Then she found out we aren't supposed to hug people. So she gave Elder Haws a hug. He turned a good couple shades of red which I got a good laugh out of. Then Hannah hugged me. It was weird. Mostly because I haven't hugged a girl in like 2 years. But for the record! It actually isn't against the rules for us to hug a girl. It's just culturally frowned upon. It doesn't say anywhere in the entire white handbook. Either way it was an interesting, hilarious conversation. Her friend was there and it was a good contact with her and helped her understand a little about Mormons. She was proud of herself for "sending us to Hell for being hugged."

Finished the week off with 33 Book of Mormons handed out. Which was a ton of hours put into doing that. A little disappointed to hear that they are raising the mission goal to 5,000 Book of Mormons within this 90 day period. It's ridiculously high and pretty much requires us to ignore everything and spend all the time handing out Book of Mormons. Plus, they also in the same breath are telling us that they only have a couple more cases of Book of Mormons left. So we are going to end up handing out all these Book of Mormons and not have enough left to give to investigators down the road.

For Father's day the whole relief society did this all day thing for Church. They made homemade bread for Sacrament. They taught all the lessons. Then they made us dinner after church! It was super nice of them. I felt a little bad because I wanted to help. But it was their future father's day gift to all the guys.

Random Week

This was one of the more random weeks for sure.  They did get some HQ referrals from Book of Mormon Musical. So definitely worth our time.

Tuesday we went to Medina to blitz their area. We have to do exchanges with them but it's far away so we just both go and blitz. It usually turns out good. Elder Sevy and I stayed up way way late just talking. He has great ideas and great ingenuity. Smart kid. I enjoyed talking to him. We went to the outskirts and tried to contact some people for him. We got a new investigator on the streets. That was cool! He has some good ideas on how to help the mission.

Okay... I want to preface this next part with we got President's permission. Tuesday night we get the text from Matt Donner. "Do you want to go to Lindsey Stirling Concert tomorrow?" Well duh freakin' ya! But we told him there was no way we could get permission. Then he tells us the Lewiston Elders are going. And I was all nervous because I didn't want to have to tell the Lewiston Elders they can't go. TURNS OUT THEY GOT PERMISSION! The Senior Couple totally convinced President to let us go. Crazy, I know! So we called him and he said we could go. So Niall and Matt were both there. Which was super sick. Plus the N Tonowanda and Lewiston elders brought some Less Active Members and investigators. So we were all interacting with them. It was good. We also were being stared at by like every single person in the place so it definitely got us noticed. And of course, Lindsey was awesome! Super impressive. Super modest. Just awesome. Matt gave a Book of Mormon to the opening act girl. That was super awesome! He's such a stud. And we only really got stopped by 1 of the staff who thought we were selling stuff.

I promise I'm still on a mission. On Thursday we ended up having this elaborate gun war for our activity. We made blow guns with PVC pipe and made little darts with sticky note paper and hot glue. It was intense. The whole gym was covered with tables, chairs and boxes and we played capture the flag and then just like normal last team standing type of game. There ended up being a little drama associated with it because our Unit Mission Leader is still meeting with us. But he isn't coming to church and the branch council is frustrated with him and what not. It's hard to explain. But it was a little bit of an annoyance to be caught in the middle of it all.

Friday while we were out street contacting we ran into our Unit Mission Leader's friend, Hannah. She was in the bar but ran outside to mess with us a little. She was being pretty feisty and whatnot. She was just teasing us about handing out Book of Mormons on the street again. She ended up taking a Book of Mormon (and my pen) and a restoration pamphlet. Gave her a Mormon.org card. Marked a favorite scripture. Good stuff. But Two ladies were eavesdropping and started to ask questions on how we knew each other. Then it started to get awkward. Because then they were all "well get her number!" And so I try to use it as a teaching opportunity to explain how missionaries don't date for their 2 years... Etc etc... Well Hannah jumps in and starts saying we can't do anything until we are married. So I correct her by saying we can go on dates, hang out, kiss, etc. Just no sex until you're married. Then.... She tried to kiss me (kind of!). She like took a step forward (there was railing in between us) and leaned on it and was all "well then kiss me!" At this point I'm trying not to laugh really hard. Elder Haws says "Please don't!" She was just being feisty and was a little tipsy. So I just blew it off and was all "haha! Not while I'm a missionary." And then we found an excuse to leave. I found the whole situation super humorous and got a good chuckle out of it. Elder Haws was a little less amused but mostly because the two ladies were harassing him for not handing out Book of Mormons when I had handed out 2 right there. Needless to say, that quickly jumps to one of my more awkward stories of the mission. Having a drunk girl try to get me to kiss her. #MissionaryProbs

Saturday we had a site trip/temple trip with the YSA. We went to the sites with Matt instead of the temple. It was pretty good! Except they are changing up the sites. Instead of a tour the sisters just stand outside the buildings and give you a few details then you go inside.  It's hard to explain if you don't know how the sites go. It was just way less of a spiritual experience. Sad to see the change.

Basically this week was super super weird. It was just kind of a confusing "Did that just happen?" Kind of week. But it did happen. Ha!

This next week we have Zone Conference. We have to give a training on the Book of Mormon. The whole conference is revolved around the mission goal to give out 1,000 Book of Mormons. Which is not too many at all. President keeps telling us that the Rochester East Zone set a zone goal of 1,500 Book of Mormons. Yes, more than the mission goal. But that averages out to 2 BoMs per companionship per day. Including Sundays and P-days for 90 days straight. The goal time frame is 90 days. We are going to encourage our zone to set a goal much smaller. Like 300. That is much more achievable and can give our missionaries a sense of accomplishment. Rather than another unrealistic goal that we don't accomplish.

I've got planned these organizers for the cars to help everyone have supplies in hand as well as keeping them in good condition. Lots of Book of Mormons get ruined because they fall on the floor. Also made a little mini poster for each companionship to set their own companionship goal for Book of Mormons handed out. It's a picture of a Book of Mormon that they can color in as they progress to their own goal. I also made some inserts that we can put in the front as "suggested reading" with page numbers so people have ideas on what they can read to see what it's about. It has stuff similar to "Faith - Alma Chapter 32 (page 256)". I am also going to laminate a couple more cards since there are new people so everyone has a card with the list of chapters and basic topics that they can use to make sure they leave reading assignments with those they teach. I'm kind of wanting to add the twist of having the zone make sure they also flood their teaching pool with the Book of Mormon. Emphasize reading the Book of Mormon with those they are teaching. Stuff like that.

Book of Mormon Musical

Elder Haws came to replace Elder Whatcott. He is also new to being zone leader so I have to explain that to him. It has put him a little bit in shock for the whole week. Mostly because the schedule has more meetings and can be a lot more last minute adjustments. It's not very structured schedule. He also has been adjusting to some of the little responsibilities we have to do. I also took him street contacting a lot and he was a bit gun shy on that one as well.

Elder Brandon Haws. From Chandler, Arizona. He went to Snow College for a semester before coming on his mission. He has been out for just under a year. His cousins are Tyler and TJ Haws (BYU basketball players). He gets bugged by people about that a lot. Well, by Mormons who know who they are. He also looks like a German Nazi. Mainly the boy from the Sound of Music that sings 16 going on 17. He had multiple drunk girls in downtown Buffalo tell him that's who he looked like. He also had a 16 year old drunk girl hitting on him. She got up real close to him and looked like she was just going to try and kiss him. Which from my point of view was the  most hilarious thing I had ever seen. I was kind of hoping that she would try to pull a move so I could harass him about it for the next 5 weeks. Oh well. She ran off with her other drunk friends.

MLC was this week. We got to drive a brand new car back. 2015 Toyota Corolla. It was super sketchy to drive though because I was afraid to scratch a brand new car. But it was way too nice for missionaries to drive... But however they do it, they've found the way that is the least costly.

Lots of street contacting this week. But after looking at the final numbers this week, we gave out more than 500 cards. Our total number of "Contacts" were 530ish. With that we gave out easily over 20 Book of Mormons. Also got a few people's numbers. Sadly, pretty much all except 1 promising one are people that we have to refer to the Buffalo Elders because they are not YSA. However, if we were to count contacts by the definition that our mission counts them as then we would have had easily over 1,500 contacts. The average area gets about 30 a week. So that was super exciting to show that we were working hard.

However... About 350 of those 500 come from the Book of Mormon musical! Gotta love it. Some super fun stories. We only ended up going 3 nights. Mostly because of schedules and stuff. But also because of President. But technically downtown Buffalo is our area as well (We cover the whole stake) So.... We went down to join the efforts. It was super successful! The first night we actually met the owner and managers of Shae's Theater. Also, we definitely got our picture taken by a newspaper guy. So that might definitely be in the newspaper this Wednesday. We'll keep an eye out for it. They also invited us to the cast's after party. So we poked in and grabbed some food that they had. Briefly talked to the cast. They were super nice. Also super flaming. BUT nice. They asked us some questions and we got the opportunity to correct them on some of the doctrinal things. They actually for the most part were doctrinally accurate. They also were telling us that they have some lines that they improv. So we gave them some suggestions of things we say a lot. And.... THEY USED THEM!!!!! Matt, our investigator, went Saturday night and he said they said "Wow! What a blessing!" Which is one of our suggestions that they loved. It is kind of an inside joke because President says it all the time when he doesn't know what else to say to missionaries. So all of the missionaries say it. So I got a good kick out of the fact that I impacted the Book of Mormon musical. Let's see... Some other fun stories from the nights.... One gay guy told me I was cute. So that was cool. I had a couple people take pictures with me. One was a girl that looked my age that was super attractive so I wasn't complaining. We handed out a TON of Book of Mormons. Like over 120 EASILY between us and the Buffalo Elders. So that was super legit. It would have been more effective if more missionaries had been there like we had planned. But oh well, President realizes that now.

The managers were super nice to us. They would poke their head out the door 5 minutes before it ended and say "Guys, 5 minutes! Almost show time!" They were super okay with us proselyting outside as long as we were a certain distance from the doors (Mainly to keep foot traffic flow). They also brought us cookies one night.

Elder Crowley and Durfee had a rough week. Durfee lost his wallet one day. The next Elder Crowley's bike got stolen while we were at the musical proselyting. It was locked up and only 20ft away from us. But they cut it and grabbed it while we were distracted talking to people. Super rough.

Our missionary activity this week was Water Balloon volleyball. Super fun. No one out here seemed to know what that was. We didn't get much of a turnout. But I think it'll help set the stage to help people know that we are really going to step up our game for missionary activities so they can bring their friends to it.

This week we planned on doing marshmallow guns (PVC pipe) but with these stick note dart contraptions. However, that might be getting shut down because of some really confusing reasons. We were talking about it at Branch Council and they were kind of shutting us down. It's mostly because our Branch Mission Leader is borderline Less Active lately. And they are struggling with him but were taking it out on us. We just are confused on what budgets are allowed to spend on activities. Our mission leader knows that but hasn't said much on it. And we are just trying to make things happen because when we let them just do it all, it doesn't get done. Kind of been a struggle.

Two of our Recent Converts are really struggling. Gerald and Anthoney. They are both drinking heavily and not coming back to church. Just lots of Word of Wisdom problems. And the one is threatening to leave the church. So that is super discouraging.

We are just trying to do a lot of finding. Because everyone either moved or are dropping us.

The LAST transfer

Transfers are super crazy. It'll make for an interesting transfer. My new companion is Elder Haws. He is new to being a Zone Leader as well... And that's about all I know about him. To our surprise we are keeping sisters in the district. We are losing Sister Stoddard and gaining Sister Johnson. Other than that there are a ton of boring changes. Cramer is gone. Alty-baby (Elder Alt) is gone. Whatcott is gone. Basically everyone fun in the zone is gone. haha! So hopefully some of these new guys are fun.

Whatcotts birthday was Monday. It was a full day event. We ended up going golfing so that was pretty fun! That evening was FHE so we all signed a birthday card for him and shared our favorite Whatcott story/#WhatcottProb. We then played life sized clue that was "Who killed Whatcott?". It ended up being the Relief Society President in the mothers room with a cookie.

Exchanges with Alt were super cool this week. He is such a sick kid. He drove super expensive cars in Las Vegas before his mission. Like where people do the ride alongs in corvettes? He drove. He just did super cool crazy stuff.  Exchanges with Noble was a little more of a struggle. He has kind of been a pain to everyone. Elder Alt is a great companion and elder Noble just wasn't treating him well. It was just hard to get through to him.

Street Contacting on Elmwood in downtown. Drunk guys had us sit down and just chat with them. It was funny. Right outside of a coffee shop. That is a sick place to street contact as there are just tons of people around. We tried to contact like 60 people in just an hour. It was sweet!

Stevenson's baptism was this week. It was a family the sisters had been working with in the Amherst Ward. Less Active parents and oldest son. But 6 nonmember kids (1 is 8yrs old). The father ended up baptizing and confirming them. It was an amazing experience! It was really cool to actually see the gospel bring a family together like that. Obviously I didn't work with them but I was familiar with them along the journey as the sisters were teaching them. It was just a super spiritual baptism, sooooo many people showed up in support. It was amazing. His confirmation blessings were just super simple and heartfelt. The family needs a lot of assistance but it's definitely a family that will grow in the gospel and be a huge building block in the church.

I don't think I've explained how throwing things away here works. So basically, if you want to throw something away, you just put it on the side of the road. Then the garbage man takes it or random people come take it. So we see a fire pit.... So naturally we take it. (Not stealing, it was garbage). So we had a missionary activity for ysa and roasted marshmallows in it in the grass behind the church. Then we also used it Saturday night after we all got home behind our apartment. Super fun!

Ward Correlation with the branch mission leader. He realizes that Sister Stoddard is NOT fond of being referred to by her first name, Ashlie. So... Naturally, he only used her first name the whole meeting. She was fuming! Super funny!!