Quick Tree Removal Service

Tuesday was intense. We had a lady call us and ask for us to go to her daughter's home and take down a wall. A whole wall. We get there and it was actually a whole lot less of a issue then I was thinking. The wall already had most of the dry wall off of it and everything. We just had to finish taking the dry wall off and hammer everything down. The frustrating part was that they had like no tools. Just a few hammers. And she was just all "I don't know. Figure it out." And she wanted us to salvage as much wood as possible. And of course, since it's New York and Wellsville, she had a nasty/hoarder house. So it definitely wasn't clean. But oh well. We got the job done and relatively fast. Then later we had to help Ada move in. That was kind of a sad situation. She is taking care of a little girl named Dovy. Super cute. But has had a rough go. Ada is like 65 and Dovy is like 4. Dovy's parents were horrible and just welfare bums. Anyway, we helped Ada move in and that wasn't too hard. It was mainly us and Elder Miller doing the moving though so it took forever!

We are looking for a family. That's what the branch needs. They need a solid family that will be kingdom builders here in Wellsville. All the active families live in either Pennsylvania or not even in the Branch's boundaries. So ya... We are praying hard and going to tract areas that will have a family. We know that God has to have a family being prepared. That's what this part of the vineyard needs.

To give a little more understanding of the Wellsville Branch. I think we had about 35 people at church this Sunday. 6 of us were missionaries. There are 3 main families. And like 3 couples. Pretty much the whole branch lives outside of Wellsville. The Branch President lives in PA. As well as his first counselor. Missionaries used to be able to go down to his house but President said no... The last couple of Branch Presidents are excommunicated. (nuts, I know!). So... It's had a rough history around here. But God isn't giving up on Wellsville.

The trick is Wellsville and all of Allegany county is the poorest in the state (tons of welfare). Nice because everyone is home to meet with. Bad because many aren't self sufficient.

So here is the interesting story of the week. We are coming back from Aundey's. First real solid snow of the winter. Elder Glenn is driving. We are coming down a bend on the hill and the truck starts to slide. No real big deal but there is a car coming the opposite direction. So Elder Glenn over corrects to try and avoid the car at which point we start to slide off of the road. At this point I've looked up from the iPad that I was trying to do a lesson report on. Of course I flinch on the first couple of bumpy "wave like" parts of the ride. Then my eyes open again just in time to see a tree straight in front of me on the passenger side. We nail it. Luckily it uprooted and we won and bounced out of the ditch onto the side of the road. We are stopped. Just like "HOLY CRAP!" Take a second to get our senses back and start to drive off. Nope. Not happening. We realize that we have a flat tire. So we pull over to the side of the road maybe 80 yards past the now destroyed tree. I try to get out. Nope, my door will only open 1/4 of the way. So I slide out the back door. I come around my side to see that there is a dent next to the door that stops it from opening. Then I see that our tire is not really on the rim/axle anymore. It's looking pretty flat. I come around the front. Well... The bumper wasn't looking too pretty. The whole front right light isn't looking too pretty. It's pretty much all wrecked around that tire. Well, that limits our ability to get anywhere. So we call the Millers to come rescue us and call 411 to get the local police station and get a tow truck coming. Took forever for the officer to come. Then even longer for the tow truck. So we were chilling for a while. The officer was nice. He was just all "Well, welcome to NY!"

We were pretty safe. No real injuries. I got a little bit of a whiplash on my neck so that's been sore the last couple days. But no real big deal on that. We call and report it to the Mission President. There goes our nice Nissan Frontier. But that's okay! The church is rich. And we have the largest area in the mission. So less than 24 hours, we picked up a 2012 Chevy Colorado. Super sweet! We also have pretty much extremely flexible mile limits for the rest of the month. So we are going to be able to do a TON of work! It's great! God works in mysterious ways.

I'm driving now.

Then Friday night we had the awesome idea to go Shoot hoops at Alfred University. They have like an open gym going. We played some five on five and met a couple guys. Super chill kids. Hopefully we can get teaching them. We made some good connections and plan on going back soon. Plus it's super fun. I love black people. These kids are super open and asking questions about us being missionaries.

Aundey is driving us crazy. She like believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet. She believes that the Book of Mormon is true. She believes it all. She just is afraid to get baptized because what if she dates a guy that doesn't like Mormons OR that is just super firm in his religion? Aundey... Aundey... Aundey.... Plus she is still being a 15 year old in a 55 year old's body. She is down to 110 pounds. She is tiny.

Tanya is still being interesting. She has some mental handicaps. It's hard to tell where she really is at. She keeps inviting us back. We keep having lessons. She keeps saying that she is reading. She wants to be baptized. She is just afraid of water and wants her husband to tell her to do it. Well, he is a Less Active Member. He wants her to. He just wants her to make her own decision. It's interesting. Never a dull moment.

We've got a few potentials. Just trying to clean everything up and find that family!