Christmas Conference, Christmas, Communications and Connections Online, Service!!!

Well this will be an interesting letter since I finally got to see all of your wonderful faces this past week and tell ya stories of hinder and yawn ;). But I'll reiterate just a few just in case I missed anything. So at the Christmas conference we received a nice little message from both President and Sister Anderson that were short sweet and to the point before we went and played Preach My Gospel Jeopardy. It was fun but we made Sister Anderson cry cause I guess we just got to competitive..... Sigh l:/. To which we then watched seventeen miracles which was really good. The man known as Brother Albert if y'all remember him is my favorite out of them all. That movie sets a mood that very few can get you to feel. We then had our talent show which I very much enjoyed and I can't wait to send you videos of my favorite ones. I was second to last and President complimented my presentation which I was very happy and relieved about since I was bit worried about it but the worrying was for naught. Then we had FLIPPING AMAZING CHRISTMAS!!! And it was gone in a blink of an eye but I was super excited to talk with y'all and the opportunity to see other familiar faces. Just got an email from Kali saying she should be on her way out too :). So I'm glad to see that y'all made it home safely and I hope that each one of you had a good Christmas. I've already put the banjo book to work which has been a lot of fun, though I do feel that these types of string instruments are really hard to play, my fingers like to hit other strings :3. The card game has been fun too, now that we have a few missionaries who now know how to play. We later went to Annie's house which was fun but weird since the sisters were there too. Just adds a strange setting that I'm not to entirely used to but oh well. Friday we had district meeting since Christmas was occupied and it was good. Litton had me help him build a small nativity for it which was nice and we discussed the birth of Jesus Christ. What really stood out Friday though is that we were able to spend some time with Bishop and his family. We have been trying to get a better relationship with Ward council members since it just doesn't seem that they trust us, but we had a really good time with him. We walked through Love Park with all the vendors, watched two Christmas shows, walked through a Maceys Dickens Christmas Carol village and I almost had the opportunity to beat and to teach someone on a chess board :3. It was a really good night and one that we need for us and Bishop. Saturday we helped the Frankford Elders with a service project in our area which was nuts. Cleaned out a side alley and it was just gross! Looks so much better now though it's going to need a lot more work with heavy machinery but it's the first service I've been able to do since reaching this area so I'm pretty dang happy for that reason :). And that about wraps up this past week. I received hymns the day before Sunday and miraculously I was able to play them mostly proficiently. I'm pretty sure that Gods back hurts a lot of the time cause he really carries this team ;)

Caroling on Monday

Long week, Case of the Long Lost Letter, Cookie Day, Messiah

So for the first time in a really long time I have very very little to write about for this past week. We had two lessons planed, for all but two days this past week and every single one of them fell through so Elder Litton and myself were out and about trying to find most days with no success (:P. So ya last week was really ruff. The only lesson that we were able to manage was on facebook. On our spare time this week during lunches and stuff Elder Litton was teaching me a bit of sign language that he knows which has been really fun since I actually understand it unlike Spanish and what not. I guess that it is because it is a visual language but as of the moment I know the whole alphabet (besides x :P) and a few words but I doubt enough to carry an actual language haha. After a long week, on Saturday we were invited over to Mike and Dannas house for something they called cookie day. There were quite a few people there and it was a fun time. Mostly we just hung out in the kitchen talking with Danna and helped with the cookies since the kids were watching movies in the other room which we try our best to avoid ;). Received a whole box of cookies... Yay me :P! :3 Yesterday church went like usual. The spanish elders sent me the hymns late, then they changed one while there, I played silent night on the piano after a five minute request to do so before the meeting which didn't turn out to bad but the others I mostly just ended up playing the top hand since I was super stressed and under prepared. Later last night though I went and watched Elder Litton perform in the messiah which he has been doing for the past three weeks. It was a stake activity and it was really cool to go and see. I saw Brother Livigni for the first time since I left south Philly and watched him sing marvelously. Got video of parts of this so I got some good singing to send your way ;). That about wraps up this week though... I'm really worried for my return email this time from President. Last time I was this low with lessons I was with a trunky companion and I got the chewing out so I guess we will see how this goes over :/. Welp tis the season to be festive and I hope that y'all have a fun Christmas time with family.

Ruff to stuff, not to much, Seeley, transfer calls, baptismal tally?, Sisters

So I'm a very happy to say that I will not be picked up and moved this transfer or at least I need to make it through tomorrow without receiving a call cause ye changed their minds... Yay me! So I myself and Litton will be serving out a seven week transfer this time since this past one was five so that they could get all the dying missionaries home for Christmas and to save money on tickets.... Next year will be interesting. Anyways I am excited that I will be staying this go around but another interesting thing we have going on is that in a zone of 22 people only two are being transferred which no one saw coming. Well I don't have to many crazy wild things to talk about this past week no sir so I'll cut to the chase that up until about Wednesday we just walked around and tried to find people. Thus I have a very boring title compared to the usual which disappoints me but I'll have to live with it or think of something wittier to put down. So on Wednesday I was on exchanges with Elder Seeley who I have been dying to go on exchanges with all transfer since my companion is the district leader. The day started off pretty sweet since the four of us ordered wings for lunch that were just darn right tasty. Well we got into the exchange pretty quick when we dropped in on Gill looking for Nancy but she was at work. He has been having a lot of struggles with work lately and with the coming Christmas season, which we didn't know until after we showed him the he is the gift video, which helped him to feel a lot better and was very happy that we had stopped by and showed him that video. Lately he has been calling himself a Mormon so the next time we get over there for an actual lesson we have plans to set him with an actual baptismal date ;). We then went to the church where I practiced the organ as usual and face booked but right after we went to Daisy's with Brother Tabour and talked a bit more about the Book of Mormon so that she could have a better understanding of it. I'm really excited for Daisy since she has been doing what we have asked her to do and she accepted a baptismal date on this visit :D! The main thing now is that I want to get a closer relationship with her like our other investigators which just seems to be coming slower than usual which I don't like >:/. Right from their we had some grub and Seeley and I talked. He goes home what now is next transfer but at the time I could tell that he was going through a really ruff time. Super hard worker but I could tell that the end of the line with the possibility of being transferred was something that was really creeping up on him at the time. Luckily though he got to stay which I hope helped him and I'm excited to be serving with him again. Well our missionary meeting that night, to where we give all of our updates and help neededs to our Ward mission leader, went well and I brought up that our mission leaders want us back in Ward council which I've been wanting for awhile since the missionaries and Ward seem to have a distant gap between themselves... Besides the sisters that is but that's a later point :P. I had no support from our district which bugged me but because it was asked to be done thankfully we got in. Now there are some really cool sister missionaries who I've met (most are home now...) but unfortunately I've come down to a dislike for them since members only wanna do things for them leaving us out and a certain sister here seems to always shut things down before they take off before the idea can take off since she doesn't "feel comfortable" about it... :P. Sorry for my rant but I need to get it out, anyways on with our time. Friday to Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Sutton again which was good right up until the very end. We had a very random appointment at 8 Saturday morning for a guy he had talked to who lived in another wards area but since they couldn't go we ended up going and it was pretty bad. The mans name was John who had very little background in religion let alone only had the belief that there had to be some higher power but rather than just touching on a few things Sutton just plowed through with the restoration as fast as possible so that we could make it to football.... Dang it! He was so confused at the end to :(. I'm a bit worried about his golden/greeny missionary too. Kid has no life experience so he just buys a lot of junk and on his msf he had a dollar left.... He's still got a whole month left what the heck haha. Boy I'm glad I went to college first ;). Football was good but the rest of the day kinda stunk since everything that we had planned fell through. Sunday we had to get up really early to go to a meeting where we discussed the missionary efforts in our Ward and what our plan was going to be for the coming year. It was nice and President Anderson actually came to be apart of it to which was really sweet. He had some really awesome compliments about the missionaries in our Ward which I'm a bit worried about now, haha. Either way though I hope that it helps the Ward to trust us more since bishop was in there too. After church I played the organ again but I was a bit bumbed this time around. Didn't play as well and the third song I was different than the one I was told to practice so a lady from another Ward came in to save the day. Then Litton started doing this head bobbing for me to leave which I didn't understand since I had one more song to play so I asked the lady to do so and found out that Litton just wanted to make some phone calls >.<. Hope I haven't lost my job haha. We went on my first time ever splits yesterday too. I went with a senior couple in our Ward the Syme's to Daisy again which went well. I had to slow down a bit since it was going so fast but the Symes were a great help with Daisy and at the end she asked what she needed to do to be baptized :D! It was pretty sweet. From there Litton went to practice the Messiah while I went with Lundberg our ZL to Mike and Dana's :). Well that about wraps it all up, I need to find a spanish elder to translate a post I found on facebook since I think some of the investigators I worked with back in Seaford with Elder Leavitt got baptized! We will see.

My name is George Nelson! Not Baby Face!, ?!?, Sick as a Dog, Bill and Ricky

So I'm a bit scatter brained at the moment and have forgotten a bit of what I wanted to talk with yall about but either way something or other will be told by this brother to a dad, some sisters and a mother.... Yup one of those days. Anyways to move on with our week and it's delightsome details... Well mostly everything fell through :/. So I'll mostly be cutting to the chaste of the little things that stuck out this past week. And so we cut to Friday while I was on exchanges with Elder Long here in my area. So our exchange started off pretty late compared to how they usually are. We've had a ton of rain this past week and Thursday was no exception except for on that day it was just a lot of mist rain which happens every so often around here. Well I had been getting pretty sick up to this point but as we were sitting waiting for our bus to come we or rather I had a rare and awkward exchange of words. Within five minutes of each other I was hit on twice by two high school girls :P. The first one started off with my eyes and I had no idea what to do so I just changed the topic as quick as I could to then have elder Long come in and help me but while doing so the next girl hit on me and I just gave up by that point and gave her a he is the gift card, haha, shoot that was weird. My exchange went pretty well with Elder long by the fact that we had an awesome miracle happen later that evening. We had just come from Facebook and practicing the piano (was almost invited to play at a Spanish wedding while there 0.o) on our way to an appointment when some guys detained us for a bit, missed our bus and then ended up having to walk a great distance, when a guy we had passed yelled from a block down asking if we were Mormons? His name is Rob and in the past he had dated a mormon who gave him a tripod Book of Mormon and had taken him to church and everything. This being probably five or more years ago picked that back up just a few days before meeting us and had felt the spirit. Not having seen missionaries in years he had to speak to us so thus we did :D. He doesn't live in our area but we got his number and facebook so we will hopefully be able to send him off to the other missionaries. Oh our appointment cancelled right as we were talking with him too :P. Saturday I was feeling better but I pretty much lost my voice entirely as we played football in a progressively worse downpour :P. I was bored this time around since I was sick and couldn't do much so we end that there. We were going to do a back to back exchange but with the little amount of time that we had that day before the ward party we decided against it. So got cleaned up and tried to make a desert for the party which ended up being a disaster that tasted really good but it wasn't ready for the party so we left it at home. I call it brownie monster and will send you the recipe later on. The party was really fun though I'm not to sure if my companion fully enjoyed it. Seemed like a business trip for him as he went this way and that way with objectives I myself wasn't to sure about but oh well. I talked with Brother Moala who used to serve in this mission about my trainer and got some funny stories about them towel boxing haha. Guess my trainer got knocked out pretty good. Sunday I played the organ and this time I did really well which I was happy about since a lot of the spanish elders were complaining that they hadn't gotten one of the sister missionaries to play bah! I wouldn't have it ;). After church we had to rush to a lesson in which we had a couple coming out with us to teach which fell through., but we revived it with another one which went really well so our time was well spent with a lady named Daisy... Or Debbie... Not really sure since she answers to both. After that Litton went on another mini exchange so that he could go to penny pack to practice for Handles Messiah which I may or may not be included on next week we shall see since I didn't have a voice really yesterday. I went with Elder Seeley who started his mission in this area to Mike and Danas for dinner where he just went ham on Dana and why she really hasn't progressed since the time he was here. Unfortunately she dodged everything as usual but it was really cool to watch Seeley go man mode within a lesson. This morning we went and saw Bill and Ricky down in south Philly which was awesome! They are doing alright but I was a bit worried before going down since the missionary I talked to before hand in that area said that they were struggling and not really progressing. The main thing I could tell is that they were just taking up a lot of time by coming by four to five times a week which I myself have never heard of. But they are doing well. Bill quit smoking and is weaning off wih ene ciggarettes and Ricky had her hip surgery done so she could walk again which was awesome to see. It was really refreshing to go and see those two.

Adventures in Philly

They will rob You!, Flooding, Unusual Unicorns, Turkey Bowl, Apostate...

So first off I have a confession. My Journal writing this transfer has been awful and thus leads me to pulling blanks for this email so if you have any ideas on how to get oneself to write in their journal please message me, your comments will be much appreciated. Anyways I got some funky things to write this time around so please bear with me :3. So just to start off our message here after our preparation hours were over (hard to call it a day ;) ) we went and saw Nancy and Gil which went really well for us. We watched the finding faith in Christ dvd which I had never even seen myself prior to this point, but we had a good spiritual experience with them, only marred by the fact that we got out of their at 9:15 so we were in the ghetto past nine :/. Ya nothing good ever happens after nine up there... We were walking to the elevated subway line since our luck with buses was non existent and then decided we would just walk the rest of the way. Well right outside of the "ell" station this guy stops us and is like, "hey ya'll Mormon?" And we were like, "ya we are" and he's like, "hey it's my Mormon Brothers!!" His girlfriend was like hey Mormons! And right as we are about to talk back he said, "what the Heck are you guys doing here!? (Language edited). They will rob You!!" Well, he walks us up to the the Ell and says we should never come back cause "They will rob You!" Freaked elder Litton out for the rest of the night but besides that we had an uneventful night... Wait a second! No, another adventure began and that was when we came home to find that our toilet that was just, fixed that day, flooded the entire upstairs!! Dang we were angry about that, it leaked down into the first floor ceiling.... >.<. Well it wasn't our plumbers fault but the manufacture piece he replaced. Came back Friday and fixed that.... Ten minutes after he left the toilet broke again :/. Well then.... The next day we went on exchanges and I had elder Chapman with me who is another Golden in our district and we had a really good time. The exchange started late but we were able to talk with a seventh day Adventist before going to the Wasco's for dinner which was good. Had some good home made fried chicken. Now we come to the next point of our emails title. We get onto the elevated line and as we do there is this guy wearing a unicorn mask... :3. We get a giggle or two and are trying to figure out what's going on. Well, he proceeds to get up as if to leave on the next stop. But rather than doing so he turns on some music and starts to poll dance... We bust up laughing as we get off. Man I love serving in the city, it really is the best place. Wednesday wasn't very eventful, since Thanksgiving was on Thursday we had our district meeting then, that was it. We went to a members later that night and had ribs which was really good. Thursday morning was really awesome up hurtful. We had a turkey bowl where our zone and another showed up and we just played football for a couple of hours. It was a ton of fun and I had one really cool play where elder park tipped a pass that was coming for me in hopes of an interception but it came to me and I tipped it as well, well it was floating in the air so I just kept going for it so it was like this weird juggle trying to hold onto this ball on my way to the end zone lol. If that made any sense let me know ;). Thanksgiving was alright though it was a bit weird. We went to the Wasco's after football which took up the rest of our day. Brother Wasco and I had a battle of wits, which was a lot of fun, however right at the very end he beat me out. Friday we had dinner at the Tabers which was nice. They gave us another thanksgiving which is always good ;). Saturday we had football as usual and man that was a cold day. Ground was like concrete but we had fun. Later that night all our appointments cancelled when we received a call from the Giordano family that they wanted us over for a late Thanksgiving dinner that night... Goodness! :). We shared the new, share the gift video, which they loved. Susan for the first time said that she wanted to start coming out to church again which was awesome though unfortunately she didn't show up this time around :(. We are going back Wednesday though for a good lesson and to watch the snake eat a rat! Sunday was an adventure.... We were asked to give elders quorums lesson which was elder Robbins talk "which way do you face". When we got that we were like oh dear... And just like last Sunday the few members who are for lgtb gave their remarks right at the very end so no one could do anything >.<. I'm slightly sick of how this Ward is at times ya know? Well the strange Sunday didn't end there. Spanish branch is having me play their hymns for them and a man taught me how to play the "cheater organ" haha so I was up on that bad boy. It didn't go well. Got the hymns to practice late and had no time to practice so it was pretty bad :/. Mind sending out a how to play the organ book, lol? Man I need to do better this coming week for them. Anyways that about sums up the week.

I don't delight in fatness, Billiards, Excuse me Mrs. But have you ever wondere

Welp another week has come and gone just like that and now we begin week three of this short transfer :P. As of the moment we have a man in our apartment fixing the sink and toilet which probably should have been called in about a month ago but as procrastinators we prefer to unite ourselves later... Preferably after lunch. Anyways I'll move from there and get on with the week. So I don't know what was up with this past week but for four days straight we were fed pizza by members and non members and I can honestly say that I'm starting to hit that old college tiredness of pizza :P, so much of it and it's really fatty. Elder Litton says I watch my figure to much but hey I don't wanna get that flat tire belly that I see a lot of Elders fashioning these days :3. Gotta get a scale in here. Ok I'll really get to it this time. So on Monday night we were supposed to have a meal and lesson with Nancy and Gil but Gil forgot so we didn't end up going there. Well we found out an hour later from a call by our Ward mission leader that we were supposed to be having dinner with him and his family which the sisters hadn't told us about, Bingo. So we had white chili with rolls which was really good and had a good time with them. It's nice to actually be meeting with members in this Ward. The Peterson family is really cool, he served his mission in Ogden which covers Logan so we talked about that and a show we both liked called cowboy bebop. They have three kids that are just funny as heck. They didn't think that chili was good for their body machine :3. Tuesday we had weekly planning but we saw Brandon before doing so and he was awesome as always. Later that night we had dinner with the Wasco's as usual and it went well. One thing that I've noticed with less active and investigator meals is that I do most of the talking which is a bit unusual for me but its alright it's something I need to do more of. We had missionary correlation that night to which is different since it's usually on a Wednesday but we had an elders quorum activity that night. Litton and I actually ended up going to that and it was a lot of fun. We played Billiards and I beat the best guy there :D. Would have won the second game too had I not scratched when shooting the eight ball >:). Thursday morning started off the day to be very strange. So we were standing outside of a bus stop trying to figure out where to go when a lady passed us to which we greeted and then she went on. Well we ended up taking the same route as her and passing her again Litton took the opportunity to ask her if she new where babies came from... :3. She was nine months pregnant and answered uh I think I know where XD. Started off extremely awkward, I'm walking just ahead trying not to bust up laughing but Litton saved himself with the P.o.S. And she said we could come back if she wasn't in labor. Ended up being just that but afterwards talking with him he said that it hadn't sounded so weird in his head ;). So skipping to Saturday we were invited by Nancy to come to her nieces birthday party to pick up a plate of food. We get in there and the row home is just packed with kids and adults with really loud music. It was a Frozen themed party and we get in and I talk with Gil quite a bit but when I stop I'm just hearing the most profane music and Litton is white as a ghost since he wasn't talking so much so I finished my plate and got us out of there. That was a bait and switch kids party if I had ever been to one lol. Last but not least we come to Sunday. Let the audience know that there are some topics you talk about and many that you don't within the walls of church. Combined third hour is not the time to have an open discussion about people's thoughts on Homosexuality >.<. It started off with a good message from bishop but he opened it up to discussion which went south within two comments for the rest of the time. Any investigator in there would have thought the church was in favor with the LGBT group with how some of the members were in there.... On our way home though Litton suddenly mumbles something and turns around and I go whattt? He said gotta go back, so we walked a block and he knocked a door to which he just went right into our message and asked for a time we could come back and the lady said yes. Her names Dawn and we will be seeing her on Wednesday... I wanna do something like that!!! Later that night we got fed twice :P and that about wraps up this week.

Litton, tired week, first exchange experience, progress?

Well, Elder Barker and I had one last hoorah Monday night at the Giordano home. They had invited us over for their family home evening where we had a good time and for the first time the kids there weren't just completely nuts. We had cheese steaks, played a bunch of different card games, and watched a video of their boa constrictor taking out a rat which was pretty cool to watch if I do say so myself :3. Now the events of Tuesday at transfers brought me my new companion Elder Litton. Good guy who's had a lot of success on the mission. Comes from Southern California as well, which unfortunately breaks my chain of having companions from a different state, but that's alright I guess. The transfer also brought a huge change to the zone. We went from dead and dying to a lot of goldens as well as middle aged missionaries..... Which I guess now includes myself :3? Whatever it's a strange place now but still good. So with the arrival of Litton I had him meet everybody that I could on the first day and we set up a lot of appointments that we were super excited for.... And then they all fell through :P. It was a very stressful week with how everything ended up being, but Elder Litton and myself did a lot of walking with not to much success. Trooped through it though. And with all of the non occur in events I digress to Friday. So Elder Sutton received a Golden by the name of Elder Christensen. From Draper, just graduated and is an eighteen year old who just loves sports. So this is my second transfer not being the youngest in the district and I was Elder Christensen's first exchange on the mission which I was super excited for. Well things fell through again and being a golden in a very successful area at the moment he slightly insulted me asking if we had actually done any planning ):/.... Well I brushed it off and just kept going with what we had. He hasn't been out tracting yet and wants the experience so I knock on the first door and get turned down to which elder Christensen says that I need to be more bold. So I said you can have the next door then (meanwhile my thought process I'm making sure I don't end up being that missionary who's like watch this guy get thrown down). Good thing to cause though the person didn't want to talk with us about the gospel we talked with them a bit on the stoop so moral of the story is I didn't get duped :3. Also he didn't wanna tract anymore and preferred to street contact. We were able to have a little bit of success that night though with Nancy and Gil which was very relieving. Watched the restoration video and just had a good talk with them. Tonight we will be watching the finding faith in Christ video which I've never seen so we will see how this goes. Saturday we started off with football like usual and goodness it was a blast. I'm pretty sure after the awesome plays I made I'll move up a little in the rankings ;). I got a good hand for catching flags it seems. However for so much fun and excitement elder Litton and myself are still recovering from football and Saturdays events XP. We ended up walking pretty much for the next three to four hours trying to make it to the church since the subway was broken and the buses were to dang cramped to even attempt to get on with a stupid side bag :P. My side bag is a fricken tank! Anyways we get one stop away from the church when the Girodano's sent us a text that they wanted us over for dinner.... Oh no but yet Awesome! I was very happy with how things ended. Most of the kids were gone for the time that we were here and the lesson we directed towards their one boy Marshall was a complete fail since he had the attention span of a nat. But Susan said that she wants to re go through all of the lesson with her and the boys so that he boys can begin to choose ya know? She will totally be baptized just need to get her husband resolved and we be good for the dunking. And that about wraps up the events of this past week.

Football

Last week playing football before half of these guys ship out tomorrow. Rained like heck but it was a good time, not to sure what my hand signal was....

This is why we can't have nice things, visit round up, ready for some consistency...

Welp another week come and gone, ten months out and what do you know Christmas is around the corner with thanksgiving being left behind :3... Like myself. So I'm trying to figure out what to tell ya about as I remember the important things that ended up happening. So first off in news that I'm pretty bumbed about is not just my mission but every mission that has Facebook, I am no longer allowed to be friends with family back home unless I am actively teaching someone with you guys :(. Dang negative ten percent be punishing the rest of us again, ya know what I mean? This is why we can't have nice things and why we have that tiny little white book of doom :/. We also received some more mission rules which have become a bugger but ya can't do anything about it so ya, I'm done with my rant. So South Philly had the best district ever but here we had the best zone of all time. Unfortunately 2/3rds of the zone dies tomorrow which will be the long famine for myself of everyone I know will be leaving :(. Bad enough as it is Elder Barker got the call that he will be leaving tomorrow for his new area so we will see what I end up getting from the roulette board of this mission. This has been my favorite companionship since Elder Whitaker so maybe I'll get to serve with him again somewhere down the line but at the moment I'm just ready for some consistency to happen around here but things need to be as they are I guess. So on Saturday we did something pretty cool. We went and did the Philly 5k heart walk since we were asked by President to do so, I guess. There were a ton of people down at the stadiums where it took place and though I wasn't able to talk with anyone, it was different and was a good experience. With elder Barker leaving we went and did all of our roundups this weekend and we got a few more today. On Saturday we went to Mike and Dana's where we had a good time. Played chess for my first time on the mission there and though I got so close I messed up right at the end and wasn't able to recover :P. Mike and Danan are awesome and Mike will be reactivated here real soon we hope. Later that night we met with Annie who will be reactivated here soon too. Though we weren't able to have a lesson with Annie we were able to do so with her sister Tracie, who is less active as well. Her father just died the day before, so she was going through a really rough spot. We did the plan of salvation which helped her out a lot! She was feeling a lot better at the very end and we were able to have a great night with the rest of them once they got back. Yesterday we had the Wasco's for dinner with the other sisters and elders which was weird since I haven't had a party meal in a long while, but it was nice to be able to do so since it changed things up. Afterwards we had Mike and Dana again which was good though his ex wife showed up and just gossiped and took up a greater part of our time and it was really annoying :P. Read the Book of Mormon like usual and got out. That's about it for now. Tonight we will be eating cheese steaks at the Giordano's which will be good since she is an amazing cook.

We actually met members, Halloween flop, old neighbors with potential

So now that I have come to write my weekly email I can't quite remember everything that happened this past week more than likely do to the wonderful weather that quickly and unexpectedly changed without consent to a drab wet day that just never seemed to end but that's alright cause we had lessons..... Writing without punctuation can be fun :3. So anyways ya this is week six so we will see what will be going on with this upcoming transfer. Hope to stay with Barker but as I recall that hasn't done me to well in that field so I'll just leave it there :P. However one thing that changed this past week is that we actually ate and met with a member, my goodness isn't that crazy!? I know right? Two families to be exact... And they have gone back to just feeding sisters :P. No comment. So onward with our story of the week. We were able to meet with Brandon three times this week which was awesome. Just over all he is awesome since he always wants to meet and willing to go out and teach when college isn't in the way. Also he got his girlfriend interested so maybe we can work with her on Skype :D. Also he worked at a pretzel factory for about four years so everyone knows him there and gets free soft pretzels so he took us and we were given about fifteen haha. Let's say I could only eat two cause those suckers are heavy! The same night that we got pretzels we went and saw elder Barkers old neighbor Nancy and her kids and we picked them up as investigators along with a friend named Gil who is living with them :D. Super cool family to which we taught the restoration, which Nancy has heard before but we think that since the missionaries have moved she misses that feeling they brought since they were over there a lot. Now for the two short days. Thursday not to much success and wanting us to be "time effective missionaries" we had to plan that night which we did. Halloween was a slight bit of a flop though :/. Went and bought candy for kids and can ya guess what, not a single one of those little guys came out to get their three musketeers :/. So now we are left with them to our own devices which isn't good........... It was an alright night. Nothing special though which was a bit disappointing but better luck next year I guess, maybe board games will be legalized by then but we will see. Saturday is where things got super cold and wet over night yuck! But rain, shine, snow, or Ebola we go out and play football and man did we get soaked! Man though we froze it was pretty good, when we showed up to our lunch appointment though we had to have our jackets thrown into the dryer as we ate but the rest of ourselves just had to endure :3. The rest of the day went pretty well though since we had multiple appointments that night which kept us out of the cold rain. The last thing I wanna write about is that we had an awesome find from our potentials list yesterday. Her name is Denise and we talked to her through the screen door. We were just going to set up a return appointment since the wind was howling and it was super cold but she ended up talking with us more since she is a bit lonely and so we had a lesson through the door :).

FHE Stoopin, rainy dayz, Halloween Party

Well the adventures in the concrete jungle brought some new experiences this past week. Since it's usually house to the steps to the side walk in that order with very few parks in between we have a lot of people that sit out on their steps all day doing funny weird philly things to which we call stoopers. I had my first experience with being one myself Monday night when some members invited us over for FHE and we did exactly that. Since the time being here I've probably gotten to know four members, since the only missionaries that exist to them are the sisters :P. But I'll save my sister rants for another day and at this FHE I learned more about Ward members than I anticipated with some strange traits. Guess there is a man who hates it when you say understand cause it means you didn't fully get the message so when talking to him you must say that you over stand him... :/. God is great, root beer is good, people are crazy! Anyways I don't have to much to write this week since not to much happened but I'll make it as exciting as possible. We had a ton of rain this past week with really cold temperatures so for the first time since leaving Elder Whitaker I took out my coat and put that bad boy on as we went out into the rain. I was on exchanges with our district leader Elder Sutton on Wednesday, which was good though we had very little luck in finding anyone. It mostly ended up being a very long walk doing stop bys and talking to people on the street. One instance was super crazy though! We were at a bus stop and Elder Sutton was talking to a lady when the air got an electric smell and a fizzing sound started. Looked up and about fifty yards from us a transformer on a power line just blew up! It was like a fire work with a shock wave and took out the top side of the pole! All the philly drivers got super confused too since the lights went out and they had to take turns, haha ya four way stops without lights don't work, out this way :P. After that we walked in the rain yay! On Thursday after planning and such we celebrated a past birthday party with the west Elders, Story and Sutton, at the Wasco's house and had a lot of lasagna. It was really good and it had a lot of different cheeses in it but I can honestly say that lasagna without cottage cheese just doesn't taste the same to me. So Moms home cooking and the one other member who made it that way have to be the best in my opinion. And when it comes to lasagna it matters :3. Friday is finally where we had some action and I was quite happy to get some of it. We found a new investigator who's name is Shurika but goes by Reek and gave her a Book of Mormon along with a card that offers a free DVD. We received an actual referral by her on mormon.org for that dvd which is awesome cause I've never seen anyone order anything from it :3. We were also able to get in contact with a girl named Alexis, who is in her teens somewhere, who has an interest as does her mom Madeline. We met with em on Saturday with our recent convert Brandon and that had to be one of the most scattered lessons ever. We went into the plan of salvation for our first lesson and it kinda just crumbled and was rebuilt a while later into with the, Because of Him video. It was a mess but at least it ended alright. See them again on Saturday. Yesterday we were able to come in contact with Elder Barkers old neighbors and had a good time there. She wants to get back into coming to church a bit and we will hopefully get down to the temple sight with them in the near future. Oh hey I almost forgot some things. So we had a ward Halloween party which was pretty legit :3. Had a chili cook off and everything, but I can honestly say I was just there for the food. We also had a very funny primary program yesterday. My goodness it was so disfunctional but it was still good. Lots of kids weren't there, a young couple with their two kids tried to sing but the two kids just fought over who's turn it was with the microphone haha. Never know what your gonna get do ya ?!:3

George's Baptism Group Photo!!

Slow Mo, Gods Dogs, Motorcycle Hurd, We Should Sue

Well I'll be honest this was a really quick week that drove a go cart at five hundred miles per hour when it hit a banana sending it into a spin. Going somewhere but not very productive.... Probly some turtle shells too, but never mind the references, this week was a bit slow. However it did have some noticeable grates to it so I guess that I will write what took place just previous. So we had multiple adventures to the Layton/Brown families house with only one success seeming how they would always invite us over but when we would get there Sean (who is one of the only two males that lives there) would suddenly be either to sick or to tired to come down. However we were able to get all the woman and children there on Sunday and for the first time they stayed the full three hours. Sean stayed outside in the car for whatever reason so I get the feeling that he was pretty bored out there making whatever statement he was looking to make. Tuesday we had dinner with the Wasco family. They are awesome and are looking to come back so with Sister Wasco quitting smoking we will hopefully see her back at church real soon here. They are from South Carolina so they say some funny things. Call tomato sauce red gravy 0.o. On our way home we ended up having a two hour travel time since the bus was dumb and showed up five minutes early with the next one showing up twenty five minutes late :P. A bit aggravating but we were able to speak with a guy from Nigeria named Samway who was really sweet along with Mr. Joe who loved what we were doing, when our bus came he gave us a handshake and rubbed our hand on his head lol. Guess it's for good luck or somethin. Wednesday was an interesting day due to the fact that I don't remember most of it but I do recall that we went to the Giordano's house for dinner and it was crazy! All day it had been down pouring like none other so the kids were hyped up and needed to be kicked out cause you could barely hear yourself think in there. They invited us again for dinner the next day so we went for round two then :3. One thing I'm not liking about this area is that we get fed way to much :P. To many left overs in the fridge and I fear that I'm going to gain back the weight that I lost the past two transfers, guess I'll be kicking up my workouts in the morning a notch ;). Thursday we planned and such before going to the Giordano's again for dinner and this time the kids were getting ready for football and such so we were able to have a really good lesson with them. We have to work slowly since Paul wants things done through the bible first so we have to recheck our research before giving a lesson. Hopefully with how things have been going he will humble up and give the B.o.M. Another try. After that we had a Book of Mormon class which was fun. We are in the King Benjamin chapters and someone brought up the comment of how it's like a straight and narrow road with little paths which we sometimes go down to but we need to get back on the right one. I went off of that comment and related it to how dogs are haha. Leave the trail/goal to sniff something when God has to call us back :3 I had everyone in the room laughing. Last thing for that night is we were waiting for a bus when suddenly there had to be at least 50 to 75 motor biker and dirt bikers just riding up Broad st. We just sat there and watched for like two minutes as they all just revved away haha. Last thing in news is Barker and myself are going to sue septa our bus system :P. Didn't get sacrament yesterday since the bus never showed so we ended up at church about 30 to 45 minutes late :P. Shmeh. Anyways love you guys, playing some b ball today which I fail at but its gonna be fun anyways :3 .

Sneak peek, Case of the forgotten wallet, coherent gators?, George got Dunked!!!!!

Well this week was interesting in the fact that we had quite a bit work out for us in terms of numbers, but over all there are only a few super awesome things to talk about :3. So on Tuesday I went on exchanges with Zone Lord Elder Lundberg and we had a pretty good time up in Frankford. The Frankford apartment has two set of missionaries in it so it's pretty fun also considering one of those elders is elder Seeley who is a nut ball but super fun to be around and a good elder. Anyway, the exchange was good. We did a thing called church finding where we set up a table with stuff on it and just talked to people walking on the street. It was kinda hard seeming how their church building is a store front right next to the elevated subway track so it was very noisy. I myself didn't have to much success but the others did. What was really funny though is that we said just a few Spanish words to a Hispanic guy who then became interested. The next half hour was made up of broken Spanish, Google translate, and miscommunication with the Spanish elders over the phone... :3. We also, later that day, contacted a referral. He and his wife were going to get divorced, but through religion they came back to loving each other so their family didn't split and they became stronger in their relationship together. Had practically Mormon values too so I hope that they will become interested in the church more! So Wednesday was pretty dang cool. We had zone conference and I got to have my first sneak peek ever along with watching my first movie on the mission! We got to see" Meet the Mormons", two days before release and my goodness that was a well made film :D. I don't know if you guys have gotten to see it yet but I'll let you know that it is extremely good. Later this week we saw on Facebook that over all it did pretty well in ratings too, so you'll have to let me know. We had a lesson with a lady named Victoria, who wants to turn her life around, the lesson was very interesting though since she said that she only had a few minutes and then talked to us for about forty five minutes :P. We were also unsure about how coherent she was since just out of random she would start to fall asleep and then make random comments about how she was worried about the cat because it slept so much.... 0.o. Either way we are going back next Friday. Also that night we went to Annie's to give her a blessing since she hurt her back pretty bad. She was doing better but we still gave her the blessing also her sister n sisters kids were there and they said that they would all show up to church this Sunday! The kids did but they are non members so we picked them up as gators :3. So I guess, last if, not least, on Wednesday I was super scared to ask since there is a rule about how only for two weeks after leaving an area can you go and see investigators you worked with get baptized, but I finally bucked up and asked president to which he was totally fine with :D. So last night we got to go and see the baptism of George Callahan from South Philly and he wanted me to speak on baptism so I got to do that :D!! It was awesome!! Finally all married and though his wife is still sick she's no longer in the hospital we were able to dunk the man :3! Got to see a lot of people from South Philly which was cool to! Next week for P-Day we will hopefully be going to see the Rocky Steps and such!

Robin equivalents, philly driving, to many elders in this crib, conference truths

Well, I see that they thought I was bored of the chopped up cornfields of soy n such so they sent me back to the concrete jungle... Literally :3. Yup my areas name is independence east and it is super huge!! However one cool perk is that the temple is in the district so whenever we have an investigator to teach we can take them down there if they do so please :D. Super fleshed out since the time that I left it since the steal work wasn't even complete then... Interior is being worked on and the only steal visible is that of the spires. So my companions name is Elder Barker and he's pretty sweet, though I still don't know to much about him. From Corona California, loves basketball and batman and has a Hispanic girlfriend. He's dry funny, so sarcastic as heck, but a very good elder. However the area book here is ugly as heck so I plan to work on that :P. This is the largest walking area that I know of and haven't really figured it out yet, but that's alright. We have other elders living with us as well since their apartment recently had bedbugs, so they've been living with us since I got here... Cramped but fun and we found out they might be here for some time since the mission is looking to get them a completely new apartment for them... Messy messy :P. My only peeve.... Anyway, on Tuesday we had dinner with a less active family named the Wasco's and they are a group. I had my first experience of Philly driving when Bro Wasco gave us a ride and I have to say that I'm not exactly sure how I still have an arm or leg but I do :3. Philly drivers suck! But dinner was good, though their daughter Sherry scares me a bit... If Robin W. had a slightly taller more chunky form, & was from South Carolina, Sherry would be that girl, literally. The humor here is as dry as heck, I quickly learned which is alright. I'm a fan of fantastic Mr. Fox anyways so all is good. Oh before I forget guess where my companion previous ended up. Back in the same area he had come from (Wilmington), once again a district leader, with Elder Murphy :D! I do worry a bit about that combination though, a bit, since Murphy pulls a lot of shenanigans and jokes and Ballif was very stiff as to what he believed a missionary should be. I loved Ballif but he was stiff and opinionated. Everyone here since I got here has been getting sick and have been trying to do the same to me but I've fought hard with the power of emergency! And then I ran out so we will see how I end up haha. Things have been going well in this area though. Worked with a less active family that we call the LaytonBrown family which is a very interesting group. The house is literally just full of woman who are all somehow related to each other one way or another I don't know but the house is pretty crazy. The one lady has a full on beard 0.o... That one weirded me out but the lesson went ok though they didn't show up like they said they would :P. We also have a very new recent convert of Barkers who is Mr. Stevenson. Now how does one explain him, hmmm. Take that awkwardness of you listening over a conversation tuck and I would have over games, add excitement of Dad watching an amazing last moment basketball play, and then make the topic religion :3... You got that? Ya he is super awesome and super excited. Conference this past weekend was literally like a sports game for him and it was actually pretty sweet to see how excited he is, especially for a 22 year old who goes to temple university. I've had some pretty cool impressions this week, though my street contacting stinks. I find that if I at the very least just go through with it and try to talk with the person, we've had success since they will talk back. I've missed that about walking areas since in the past two areas there hasn't been as much chance just to talk with someone on the streets. Just said hi to a man sitting on a door step since I felt I should and he asked if we had a quit smoking program, so right then and there we set him up with the Frankford elders :3. Sorry things are everywhere. Just kinda thinkin and writing at the same time since my companion never seems to sync and I have no plans :P. So let's see here. We had dinner with a less active named Annie on Friday night. She is from Honduras and Barker has been working with her for some time. Funny as heck and we were able to get her out to a session of conference with us :D. Her son who is about five years old is funny as heck to. Has better hair than Tarzan and rather than saying people he will do something like who are these humans mom? Such a funny and cute kid. Played football Saturday morning for the first time in six months and my goodness am I hurting. It was a blast though, playing it in the rain. I haven't lost my supercharger legs too which Iam quite proud of when playing those games :3. But man the rest of the weekend with conference I could barely move :P. Conference was really good this year... Or I guess it's always good but it just happened and I'm a missionary and pay attention more so I got a lot more out of it. Y'all have any favorites? I'm going to go with Uchtdorf's first one, Quentin's priesthood one, and Bednars right at the very end alog with Monsons priesthood one. All were good I was just very fond of those ones :). Jörgs talk was good too! Goodness this letter is so scattered but it'll have to do.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Baptism

Side step over, B-Day, Long Exchange feeling :3

So, I see that you saw on Facebook, I put down that I now live in Easton Maryland, so that's good, was hoping that would happen :D. So don't have any worries about letters or packages cause I'm still in the same district and everything... this past transfer was a wacky one but I'll get to that in just a second. Things are going pretty well here. Easton is extremely nice my goodness I feel like I went a generation back or two when nice things were still being made for little towns such as this one ;). Its really weird too cause we have a ton of tourist towns within this area so I kinda feel like I'm in Moab again from time to time but instead of red dirt shirts and bike shops its crab cakes and sea related things :P. So not quite as good but we'll give it an A-. Also, this area is probably the second largest area in the mission since I guess a couple months ago it used to be two but then got absorbed and its just this big ol thing that covers the entire Delaware peninsula. Seaford being within the top five as well :P. So now that the scatter brain has kicked in lets see where the best place to start things would be... I guess Tuesday since that's where all of the craziness began. So before transfers even happened, on our way up to them, Leavitt and myself got caught in the midst of a closed down road that we looped through two or three times before we finally figured out how to get past that point and move on with our little road trip. My goodness I've never seen him so stressed, but that's ok cause we still made it relativily on time. But about a two hour trip got turned into a three hour trip so luckily we were able to leave a little bit earlier than normal :P. Transfers was really weird and when I say that I mean there were some very out of the ordinary things happening there this time. A Spanish tripod, two missionaries who had served with each other twice before becoming companions again and then like myself just making a mere sidestep in the district which like never happens hahaha. So, I'm with Elder Ballif now, who is pretty sweet. The only unfortunate thing is that I didn't have the area book for this area for three days so it felt like a ridiculously long exchange for me and still kinda does at some points since Seaford is just right there and I used to visit this area from time to time. This area is a bit slow at the moment but no where near like Seaford was just two months ago, my goodness its changed so much. ). Gosh I'm trying to think about what to report this week since most of the time poor Elder Ballif has been carrying me everywhere since I didn't have an area book. Anyway, Ballif has lost about fifty pounds on the mission which is pretty awesome but I am a bit worried about him since his diet seems to consist of grits and rice on a regular basis when we don't have meal appointments and such. Is a big fan of the Brat Diet I guess. Any who we have a lot in common which is pretty sweet. Debate, games, band, referencing everything all come into play here and its been pretty sweet thus far. He's also helped me to kick the 10:30 bad habbit of mine so we'll see how long of a streak I can hold for that one cause I'm almost a week through with being to bed on time hahaha, not like me at all right ;)? Thanks so much for all of the birthday gifts and wishes. They were really nice and very much needed. Especially the pants I was in pretty big need of them since I haven't been able to get to a dry cleaners yet to get my gray suit pants hemmed back up along with my black pants. So the Cambridge Branch is a bit of a peculiar branch. Probably the best way to describe it is that its a bit different. From what Elder Ballif has told me is that they really don't have the want to grow along with the fact that the big reason this branch exists is do to our ward mission leader who pretty much created and brought everyone into this branch. He however would like to see some more growth so we will have to get this area on fire too! Cambridge is the last branch in the Dover Stake and we had a man by the name of Brother Victory come in yesterday who is on the Stake Presidency and you can tell that his eyes are targeting Cambridge like non other. He wants to see full wards as a listing for this stake :D. He gave an epic talk yesterday too which isn't something I say very often besides when it comes to conference. We've got some potential coming up. Not too much happened this week in terms of reporting. I was offered a prosthetic leg by a man who is married to a member which I might actually receive this week haha. I told him I had the thought of going into prosthetics and he just right then and there was like ya want one? I got one in the shed from an old buddy of mine and if you want it you can have it.... Made of titanium too...