Transfer Week....On to Annandale!

Hello!

Well...sounds like you guys have had a hectic week. 

Well it is true, I got transferred. But not only that, we both got transferred. Yup sure enough we were both replaced, and by sisters no less. Sisters are great and all, but it still is very agitating. Annandale isn't that far away from where I was. Probably a 10 minute drive. Yesterday we were able to go down to the Alexandria sacrament meeting so I could participate in the confirmation on Malakai. When we walked in a lot of the ward was very surprised to see me. Luckily it was a good surprise. A bunch of them came up and asked if I was still in the ward. The sister missionaries gave me some dirty looks, not quite sure why. I think it must be some territorial thing. Haha I don't know. But I was happy that I was able to do that.

I woke up one day this week and tried to use my ipad, but it wasn't on. I tried to turn it on, but the apple symbol would appear for 1 second then disappear. Well lets just say I am having really bad luck with ipads lately. I didn't do anything to this one, but it is definitely a software issue. So I am currently going old school again, until this whole thing gets figured out. Not very happy with apple products lately.

No plans yet for the fourth. I guess we will see what happens there. Have fun at girls camp. Sounds like it will be loads of fun.

Gotta go! Love you!

Malaki's Baptism Pictures

Baptism Preparations.......

Good afternoon! 

I know this is a late letter, but we have had an interesting day and it was most convenient to wait till now. So last week was busy with preparing for Malakai's baptism. We were able to teach him Tuesday, Friday, and yesterday. We also had his baptismal interview on Friday after we finished teaching him all of the lessons. He passed that and we are set for this evening. On Sunday while we were in church talking to him he had already picked out all of the speakers as well as the music and prayers. This guy is on the ball with everything. It makes me sad that he has a job that's out of our ward and even out of our mission. Once they find an apartment then they will have their records transferred there. 

We were also really busy helping a guy in the ward Ric Talley. We helped him move a bunch of nights this week. We are moving a bunch of art from his current home, to the one he is moving into a few blocks away. Most of it is glass art so it makes in really fragile. It makes me nervous to handle some of it because I know how much it costs. 

Saturday we helped him move most of the day. We finally finished around 6:30, then went to red lobster. Mmmmm....shrimp. I was content that day. On the way there was a massive rainstorm that was just dumping. There were tornado warnings that night as well. We were standing outside of the restaurant looking up at the sky and we saw just swirling clouds. There could have very easily been a tornado. After dinner we went to Bestbuy to help him look at something for his house. While there the power was knocked out. So we left there and went back to our place and the power was out there so we decided to go to bed at 9:30. Really nice to be tired enough to fall asleep that early. While laying in bed the power came back on but it wasn't worth staying up. 

This happened last week, but I don't think I ever told you guys. We were on our way to pick up something for our apartment from the store, and we were traveling on bike. About 2 miles from home my bike tube decides to get a massive hole. I ended up carrying my bike on my back for 2 miles. The humidity combined with that, it wasn't good. 

It was a busy week. This upcoming week is going to be about the same. We have transfers on Thursday. We think elder cook will leave, but there is also the possibility that I will leave. We find out for sure tomorrow night. Our mission president officially leaves on the 30th. Not the first time that I have golfed. I have hit up a driving range in my last area, and I have been putting for the last 6 months. My last area had 3 putters so I stole one from there. I didn't need to go buy one to hone in my skills.

.........(2 hours later) 

Got super distracted with all of our baptism preparation. They showed up then everybody showed up. Programs, font, jumpsuits, letters, setting up chairs. Anyways....WOW. It makes me mad when I get emotional in meetings, but this one was making me teary eyed. Everything went smoothly. I'll send pictures. 

Love you guys!

New Investigator last week....Baptism next week!

Good Morning!

We have had one of the more interesting weeks of my mission. We
definitely had a miracle occur which has been in the works for over a
year. I may have already told you a little about him , but I'll tell
you again.

We have had a guy named Malakai come to church for the last 3 weeks.
He is married to a recent convert named Lucy who has been a member as
of about a year. He had been meeting with missionaries for about a
year down in Texas where she was baptized. They recently moved up here
to look for work, and are staying in a hotel outside the ward
boundaries since the ones close to us are so expensive. We had to call
our mission president to ask him if we could baptize him since he
doesn't have a permanent address and they don't know where they are
going to end up. He gave us the go ahead so we started to teach him.

We had our first lesson on Thursday. We were able to talk to him and
just see where he is at and gauge what he wanted to do. We asked if he
wanted to set a baptism date or pray about one. He said he wanted to
pick one, so we were all for that. I handed him my calendar and he
chose the 22nd.....next Monday. So we were really surprised. We
informed him that we would have to meet a minimum of 4 times and have
an interview and a range of other things and he was completely for
that. We met with him yesterday at church. We hijacked 2nd and 3rd
hour and taught him the restoration as well as the commandments. The
only reason we taught him the commandments first is so that he can
have ample time to commit to live those and overcome anything that
might be a struggle.

So in a nutshell we got a new investigator last week who is getting
baptized next week. That is unheard of. Almost seems to easy. We have
another meeting with him Tuesday as well as Friday.

That was the extent of our week. We have a couple other lessons
scheduled for this upcoming week. We have a list of names from the
ward list that we are checking on so that keeps us busy. We are going
to help someone in the ward move this week. We are planning on helping
3 nights this week. That will keep us really busy.

Something fun we did this week was get our picture drawn down by the
river. There is a guy who does them for free and we have always wanted
one but every time we pass he is busy.


I think we look good.

Anyways, that's all for us. Thanks again for the pizza! I hope you got
the pictures!

Love you!

Meeting Malachi

Hey!

Yup we got the cake last night! I had met her once before when we had a tour of the Pentagon. She works there and I was able to meet her there.

Sounds like you guys have been pretty busy lately. I wish we could say the same for us. We have just been trying to think of things to do to keep us busy. We were able to deliver a copy of the Book of Mormon, and a Bible to a lady that we talked to a couple Saturdays ago. We have a lesson set up with her this upcoming Thursday so hopefully that will turn into something good.

We do have some other lessons set up as of right now. On Tuesday we have Jamie and Prasad that we are meeting with. They have been the hardest to contact recently because he always travels up to Pittsburg. It has made it really hard to get anywhere with them. We also have a lesson on Thursday evening at 5 with a guy named Malachi.

Malachi is married to a recent convert as of about a year. They were recently married just this last week. She is actually the daughter of a ward missionary here in the ward. He has attended church a bunch of times both when they were down in Texas as well as here. Yesterday we had his father in law who is the member come up to us and tell us that he wants to take the lessons. So we are going to go in on Tuesday and hit it hard and see how far we can get with this guy. We have seen him speak in classes as well as he got up in fast and testimony meeting. Those are always interesting to listen to. You never know where it will end up.

I will check the mail today. We do have a dinner tonight with an awesome member who cooks us 7 course meals. I have a good dinner planned out. WE will have to take some pictures. So currently we have elder Wilson and Elder Koloti over. Myself and elder Wilson were companions about 10 months ago when I was still in the Belmont ridge ward. We ended up staying up all night long! probably not the best idea, but oh well. We played basketball at 7 am and then had some Mcdonalds.

We do have a few people coming out of the wood work so we are happy about that. Hopefully we can help them progress to the next level.

Thank you guys so much for the birthday wishes. It means a lot. I cant believe spencer gets home in 2 weeks. That just means that I am right behind.

Thanks for everything!

I love you!!!

Feeding the less fortunate

Good Morning!!!

I love that!!! That is so awesome that the stake has realized that need within Roosevelt and decided to have a sacrament service in the evening. I wish that idea was church wide. Probably the greatest idea I have heard in a while. I like Bishop Hales, well President Hales now. He is an awesome guy. Its interesting to see the way the Holy Ghost works. Just a simple prompting to go to the Saturday evening session after a huge day of work, and look at what we can get out of it. It seems like I have that attitude going into a lot of meetings but it always seems to change my mind after the fact.

So this week has been eventful to say the least. So I will probably end up having to pay 350 dollars coming up soon to the mission office.

I'll give you a little back story as to why that is. So Thursday rolls around and we have nothing to do. So we are in our apartment at dinner time trying to think of something and I noticed that is started raining outside. We called Cornelius to see if we could meet up and talk with him since we couldn't think of anything else. He told us he was at 7-11 which is just a 5 minute walk from our place. So I grab my stuff and put it in plastic bags to keep water out.

We go talk to him for about an hour and we were in the rain for the duration of that. We went back to the apartment and grabbed a bowl that we were going to go return to our relief society president. After we get back out were on our way there and we start talking to a guy named Tyrone. he was probably mid 20's and we talked to him for 45 minutes. I opened my backpack to get him a copy of the book of Mormon, and I pulled out the first one and it was completely soaked. I opened my other bag and it was okay so I gave that to him.

After we stopped talking with him I had that oh crap moment run through my head about checking on my ipad. And sure enough there was water in the bag. Now I had the hope that since there wasn't a whole lot of water that it would be alright. I went straight home and put it in rice. Well lone and behold.....no success.

So I FRIED MY IPAD!!!!!   Not happy. The office elders are contacting salt lake to see if they can do anything for me. But there is a high possibility that I will have to pay. If I do I want you guys to just transfer some from my America first account. It was my stupid mistake and I don't want you guys to pay for it.

That's my ipad story. I'll keep you updated.

On Saturday we had an awesome experience. There is a group here in Alexandria that helps feed people who are less fortunate. We arrived at 8:30 and ended up staying till about 11. First we had an assemble line going and we filled paper bags with food. Then we went outside and filled plastic bags with vegetables. Our favorite part was when we went into the 2 buildings and delivered them to some people who couldn't leave their apartment to get it. It was awesome to talk to the people that we delivered to. They are super awesome to talk to.

We do have a few things coming up this week. Some missionaries that are my buddies are coming up next Monday for my birthday. We are going to try to find something fun to do.

Good to hear from you guys. I always enjoy your letters.

Ill contact you later in the week to let you know what happens.

Love You!!!!