Let's Build an Ark

It's been an interesting week! First off was the Hobbit House. Basically they are going over this week to do service for the guy who lives in a Hobbit House. It's a house built into a Hill. We got a tour of it. Basically it's like everything energy efficient as you can.  It's built into the hill because that keeps it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Plus they have solar panels, windmills and all that jazz. It's really cool! Each of his lightbulbs only cost 5 cents a year to run. His fridge only costs 20$ a month to run. His tv was like $15. And that is assuming that it's on for 5 hours a day. And plus he is generating all this electricity himself. He barely has to heat or cool his house. Elaborate.

Then the flood hit! Basically it started raining crazy hard and everything around Canandaigua flooded. So the nearby city of Penn Yan got hit the worst. It has a couple of little creeks that flow through it. Well, those little creeks turned into raging rivers with the storm. It took out a couple buildings. It seems that more houses are
flooded than are not. There are a couple of houses that are going to have to be flattened because the damage to the foundation/basements were too much. Roads were just washed away. Sidewalks had the dirt wash out from underneath so the cement just collapsed. No one was killed though. I didn't even hear anything of anyone getting hurt.

So we had exchanges on Thursday with the zone leaders in Penn Yan. So instead both of us went down and split up in the area. This was the first wave of the flooding. It was sunny so we went to the main downtown and helped dig out a couple businesses basements. I'm talking a couple inches of water/mud. Probably 3/4 mud and 1/4 water. We had to pull everything out of the basements to try to salvage it. We helped with a book store, a furniture store, A diner, a performing arts theater or something like that and some other random ones. That was most of Thursday.

Well, weather reports said it was going to rain Thursday night and all through Friday. Flash flood warnings everywhere. So the whole zone got called to meet in Penn Yan at 8:00am to help with the effort. More flooding was happening. We probably filled 2 thousand sandbags. I swear. We had quite the system going. During the filling, someone sped up to pick up sandbags and needed more help. So Brindley, Westwood, Hancock and I jumped in the truck and went with them and a bunch of sandbags. We came to a house that there was a giant hole in the side (assuming where a basement window well was) and inside you could see the basement which was floor to ceiling in water. The water was still flowing towards the house. So we quickly started to dig a trench and use sandbags to divert the water back towards the drainage system. The house was ruined but any more water would kill all chances of saving any of the belongs on the main floor. The lady (non member but friends with a couple members in the Branch) drove us back to get more msandbags and we went back to that neighborhood and helped a couple more random people. That street had a bunch of old people that were stuck in their houses because their driveways collapsed. They won't be able to drive out of there through the 6 ft deep hole. It was pretty crazy!

We finished up doing sandbags and went home sometime that night. Luckily, the rain stopped. Penn Yan is still flipped upside down BUT they are in a solid state just to repair and recover. We were joking  around that if it keeps raining, we are going to build an Ark.

That leads us to Sunday. Church was great! A bunch of returned missionaries and college students are back from school/missions. They are excited to go on splits and help with the work. Seems like solid referrals and work should start happening. We took Denzel to the sites afterwards with a big group. The sisters had their investigators as well. Plus a couple of members. He seemed to like it. I am pretty sure He is skitzophrenic (however you spell it) so he enjoyed it but didn't really take too much to the spiritual side. We also had to give a ride to two of the members because we can't drive investigators to the sites. That was awkward. We were definitely chaperoning. And they're like 40. They announced to us they were official. It was awkward.

Well... It's a new transfer. I'm going onto my 8th transfer, 7th companion, 4th area. Yep. I'm getting transferred again. I'm heading off to Kodak Park (Rochester City) to be with a Elder Ipson. Rumor is he is a decent worker. I knew this was going to happen because the work here in Canandaigua is so going to pick up this transfer.

Mom jinxed me. She said she didn't want me to get transferred and transferred to Rochester. Both happened. Haha so no more guessing for her!

Law of Moses

Statistically, 80% of referrals for the missionaries come from the same 4-6 members in each ward. Take a moment to think about that. Interesting, eh?

We went to dinner at the Watkins on Monday. It was nice but since the new rules were in place things got awkward. Apparently even if there are 20 people there, if there isn't a MALE adult then we can't go in. But they really wanted us to eat with them so they made us eat outside. Really awkward. We couldn't go in so they brought our plates with food out. I felt soooo horrible as she was pretty much our waiter. Weirdly enough, since we were outside, it was technically okay for us to eat outside with all the kids (ages 6-12, about 8 of them) while the adults and sister missionaries were inside. Rules....

Wednesday morning I get a text from Bishop asking me to give a Plan Of Salvation talk at a funeral for a lady I've never met who used to live in the ward. Awkward. Thursday evening I gave the talk. It was a smaller crowd. It seemed to go alright. I'm still really nervous at a podium but I feel like I'm getting better! Maybe by the end of my mission I'll be able to give a decent talk at a podium ha!

Annoyingly, a new rule is also in the process of being set up. It hasn't been officially announced yet. The rule is that elders and sisters can't have dinner appointments at a members house together. The pro to the new rule is that it would help minimize unprofessional relationships between the sisters and elders which may have increased with the ages now being closer together (or maybe statistically increased because there are more missionaries?). The major cons I see is that we lose even more unity as a district which has proven to be effective to be a united district, the ward feels more burdened if they want to keep up with providing such a great frequency of dinner appointments for the missionaries and the elders get the short straw as most dinner appointments are scheduled for the sisters with the elders as an afterthought.

Now I'm one of the missionaries who doesn't really like the way that dinner appointments have turned into. I think it's weird that the wards feel the necessity to feed the "starving" missionaries. With less dinner appointments the only side effects are that I will run out of money every month if I plan on eating healthy and I have no opportunity to build relationships with members to invite them to do missionary work. I got along plenty fine in Buffalo with very few dinner appointments but had very little relationship with the ward members in my area. So I guess we'll see how the effects of these new string of conservative rules come.

On the bright side, we can now have a P-day as a district, once a month. As long as we are being babysat by a senior couple. Except we don't have any senior couples nearby. Cool.

Mike got baptized on Saturday. He's an interesting guy. Very willing to come and stuff. He'll need the ward to really support him. He's Sister Tran and Flores' 3rd baptism this transfer with 2 more scheduled for next Saturday. They are on fire. The baptism service was really awkward and kind of kept crashing down. But they made it and he is baptized! Which is what counts.

Denzel, our Black investigator, actually is showing promises. It didn't seem that way at first. He keeps coming to church. We've been able to teach him. He's willing to be baptized. We just need to make sure he is ready and knows all the stuff. He has a lot of things to work on before hand though.

Our recent convert of about a year is very obsessive about the gospel. Which is good... But keeps us on our toes. Recently the issue has been that he is all worried about the young single adult activities. He didn't think Apples to Apples was appropriate because there was "judging" involved. He takes a certain kind of patient to get the doctrine corrected with him.

Sitting in Zarahemla

Normal week.  Except for one of the dinner appointments. I'll give a gist of what happened, honestly I'm not sure of what to believe.

So we are talking with the elderly couple (74 years old) members. Still mobile and 100% there. A healthy bunch. Well, as dinner was preparing we had a chance to chill and talk with the husband. He is a nice guy. Talking about things. Then he goes and says "I promised I wouldn't say anything." Which sparks our interest. He then proceeds to tell Elder Brindley that from the moment he saw him, he had a feeling that he'd have a great weight to bare. He was all "You're special! But don't let it get to your head!" He said he has only told one other missionary that and that missionary has been bishop, stake president, mission president, etc.

So what seems like a mostly normal NY odd people dinner, right? Nope. He then tells us a story about a guy who lives down the street. This guy (Mr. Smith; no relation) is not a member. He was asking our Elderly member about Moroni. He then is taken to go see former Mission President and Book of Mormon scholar, Jack R. Christianson at the mission office. They talk. Mr. Smith asks the one question he was told not to ask about the Book of Mormon, "Where are all the cities?"  Pres. Christianson said, "You're sitting in Zarahemla!"

So nothing too crazy, right? Wrong. I mean tons of people believe that the Book of Mormon took place in NY. Tons of research backs it up. Equal to the theory of the Mayans being the Nephites and Lamanites. Well it gets weirder. He continues to tell us that while hunting, Mr. Smith has found an unusual area of rocks. He moved them around to find flat slabs of rock. Being not on his legal property, he moved away from the rocks. They are currently in the process of getting legal permission to start digging. They believe they have found where the plates were buried. He implied the Gold Plates but might also be referring to the other records.

Crazy, aye? Well, if they have found it. And when God wants it to happen, they get access to them... I'll be able to say I knew the guy who found them ha!

Yesterday a guy was bearing his testimony. He said he has been blessed with two great wives that have really helped him to stay faithful and build good scripture reading habits. At the end of the testimony meeting, the bishop went up and clarified that the older gentleman did not have those two wives at the same time. It was quite funny! Haha

Oh the ongoing search for investigators. We kind of have a new investigator. He is actually in the sister's area but he had a former teaching record with a background information that made the sisters' worried about teaching him. Plus they have like 6 progressing investigators plus sites so don't have much time anyway. So we are teaching him. He has potential. A long way to go. His name is Dale but he also said he recently paid to change his name to Denzel. So I'm not sure what to call him. Yes, he is Black. I love black people. They are so chill. It's great! Some solid diversity for the ward. He may have a slight schizophrenia (however you spell it). He's had a tough upbringing. But we'll bring him around.

Our Eternigators are still.... Eternigating (Missionary lingo is the best). Yep.

During dinner appointment, a 3 year old informed me that I should watch Disney's Frozen. We started to explain that we can only watch Church movies and not regular TV. She thought about it a second. Then told us we could borrow her Frozen DVD and take it to the church to watch it. That would make it a church movie. I thought this was a clever loophole to the rules. I might just have to bring it up to President.

We got in with a family that we might be able to help be solid fellowship for. The one girl, Carson just got back from BYU Idaho for the summer. She is active and all spunky in the gospel. Her family is a little on the borderline of activity. Hopefully we can get in through her to her younger brother who is 16 and could use a good influence. She invited us over for dinner so we've been able to build a friendship with her and her two Less Active Siblings.

Handmade authentic 1830 edition replica of the Book of Mormon

Peter Whitmer Farm

We had specialized training at the Peter Whitmer Farm this last Tuesday. You know. Just the place where a portion of the Book of Mormon was translated. Oh and Christ's church was officially reorganized. No big deal. Other than that, specialized training was quite boring. It was over the practical things such as cooking and exercising. Which really didn't go much deeper than the basics. They are worried about our health, I guess.

I had the cool opportunity to interview a guy for baptism. It was funny. He was all nervous because it was like an "interview." Even though I told him not to worry and I was just making sure the sisters taught him everything. He is a solid guy and was so excited to be baptized. He kept saying "Yes, Elder Christensen." In the "Yes, sir." Kind of tone. It was funny.

We ran into a nice bible bashing preacher while tracting. He kept yelling at us and calling us to repentance as we walked away to get in the car and drive off. He brought up the usual Revelations curse about adding to or removing from will curse you and condemned the Book of Mormon. Which is a funny attempt. Tracting is weird in this area because we have to drive from house to house because they are too far away to waste our time walking from house to house. Makes for some awkward approaches. Ha!

Elder Brindley's back has been acting up since doing service on Friday. So he has been a gimp. Today we have to have him do nothing and just ice it. President's orders. He has had back problems with slipped disks and stuff. He keeps getting pinched nerves. So he is all drugged up.

Saturday was Honey and Craige's baptism. It was pretty cool. Honey (larger women) was baptized by Adam. He did it all on the first try and it went well. Craige was baptized by Andrew who is a returning Less Active Member and is working on a mission. He had to dunk Craige 3 times because his arm kept popping out. I was asked by both of them to confirm them both on Sunday. It was pretty cool and nerve racking. I just kept them both short and simple because it was two back to back. They were both taught by Sister Tran and Flores.

We helped eternal investigators pick numbers for their lotto ticket. We went to drop in on them and they were filling out tickets. So they asked us what numbers first popped into our heads. Hahaha! Don't worry though. We taught them about how gambling is bad and can be addicting.

We've been having a little bit of a struggle with some of the ward members. They are used to the previous missionaries who would "fog" (just hang out all the time). We are trying to be productive. There is one member who is fully active and working on going to the temple to be Endowed but used to be a Less Active Member. The missionaries would just hang out all the time with him. Now he is all bummed that we aren't really coming over to visit him but he is a completely fully active member.

I have to say. It's pretty cool to be reading about church history or reading in Doctrine and Covenants and seeing that it takes place in the very cities you're in. "Among the earliest missionaries to use the newly printed volume was Samuel Smith. In April 1830, he visited the Tomlinson Inn in the township of Mendon, New York. There he sold a copy of the book to a young man named Phinehas Young, brother of Brigham Young. In June he retraced his steps, this time placing a copy of the Book of Mormon in the home of John P. Greene at Bloomfield, New York." (Chapter Two: Establishing the Foundations of the Church; Our Heritage) Bloomfield, New York! That's totally my area. Boom.