Sunday, September 28, 2014

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So I guess the main way I can describe this is that we were totally caught off guard this past Friday when we received our transfer calls and I'll give the back story to help y'all out. So the Harrington Elders have been having a really hard struggle with each and have been together for two transfers thus far. And during interviews they were told that they would more than likely be separated do to their struggles ya know. Our area has grown a lot and from what we could tell is that there was the chance that Elder Ballif would be transferred since he has already been here for three. Well Friday night comes along and what do ya know. Harrington is staying together for a third and both Elder Ballif and myself are being doubled out of this are :(! It makes no sense! But that's how mission life goes. So we will see if this area receives sisters, two sets of Elders, just the usual, or if it is left to sit just for a short time like a transfer to see if that will shock the branch into doing better missionary and convert retention work ya know? So that's probably the big headliner at the time So I'll continue with all of the events that we had this past week. Monday evening we had a dinner with the Eldredges and Bro Eldredges coworker Matt who is really cool. He was just there to spend the night since he lives on the complete other side of Maryland so we didn't do anything pushy and just got to know him which was nice. I am pretty angry though since we were unable to get a picture with this super cute family before we left >.<. Elder Ballif really hates pictures I think :P. So on Tuesday we went and saw Scott,like we usually do and it was a good lesson. We mostly just read from the Book of Mormon to help emphasize our past lesson with him on the importance of scripture study. At the time he had gone two days without a regular cigarette which was awesome and the milligrams of Nicotine in his vapor smoker and gone from 24 to 18 which is really good :D. He will totally get baptized once he's married ya know? He's pushing for it so I hope to see his picture pop up on face book in the near future with him in a white jump suit if ya know what I mean ;). Later that night we went out with Brother Dayton like we usually do and had a really successful night. We ran into three less actives. Brother Beasly who is a super nice guy but his wife doesn't like the church so he has a hard time making it out due to that factor. We also saw Sister Gonzales who is a working machine at the moment do to her daughter being a leach (excuse my expression). We talked with her a little bit and she's just about hit that point of kicking her daughter out so ya... That's about all I got there :3. We then saw an older couple called the Fosters later that evening. Really good couple but since he had a stroke last year they really haven't been coming out. They still could though they just need to get to bed at a reasonable bed time :3. Elder Ballif brought out his amazing Family History skills that night though and we were able to get them started on that. We've seen a lot of success come from that so I guess I should get down to learning that stuff better... Somehow. It's funny that we offer it like its a common thing but we've never received any training of the sorts to be able to effectively offer it unless you yourself take the time to go through the videos to learn exactly what you are doing. Wednesday I had an exchange with Elder Leavitt in our area which was a bit strange being with my past companion haha. So it was a good exchange but I have mixed feelings about it which I'll tell you about in just a moment. We did have some crazy cool stuff happen to us though. We were walking home on from the library within the center of Easton when this lady that's walking our direction about fifty feet ahead does this power stance and yells "Are you guys Mormons?!" Haha this lady had to be in her mid fifties and had a bit of an interesting look but she was so excited to see us. I guess that she had had some problems with the Catholic faith so she investigated Mormons, then she went to Jdubs which she had mixed feelings about and then just decided that she was going to be Catholic but she had loved her Mormon experiences lol. So maybe somewhere down the road she'll come along ;). Not more than thirty seconds after this though we had another call out for if we were the Mormons and it ended up being Brother Brezeel who has been less active since I got here due to trying to restart his career. He wanted to talk with us so he pulled us into a back door café bought us a drink and then just asked some simple questions about the temple as well as missionary work. Really good guy but he is very interesting in looks and speech. We asked him if he knew of anyone that we could talk with to which he does this funny thing where he turns his head to the side and to the sky with his hand underneath his chin all the while squinting his eyes. He told us there wasn't any he could think of at the moment but that if we talked around we would find someone ;). He does introduce us to everyone he meets though so he's good there. Well we got home and talked some more before it was time to get going again. We were driving when Elder Leavitt was like lets go see Gary to which I said sorry Gary wants us to let him call before we go and see him since he's so busy. We got in an argument here since Elder Leavitt felt that he knew what was going on more than me. Sorry but at this point and time it really bugged me. I let in and we drove by his house when we saw him out in his car talking on the phone to which I finally put my foot down and said no he's busy. So we did this awkward back up and drove past him again. I waved to him and he waved back. That is about the time that things got ruff on this exchange. We had dinner with Jay and Martina which went well. I'm really going to miss Jay. Such a dry Mormon haha. He gave us an entire Watermelon which unfortunately won't be finished any time soon here before we leave. We then had our lesson with the Mellor family and boy was it crazy in there. Kids flying this way and that with their Pointer running in and then out as well. Goodness we started the lesson pretty late due to that and our member present showing up a bit late but over all it went well. With so much commotion though I forgot to set a baptismal date and the lesson went 20 minutes over an hour... Que the Leavitt. So that's how the exchange went besides Thursday morning when we had a talk about standards. I just wasn't over all enthralled by this exchange :/. So moving on to more positive things. We went out with Brother Dayton again which was good. We saw Paul who is doing well and really needed a visit from another Branch Member. We just talked about the temple and how he had liked the little pamphlet that we had given him. Such a nice guy. He did share a story with us that is to funny not to share. He's been working on his family history and was looking at his family's old bible to which his mother had done a very good job with. I guess that Paul's father wasn't exactly the most faithful husband and his mom was a very enduring wife. So I guess one day a car pulled up with a woman in it and asked for Pauls dad at the time. Paul was six just to let you know. And when his mom heard about this she told her daughter to tell that Jezebel to get out of here haha. Well Pauls mom was very good with reading scriptures with her kids so Paul knew the story and was like I thought she was dead. He couldn't miss this opportunity to go and see Jezebel in the flesh haha. So he went and picked some flowers and went up to the car to which the lady with red hair and smoking cigarettes rolled down the window smiling when he said "Hi Jezebel how are you doing? Don't worry the dogs are in the Kennel so you'll be fine!" We were all laughing in there hahaha. I guess the woman drove off after that and it took months for Pauls Grandmother to convince him that it wasn't Jezebel :). I'm going to miss that man but I'm going to try and keep in contact with him. We saw Selena Bolden later that night and delivered her family history stuff which about concludes that. And that about sums up the rest of the week since we mainly planned and then cleaned once we found out that we were being doubled out so I guess we shall see what ends up happening here very shortly.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Well I have walked five hundred miles..., Dry Mormons, Birds and the Bee's #..

Well well well, that has most certainly gots to be my longest title for an email, ain't it ;)? But all in good taste, it was worth it and I can't wait to let y'all know about it. So lets get this motor boat going shall we? So we met with Scott twice this past week which was really a treat that we were able to do so since the second time we went and saw him though, it was planned, he had forgotten and had caught him just a few minutes before he was going to leave. We talked with him about the importance of church attendance, the sacrament, and the importance of scripture study. The latter we did on Saturday with him. It was really cool since he is so willing to learn and Elder Ballif and myself do believe he knows that it is true, he just doesn't understand what the spirit fully feels like and is still looking for that lightning bolt to come from the sky with God parting the clouds saying Believe!!!! (put a trill on that and you will have his exact humorous words lol). We had Brother Eldredge with us for the second time too and I must say that he has to be one of the best member presents that I've had on the mission. We were talking about faith a little bit towards the end of our discussion on scripture study to which he related it to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade haha. Talked about taking that leap of faith onto the invisible bridge ya know ;). Overall at this time, he is doing well, so events to be described as they pend. Late Tuesday night we were out with Brother Dayton our Ward Mission Leader like we usually are on Tuesday but we were able to have a really good lesson with Brother Baldwin, who has to be one of my favorite guys I've ever met. Laughs at pretty much everything and is the most happy go lucky man I have ever met. However, in this lesson I kinda got drowned out by both Ballif and Bro. Dayton haha. We got into family history with him which got him super excited and he really wants to do more. We were actually able to find the name of his grandmother to which he had never known so guess what. Spirit of Elijah be real. One of these days it'll get me too :3 but we shall see ;). So Wednesday was very interesting. We had a lesson with a less active by the name of Ed, who I may have mentioned two weeks ago. He used to be a green beret (hope I spelled that right) but now he's a bit older with a lot of health problems which he has to take certain meds for. Now we don't go and see Ed after five in the afternoon since that's when he takes his meds and is probably the most incoherent man you'll ever talk to at that time. Well... Seems he took em' a bit early this fine Wednesday afternoon cause he said a nine minute long prayer and talked to us the whole time about how the world needed to be united under one government and though it wouldn't be in his time it might be in ours lol. Got super emotional and kept loading our bowls with Eastern Shore Chili (really good stuff but after the second bowl your a bit stuffed and he keeps it coming haha). We barely managed to get a lesson in with him before we had to get running onto our next meal appointment with the Eldredges 0.o. That night was quite awkward. Much awkward silence, as a silent heat battle went between Sister Eldredge and Bro Eldredge. Cause, we don't know. We just know that the kids were kinda the only ones we talked with, since things seemed to be a bit tense at that point in time :S. It was a crazy night. Now funny story about that Thursday call ya received... Oh dear lol. So we had been planning when we had to go to dinner with Jay and his wife Martina. I had made Jay rolls which he thoroughly enjoyed, asked me for another order yesterday, hehe. Well he sold a banjo two weeks ago and I was asking him if he knew of any place locally that I might be able to get one. He said that he would put a note online within the coming days to see what he could find and he would let me know. Great I got a week to talk to you about it and see if your ok with that... Three literal hours later "I FOUND ONE!" So he gave you a call and you'll have to tell me what ya think of him but I do love Jay. Driest Mormon ever though its ridiculous. He comes to our church. Participates in our church. Heck even yesterday a member was like yo Jay when you getting baptized and he just played around with it haha. Such a good man, but we think he's stuck on what his Baptist professor told him back in the seventies cause we had a bit of a talk on the Plan of Salvation, which he thought we believed differently :P. Guess we shall see if my rolls can bring him over the rim shall we ;)? The Banjo is Gorgeous and I have a few pics that I'll send ya today. Now I just need to figure out where to get some banjo picks and a how to play book so I can tune her up, lol. Very nice though. Later that night we tried to go and see the ex member we work with Neal which leads us into another one of our interesting title phrases today... So his Indian roommate who speaks no English invites us in and says shower. Neals in there so we just take a seat and he leaves to continue a phone call he was working on. TV playing and a certain ad comes on for a certain hot line.... and then another one.... Ya I don't know if y'all have given Emree the talk which is why I stay sparse but Elder Ballif and myself just kinda awkwardly and silently leave lol. So next time we see him we shall see if he even knows we dropped by cause it was extremely awkward :P. Friday and Saturday were crazy... We walked fricken every where to save on miles and after we were done each day we added how far we went by the map. About twelve miles a day so I guess by white handbook standards we are just one mile off from being fully prepped missionaries :P. Not to much happened in this time frame besides walking and looking for potentials though so not to much to report. Saturday afternoon though we did have interviews which I always enjoy. Had some very good talks with President and his wife and I was very happy to find out that though they strongly recommend I get it, I am not required to get a flu shot hahahahahaha. Not I said the dog :3. But I did have a good chat with President and I received some really cool complements from him. I was also told that I have a lot of self confidence (which I slightly doubt, but yet that's not very confident is it, lol) compared to when I got off of the plane that cold January day :P (this I very much believe). I got an idea though that this possibly might be my only transfer with Ballif which I really hope its not since I'm quite fond of him and I really hate one and dones :P. So this time next week I guess we shall see whats up... So last but not least yesterday we had a lesson with Kiombre and Sister Lee. She is totally coming back and we were able to have a very good lesson with them. We were also able to set Kiombre with a baptismal date for the 26 of October so we will be in full swing working with him over the next couple of weeks. He has to be one of my favorites because he's Emree's age and he asks and answers with deep thoughts, which are a bit boggling that he does so, for such an age 0.o. Welp that is the preceding's of my week thus far as we have now started a new one. Be Eight and a half months out now which almost blew President Anderson's mind, hahaha.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Lost and Found, Many Travels, The Mighty Return to Seaford, She's coming to C

So I may or may not have already told you this, so sorry for the repeat, but here it goes anyways :P. So I might have told ya that we recently received a phone call about how terrible we were for going more miles than President or the AP's last month, which we resolved with reason and rhyme though the other side of the phone was heated at the beginning. We got an extra hundred miles which helps a bit, not to much, but at least we got the help, but since we are still short Ballif and myself have been creating days where we only walk around up here in Easton :D. Very pretty place, however while in this companionship I won't have as many pictures to show for it :P. So thus we have a car/walking area that is keeping this missionary nice and lean which he was very happy to find out when he went to Seaford on Thursday but I'll talk to you more about that a little later. So on Tuesday we saw Scott again and he had been totally sick the whole weekend and was wondering why we had shown up a day early... He thought it was Monday that silly man. We had woken him up too, so he was groggy during the lesson, but we still had a good discussion with him on the Holy Ghost. Just trying to figure out how we are going to help him to have or rather notice the spiritual experiences that he has had. Also though he did have about three cigarettes, the E Cigarette is working out quite nicely for him and if true he should be on a slightly lower power level of Nicotine. We shall Liberate this Man! We also went out with Brother Dayton later on that night which ended up being really good. We went to Federalsburg to go clean up some names and on the cleanup list we found some people who weren't even on our list that Bro. Dayton knows really well! Coincidence anyone? Not I said the Dog... We also met a part member family where Shes a member who's less active, who's husband isn't but loves us (just went to Moab for vacation too ;) ) and who's son isn't baptized just like Kiambre... Ya got all that? Hope so ;). Really nice lady who said she wants her son to be baptized and we are hoping that we can just go a bit further than that, to have her husband as well with her reactivated. They also just live up the block from us so they can't really get away from us either. Wednesday was a bounce around the area day if ya know what I mean. Everything kinda just cancelled so we just did our best through it all to find people. We met with a woman by the name of Doris who is a bit interesting. Nice lady who's Mom grew her up on TV preachers, which is one that ya don't hear everyday. Thinks that all Religions have some truth (tis true) and is unsure if any have all the truth so she listens to them all if they talk about Christ. Nice lady, we are a bit afraid that one of the guys living in her house though is going to anti her hard, guess Ballif heard some things I didn't as we exited that house. We had dinner with the Eldridges later on too. They have to be one of my favorite families here. There one kid is a total miniature teenager who is only six or seven lol. Looks like Sheldon a little bit from the big bang theory. And his younger brother Kai has this funny way of talking to you. Always starts of with "Excuse me'h, Excuse me'h, did you know Joana was swallowed by ah whale?" In the little squeeky voice he has. That kid has created a Meme between Ballif and myself :3. So on Thursday I made my return to SEAFORD! Just for the day but it was awesome. Mowed Bro. Barons lawn, saw sister Williams who is doing better and will be having hip surgery finally on the 25th. Poor thing has been waiting like five to seven years for it... And then that evening we went and saw the Clantons, who I taught on my last Sunday in Seaford. They are awesome and Mr. Clanton will be baptized on the 28th, if I am correct. We also saw Mr. Darling who is doing well. I miss that old man a lot and was very happy to see him. Will be moved down into Cory's mission on the third week of October, so I'll be sending a referral to them here shortly. Got my picture with him to finally! I was with Elder Morgan during that time, who is Leavitt's new companion. Good guy but very overpowering in lessons and I can see through a few things why the two are having a few struggles here and there with each other. Now I kid you not this was probably the first exchange I had where I wasn't asked any questions by the other guy. So in terms of knowledge being power I believe I have the upper hand here :P. Friday, for whatever reason, Leavitt decided to give Ballif a tracting commitment XP. Nasty but we went and did it any way. We got one potential and met a guy by the name of Mr. C who was funny. In the end of our conversation with him, Ballif and I came up with two different conclusions. Me: What a nice guy Ballif: What an Atheist. So we combined the two and called it What a Nice Atheist. Ya looking back I see more of the things he said, but he wasn't rude, but rather funny about it unlike most folk who randomly stop ya :P. Saturday, we had a Mission tour were a member of the Seventy came and met all the missionaries and we listened to him. Elder Andersen.... So many Andersen related names I just might go bonkers :P. It was good though and I liked what he had to say. Been a lot of talk about our purposes lately which I need to work on for our upcoming interview with Pres. this week. Been having some struggles defining that bugger :/. Rained a lot that day to which was really pretty... But Ballif for whatever reason made us wear Sweaters Yuck! I roasted like none other :P and got all sopping wet but I guess ya don't wanna hear more on the average missionary complaints. . Now yesterday was definitely the Highlight of the week. We saw Sister Lee, though unfortunately Kiambre wan't there, we had a really good time with. Said that she had thought about a few things and had found that they really weren't keeping her from church so she said shes coming back!!!! Some buddy press the "That was easy" button for me will ya? It was really good and we are excited to see her come back! We also had a lesson with Brother Baldwin who is a funny guy. Always laughing at everything he says or you say, which makes him one of my favorite people :). It was a bit of a ruff lesson and it felt a bit forced :P. Ballif and I are trying to work on me being more comfortable and less stressed in everything so that things go smoother. All the while we were talking about confidence a bird just goes and craps on him XD. Ya God does have a sense of humor ;3.

Monday, September 8, 2014

September Zone Conference

Ugly Bread, Vape Cigg, Match Maker Trouble, Heat Exhaustion

So this week went super fast. Like that Tuesday really wacked out my time scale, cause this past week just came and went right on along at eighty miles per hour which is breaking the speed limit since I am pretty sure that if an east coast driver saw our seventy five miles as the limit out west would break out in a heart attack. Ya we only have fifties out here and the occasional fifty five :P. Bleck. Anyways so that P-Day Elder Ballif and myself got pretty bored with what we should do since there isn't much we can do out here and with what our mile situation is so we have come to a new activity of writing stories and critiquing the other. Thus far its been pretty fun! Gets us doing something other than just keeping to ourselves on P-Days :P. I also made the ugliest bread alive on Tuesday. Like its mother would need to put a paper bag over its head at night to kiss it without looking at it. It tasted good though but this time I'm going to give myself a little more time to finish it since I had to wait three hours to put it into the oven since we were a bit short on time. I think that was the reason it was so heavy a mutilated. That evening we went out with our Ward Mission Leader Brother Dayton who is the heart and soul of this branch and really is one of the few individuals who wants to see it grow. Really awesome man and we had a pretty good night together. We went and visited a less active lady Sister Bolden who is about a 65 year old woman who is pretty dang funny. This lesson was a bit strange do to seating arrangement and the history that Bro Dayton and her have. They just chatted up a storm like none other while Ballif and myself just kinda sat on the outskirts as things went along only coming in for the occasion question directed at us about our last name and where we were from. Apparently Elder Ballif is now Brother Beau according to Sister Bolden since she had such a hard time pronouncing it lol. Wednesday was a bit of a bumber for us. We had a lesson and a service planned which both fell through so we just went this way and that way all over the place trying to find an individual to go and teach but over all it was just a bunch of doors with no one really answering so there went ninety miles on our monthly allowance :P however we did set the record for ourselves of having nineteen attempts when knocking doors and such. This branch is the first time that I have ever served around a Senior Missionary Couple the Nelsons who are just fantastic. They took us out and got us Blizzards later that afternoon since we were down that way which was really nice of them. Had a good discussion with them and I get the feeling that they would like us to drop by and visit them every once in a while just to say hi. They work at the Court House digitizing all of the Counties records for Cambridge and such which is pretty cool. They will be heading back home in a couple of months which is really sad since I possibly will be here for their leaving later this fall or early winter. Really hoping that I can stick it out four transfers in an area for once allowing me to actually get to know some people around here :P. Thursday we had Zone Training as we do for every first Thursday of the month and from what I have been told this zone the Dover Zone is one of the wackiest out there in how we do things. First all of the district leaders got up and gave us each a lesson they had prepared and had us do a role play for each of their lessons (I hate role plays :/) before they themselves spoke. There has been a lot going on lately with goal setting and how we go about doing it. Also for interviews which our zone has yet to have we have been asked to write down what we want to become and what our "personal missionary purpose" is and how we plan to go about doing it. Still writing that all down so I'll let ya know about it later. The lessons they had on Goal setting were pretty good which surprised me since most Zone Trainings at least for myself have seemed to have peeked and leveled off on what I get from them. Usually it just seems like a repeat of what I've had since getting out here but this one was really good and I got a lot out of. We had Thursday night a thing called cottage meeting which was really good. Watched a video on the Legacy of the Scriptures (I think) with a recent convert and less active while we ate a slice of apple pie that a member made. It was really good and from what I'm seeing so far out of this area we should have a least two reactivations within the coming months. Friday was definitely the crowning jewel of our week. We met with Scott again and for the first time in years he was almost twenty four hours off of a cigarette. Now Scott is a chain smoker which is quite the feet as you can imagine. He got this new thing called a vapor cigarette which is supposed to have him off of cigarettes completely within the next two to three months... The steam is also flavored so the entire time we were there it smelt like a fruit cocktail hahaha. We had a really good lesson with him about the Holy Ghost and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though he was really jittery since he really wanted a regular smoke bad but luckily for the poor thing there were none to be found in the house. We set him up with a baptismal date for this December, the day of the solstice actually. Then later that evening we had a lesson with Paul, who is such a nice man. Recent convert of almost a year and he is one heck of a shy dude but he does love the missionaries. Very grandmother like but at least hes an individual. He has been going through a really ruff time at the moment and it would seem that some members in the branch don't like the fact that he is single... >.<.... Let it be let it be, O' let it be let it be! First off Paul isn't just the kinda guy that is going to go out and spontaneously love someone and then marry em'. Along with the fact that these certain members are being quite force full about it. Both Elder Ballif and I already knew this but when Paul stated that he knew that the ward was very stand off ish about him since he wasn't apart of their "original herd" this is where we both got pretty angry... Out of the units I've served in so far this is probably going to be the most difficult one to work with. At least for the time being XP. We talked with him though and I guess I really hit off with Paul during this lesson. He felt a lot better with what we talked with him about so I hope that he continues to be strong. Saturday had a really good start but it ended ruff. 90 degrees with humidity and to save miles Ballif and myself parked the car for the whole day and went on a walkin. The really cool experience we had is that we had been walking for a very long time to go to this potentials when out of no where this lady pulls up and asks if we are thirsty. We said not to much but she paid no mind to it and told us her house was a street up and yellow with black shutters and for us to meet her there, she would have a drink ready for us :). Well we get there and she brings out some sprite and we sit down and have a bit of a lesson with her outside. Her name is Jennifer and she is a really nice lady. She's had a bit of a ruff life especially with drugs but she is working on getting off of them with classes and is at the moment trying to strengthen her relationship with God. And she is doing really well at that through family prayer and reading and such ya know? She liked what we had to say to and said she will come to church this not this past sunday but the one coming up this week. Left her with our number and what time our church starts so we will be following up with her this week! :D The potential we were looking for didn't like us anyway, from what Elder Ballif remembered as we got closer, so obviously there was a little more to this walk than meets the eye ;). After that though began our long forced march :P. Over all we walked about 13 miles that day and at ten we stopped at a Royal farms gas station to buy some water and power aid cause I felt like crap :P. Idiot kid here from the desert forgot to bring water with him though he knows better and then just went and got heat Exhaustion :P. Ballif said I looked terrible lol. Anyways we went home after we both cooled off and for the rest of the evening did area book work since we were both so tuckered out and feeling sick. Interesting day it twas. Anyways that about all the news I got for the moment. P.S. So in the car Elder Ballif has a lot of bluegrass gospel music and music from O Brother Where Art Thow that we have been listening to and I remembered just how cool the banjo is... hint hint ;). Being the history buff Ballif is I've learned quite a bit lately :D

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Long forgotten Gold, Permission, Rolls and such

So sorry for the delay in this weeks events, but it would seem that we as missionaries took labor day to our very hearts and souls and went out and did work of a kind yesterday, which I'll get to explaining down the letter, but as for now I am going to begin with the chain of events, as they do so go down the past week. Let me get my Ipad out here so I can remember the chain of events that just so happened to go on this past week :P. So lets see here hmmm. First off let me say that things have just been going so fast lately a cheetah would get motion sick from the ride that has been going on around here. I've felt like I was a bit in the "no where ville" for the 7th month mark, but it would seem that has long since past and gone and now by the next time I talk with you will be eight months out, lookin for the brakes to be initiated, but unfortunately for this one they will just laugh and say sucks to be you and let this trike continue to barrel down the hill... even though I'm still on the upward climb we are going down hill... if that makes any sense at all :P. So on Tuesday, we met with a man by the name of Ed, who is a Less Active member, but he is pretty dang sweet. He used to be a green beret? Anyways he's really fun and he has a sense of humor like none other. I guess the main reason he hasn't shown up is do to a blood valve problem and can't really sit on the chairs that we have to well during church and has to continually stand up and do things to get the blood moving in his legs again to dodge the possibility of a heart attack. We told him however that we just got new lobby furniture and the old stuff was moved into the main room to which he was pretty excited about which then lead to him coming to church! ... but yet he sat in the hard chairs he complained about? Oh well he came to church and that is what matters hahaha. We had dinner that night with the Eldridge family which is a really cute family. She is part Navajo and is actually from Blanding and was wondering if I knew anyone from there. I told her I did but unfortunately I couldn't remember their names lol so if ya don't mind helpin me out on who we might know from down there it would be greatly appreciated ;). On Wednesday morning we called to confirm a meal appointment with Jay, who is married to a member and is a person we like to call around these parts a "Dry Mormon". Got everything for it but for what ever reason he just doesn't wanna be dunked... darn laziness! Anyways it was a bit of a funny phone call and I wish I could tell you it in person but it seemed that he was rather happy with the meal that his wife made. Ya it was pretty dang good spaghetti but on the phone with him he kinda sang about how Wonderful it was haha. He's a really nice guy who just jabbers like none other. Gift of the gab but it would seem that here in Cambridge there is exponentially more of them then there were in Seaford and let me tell ya... there were quite a few over there. He also found out that I can bake so he loaded me up with a five to ten pound bag of flour, a cake mix, and some frosting in trade that I make some rolls for him, my goodness hahaha. Such a funny guy, told me that this would be mine and his little secret trade I guess (shaking head smiling). So thank you so much for the letter along with the bread recipe! We saw a recent convert by the name of Paul, that night as well. He's such a nice guy probably in the later fifties if I had any guess. Definitely was converted to the missionaries but I think that if we can get this dang branch into gear, we will be able to get him friend shipped and moving along just fine. He's kinda like a Grandmother like fella and really loves his cactuses. I say that we get him a dog to help cheer him up since he's a bit lonely :). Thursday I got the artscow and THANKYOU ITS AWESOME!!!!! Man that's going to have to be my district meeting tie a couple of these times cause its great :D. Mostly Thursday was used for planning but I went on exchanges with the Dover Zone Leader Elder Hansen up to Dover (finally its only been five months :P). Really good guy and we had a good time together. On Friday though he dodged a bullet of a woman like none other. We pull up to this potential and as he gets out of the door shes on the other side of the property and starts yelling "YOU GET BACK IN THAT CAR!!!" while waddling her way to us. He totally flipped it though, got her happy and then did some service.... Strange but I'll take that any day of the week. From what she told us she has had some really bad experiences with the J-Dubs and thought that we were going to do the same thing >.<... Friday was good. Stopped by a former investigator that Elder Ballif had worked with about a month ago who wasn't progressing at that point in time. His name is Scott and first off let me say that my first impression was that he was gay... but then the kids and the girlfriend showed up and dashed that notion real quick. Really nice guy and in the time that the missionaries were away he has dropped his drinking to about just about once a week and working on that one. His smoking habits are dying and he is now in the process of getting those vapor ones so he can finish the job so he was a golden recontact :D. Super nice guy and I can't wait to continue working with him. We also came in contact with another golden recontact Stephanie who we will be working with this coming Wednesday and hopefully she will become a new investigator at that time. We walked up right as she was getting out of her car and then we proceeded to have a really good discussion and she stated that she had a re interest in the church so thumbs up! We also picked up a Less Active and her son who hasn't been baptized this past week which is really good. She's pushing to get back into church and is actually doing everything we have asked her to do and more along with her son who is in fifth grade who wants to get baptized... Katelyn experience anyone? :3 So ya this past week has been pretty good for us and I am excited for the area. Yesterday being the Labor day it was and Ballif having had experience with it already knew that knocking doors and such would just lead to a miserable day :P. So we made cookies and delivered them and had some good discussions with people... Power of Food! Anyways that is the weekly report.