November 16th
The mission had a special conference called “Time out of Elders” on their P-day, which was a great experience for Elder Tarbet and he really enjoyed it; however, it took his P-day, so our emails were very short with basically the phrase, “I’m fine…I’m busy…talk to you next week."
November 23rd
I really enjoyed the Mission Conference. President Ulrich spoke about our health, both physical and spiritual, and had a question and answer session. The best part was that I was able to spend some time and talk with Sister Ulrich. She is great and easy to talk to and is genuinely concerned and loves the missionaries. The next two days after the conference, I had exchanges with Elder Jolley (from Viewmont) who is the Zions Leader, and it was the best! It was so much fun! We just had a great time, he is so natural, which is great. He has found that balance between having fun and working hard, which I have been striving to find. I have had companions on each end of the pendulum, and I haven’t been able to find the middle. I have learned that I need to find that balance and Elder Jolley has got it figured out. While I was with him, we went and saw Sarah (Sister Collard—a member who we are trying to help come back to Church), and had a great time talking to her on the door step while Hurricane Barney knocked us back and forth and totally drenched us. I was so stinking wet. When we walked home (the trains were down because of the wind), it stopped raining and was just blowing like crazy, it actually worked like a giant hand dryer and dried us all out. It felt similar to the wind storm we had back home a few years ago, but not quite as bad because we could still walk. The next morning, we had the brilliant idea to go to the beach, the windiest part of the area. It was good fun. We actually talked to a couple, but they couldn’t really hear us over the wind. At one point Elder Jolley pointed his umbrella straight into the wind to block the blowing water and he couldn’t open it, the wind was too strong to even push it open. It was super fun.
I truly love this area and the people that we are working with. I have come to love most of the people that we are teaching—Davis is just fantastic and he is so sincere. He has such a great desire to learn and to improve himself and to help others. He is someone who you just know you can trust.
November 30th
Well, my first Thanksgiving in the mission field. We had two Thanksgiving dinners that were nice. I loved the one at the Stanley’s because she is an American so it was a proper turkey and stuffing and everything and it was so good. The mission dinner was okay, a catered turkey dinner. Dave is really doing well. He has recommitted himself to getting his life on track. He feels like he’s in a rut and can’t get out. He is going to try the addiction recovery program to just have a chance to talk out his issues with someone and I think he will be able to help others. We have been teaching Grace, who is the Bishop’s granddaughter. The hard part is that Elder Dimartino got a bit off subject, and ended up teaching about Kolob and other deep topics. I can’t help him much when he gets into those. We met a new person, Maria, who is a Slovakian. She is too new to have much info about right now, but she looks promising. We had a really solid lesson with her, again, until Elder Dimartino started into the mysteries.
December 7th
I can’t believe that I will be out 6 months this next week. I went on exchanges with Elder Cain one day this week. He is super relaxed and very English. He has the proper Queen's English and the sense of humor to match, haha. We have been working with Maria, who is Slovakian and is super good. She has a little 18 month old who is crazy! Maria is 21 and has a great desire to find God. She was raised by her Lutheran missionary parents, but was never baptized or had any desire then. We have continued to work with Dave. He is doing well. He has a great love of questions. We have decided that he doesn’t necessarily want the answers, he just wants to know that we have them…hahah. A lot of them he can’t understand because he is asking about the roof of the house before even having moved a shovelful for the foundation. The young men from the ward fixed us dinner one night this week. It was nice of them, and fun. On Sunday, I found out that I’m being transferred to South Port. My companion is from Sweden and goes home at the end of the transfer. I am very excited. South Port is a very posh area, with many older people. Not sure how much teaching will happen, but I’m excited either way. I’m sad that I will be leaving Maria and Dave. I have grown to love them, as well as several members of the ward here, and will certainly miss them.
