19 Dec 2016

This week was bananas.......

Monday- Everything was pretty normal. We played some board games for p-day and chilled with the other missionaries; our lesson fell through because kids caught the flu. Usual stuff.

Tuesday- we went and saw a referral in the nursing home. One of the more awkward encounters I’ve had. She was almost completely deaf. Like I could yell and she still wouldn’t understand what we were saying. She was very nice though. We had a lesson with Shaylee, a less active who wants to be more involved with the church. She said she didn’t understand much about the gospel it turns out she only knows who Christ is and that he died for us she doesn’t even understand why.  So we are starting very basic. But she’s been coming to church and making a lot of progress!

Wednesday- There was a snow storm so we went around and shoveled a lot of sidewalks and that was most of our afternoon. Then we had to head down to Poce to get ready for zone conference on Thursday and this is where it gets crazy. There was a second snow storm. It was a lot worse than the first. So I drove up because the other elders are from Arizona, Arizona and Florida, so we felt it was best that I drove. We made it safe and sound then spent the night at the assistant’s house with the rest of the Soda Springs zone. Luckily everyone was safe on the way up.

Thursday- We had our Christmas Zone Conference. It was a lot of fun, except I would have preferred that we didn’t have an hour long explanation of why we have Tiwi (our car governors). The vehicle department came up from Salt Lake and inspected all the vehicles; this will tie into some weirdness later. So we went about Zone Conference had trainings by president and the assistants and Sister Hancock. Met with all the missionaries and talked about how old areas are going and such. It was an awesome time. Afterwards we went around Poce to pick up something we couldn’t get in Montpelier. Then, and going around town we never got over 35. When we started leaving town we noticed if we hit 35 that the truck started to shake. It started doing that yesterday but we thought it was just the storm. Then when we hit highway speeds the whole truck started to violently shake. So we turned around told the office we were staying a night to have the truck checked out and went in trios around where the assistants are. It was Elder Welling’s last day so we picked up his companion Elder Horn who will be with us for the next three weeks. But anyways that makes up most of today.

Friday- we took the car into the dealership and sat around for a few hours. They came back with some results and it turns out that bolts were missing from the truck.... I don’t know how we had a mission wide vehicle inspection (they even drove them around) and they approved our truck. But I’m also thankful that we were safe. Nothing was holding in the transmission and the truck could have fallen apart, but the Lord kept us safe. So we picked up a new Toyota Tacoma and I mean new it had 18 miles on it. I will never get to drive a vehicle this new ever again. So we get that until our truck is fixed. We made it back to Cokeville safe and sound. Another prayer answered. There was supposed to be a snow storm worse than the night before, and it was there for a while but it cleared up and we headed off and we had no snow on us the whole way down.  We could see it snowing all around. We got back into Cokeville in time for a baptismal interview that Elder Welling and Horn set up. So that was perfect.

Saturday- we spent most of the morning preparing Howy's baptism and then had the service. He's an awesome kid in kind of a rough situation with his family, but he is a really good kid. We met with a couple of families in Cokeville that night; one of the families seems really promising. They got really excited at the mention of eternal families and they want the gospel but a couple of things are just keeping them back right now.

Sunday- we had Howy's confirmation and that was really good! Then we headed back up to Montpelier for the rest of the day. Saw the Ruuds shortly. Had dinner out in Dingle and got to meet Justin and Trinity (a referral) and they were very nice and there is some potential there but we will have to be a gentle nudge. Then we saw Barbara and Blaine and they are doing really well! We shared the Christmas initiative the church put out and it was a really good day.

This week has been a little insane and it’s also pretty crazy having two companions but I love it and things are going really well right now! I hope things are going good for you guys back home or wherever you are!

Love all of you guys.