Glory Days, Back to Utah and Samoans?, Old Dog, Grinding Fridges

Where oh where in the world could this little missionary be, where oh where could he be? I'll let that sit for a moment other wise I might lose some viewers due to lack of suspense and tension. When you have only have about six viewers you need all the likes you can get otherwise the network might shut ya down ya know? But anyways onward with our... Wait what?... A shop where you can rent plants?... Oh my... So Elder Murphy and myself finished off our transfer by driving around Philadelphia and Camden New Jersey picking up all of the transferring missionary stuff. We learned pretty quickly that they are a lot easier to work with than those that are going home so our travels were quick and full of great music... Not much to report there. The rest of the day was dedicated to talking about all of the glory days and stuff from the mission as we cleaned and prepped the apartment, or at least I cleaned, Murphy really didn't feel like it since he had just done a double out in his last area. So Wednesday was an interesting day with transfers and all. I had hoped that they were just shuffling Elder Murphy and I around to another area since we had only been together for one transfer as service Elders but as you can guess it was just a hope. I am now with Elder Maiava who is from Samoa which is pretty cool. Good guy and from what I understand he played a little bit of professional rugby before coming out and has been out for almost nine months. And no they didn't transfer me to Utah haha however the ward reminds me a ton of the Utah Wards back at home. I am now in Wilmington Delaware (northern half this time and still not to far from Philly :P) in the Wilmington 2nd Ward. Literally the Ward is divided in half of people who work for Americas largest consulting company (almost all graduated from BYU) with the other half being lawyers... Who also graduated from BYU :P! I've never met so many people in my life who had told me that they were just in Moab a couple months ago and loved it all in a moment of about 5 minutes. But anyways enough about the people who actually come out teaching with me and how there school stole my schools colors. I learned this week that I have hit a peculiar age on the mission. Last transfer we had received info that over half of the mission was six months or less. Well with this past transfer that number has become even larger and besides our one zone leader who dies this transfer I trump everyone in the zone by eight to nine months :/...5 1/2 months to go and I've already been givin the nickname as the grandpa of the district bleck. I guess it's alright though. Elder Murphy and I joke about Elder Ballifs first words to me when we came into our companionship "I'm an Old Head, I'm stuck in my ways don't try to change me!". I don't have to worry though. I have a good comp. So I'm not going to report to much on the lessons this weeks since I just barely met most of these people and have nothing really to report on. The last two things I feel like mentioning at the moment is that of the last part of this weeks title. No not grinding fridges as in reference to dirty dancing but rather that it was making the most horrendous of noises when I got here but nothing to much besides that. Until Saturday morning when we woke up to find that only the freezer part of our fridge worked and all of our regular fridge stuff had passed away... And was quite smelly! My diet has consisted of oatmeal and meal appointment food so my digestive tract is all out of whack. My only hope is that I don't go lactose intolerant like some of the other missionaries :P. Anyways later that night we celebrated with the Ward Pioneer Day which was a bit of fun. Stick pull, tug of war, and lots of food and people to repeat the whole from Moab gig to but it was fun. Our apartment complex also shot off fireworks later that night which made no sense to me but it worked for the occasion so I won't complain. Well I love you all and am glad to see that you had a great week this past week with the cousins. Make sure you don't have to much fun with out me, I only have so much more time till I'm back ;)!

Abomination!!, Quick Awkward Exchange, Bronies and Military Nonsense, Up and Out..

Well this is how our past week went. It went pretty well...... Ok so really on Monday we were able to stop by our new Investigator Jefferey and have a bit of an exchange of matching beliefs. He didn't really allow for a lesson since he was the one mostly leading out and finding out what he could match up with us which was nice. He's really cool and I guess we will see what happens this coming visit on Tuesday. Tuesday we had a fun but also interesting day of exchanges. We had to deliver mattresses to the Sisters who would be going into a trio this coming transfer. It started off with us going down to the mission storage lockers where we had many strange encounters! We began removing mattresses and box springs when Elder Prue Identified that the many bugs found upon these slabs of material were bed bugs! But we were and still are ok, with no house infections or blood spots. No the true monstrosity was that of a large strange bug that our dear Elder Prue happened upon as he was moving a box spring and this abomination appeared from the inside of the box spring sending Mr. Prue out of the unit with a loud yelp. Proceed to 30 minutes of refinding, identifying, and failing at killing what I identified to be a spricket! They are nasty! Combine a cricket and spider that is about the size of the circle you can make with your thumbs and index fingers yeck! I'll make sure to send a pictures of the Abominable Cretan. I went with Elder Prue to New Jersey which was a blast. We had two drop offs in Cherry Hill, and Medford. The Sisters in Cherry Hill were super fun as we told them about everything that they had to do now that we had spread what might be a bed bug mattress into their apartment (it was in cased so they were fine). The second set however was super quiet and at first wouldn't come into their own house when we were there thinking that it was against the rules... We need to know where stuff is and also they show up to district meeting every week just fine so we finally got them in. Anyways all done we were on our way home. Half hour away we called Elder Murphy to see where they were and they hadn't even left philly yet to go down into Delaware. So without keys to either apartment we first helped the office senior missionaries till they left which was about an hour so it is about 5 pm by now. We make a call and Murphy is stuck in traffic and is still about 45 minutes away from his destination :/... So with nothing to do Elder Prue and I get onto LDS.org and turn on an old church movie called the "The Phone Call" (highly recommend it). Well about 10 minutes into it the AP's come in and see what we are doing and start acting as if we have both only been out just a few months saying how when they were a golden they used to watch that too and that it should be left till P-Day so that we could be more productive..... I've been noticing this a lot with the new leadership but I mean we had nothing else to do. We were at Broomall till 8 that night and then didn't get home till 10 since we had to go back to the storage unit. It's frustrating. Anyways Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Standing which was alright. He came out with Elder Litton so we had some fun conversations but past that we were never really able to make a solid connection on something to talk about. Oh well. Thursday we had to go back in for service. Nothing to particular there besides that we had to warn the dying missionaries that we would be coming to pick up their stuff the next day. This would have happened had not one of the missionaries (we will identify him as the Marine) complained that we hadn't given him any notice. We told him that it wasn't our job we were just telling him what we were doing. Well he scoffed at me and went to the AP's to make sure it was changed. Wrong move. Saturday was completely taken up by picking up luggage and I was thoroughly frustrated since only two of the leaving missionaries were preparing the whole week to go... The rest seemed to procrastinate till we showed up at the door... Where half weren't even there. Also we saved the Marines stuff for last :3. Oh and so last but not least Elder Murphy and myself are doubling out. It's my second one and done double out and it's pretty depressing since I really didn't accomplish anything here besides have my batteries recharged so I guess we shall see what happens here over the next few days. I love you all and wish you the best!

Some pictures!

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!.... CAUSE IT ISN'T!, Quality VS Quantity?, Inflatable

So... Eighteen months down with about six months to go I guess. And with three friends off, with three to go over the next few weeks it can get kind of nostalgic out here... Oh well I'll get over it. Anyways Elder Murphy and myself treated ourselves to an awesome lesson with Edwin and then had a McFlurry before going home that night. So here is the grind of this past week. So on Monday we had a meal appointment where I probably consumed the greatest amount of "organic" food in my life. We had our worries when they asked us what we liked to which we responded with Italian and American food. Well response to response read that well my husband can make you guys that but I only eat "raw" foods....... Oh boy haha. Well the meal appointment went well and I love the family but the meat loaf was made of turkey which was strange and had the texture of tofu :P. Their rolls were grand however on the side they had something called "Ghee"? I think that is what it was called, which was supposed to be all natural save the Panda's kind of deal I don't know but it was supposed to taste like butter. Definitely didn't resemble the taste at all :P! But great family non the less ;). Tuesday was mostly spent in Pep Boys waiting on our tires to be rotated and replaced as well as going to the Ronald McDonald to do service which is always a nice activity to go do. I met another naturalist hippy there too which was disappointing since I thought I had left the greater part of that brute back in Moab but he rebuked me for using to much water when I was scrapping my dishes off after our lunch there. Needless to say it was water on goose feathers to me. Wednesday we had three appointments set up for the evening but unfortunately two of them cancelled. Now this has happened quite a bit the past couple of weeks being here which has been very annoying and depressing but thankfully Edwin held who was our last appointment for the night and like always it went super well. We read 2 Nephi 9 which talks a lot a bout the atonement, which he thoroughly enjoyed, so all thumbs up. Since we didn't have time to go get a real milk shake or water ice afterwards I treated Murphy to a McFlurry for our 18 month mark, woot! Thursday was a bit strange. Most of the district is made up of missionaries in the other Ward, however they had a ward temple trip to do baptisms for the dead which left us, a pair of sisters, and our Senior couple for district meeting, I myself would have enjoyed the trip to New York over district meeting haha. We were supposed to have service with one of the elderly people in our Ward directly after but we arrived and he wasn't there... However while waiting I watched and saw a cat poke my first Cicada multiple times before I saved it! Elder Murphy interviewed someone for baptism later that night and I was left in a trio with our sisters which was interesting to say the least but we then shipped out home so I was ok. Friday we did service for the mission but unfortunately there wasn't any cool driving this time around :(. The mission is prepping about 8 cars to be sold so Elder Murphy and I had to do a complete checklist for all but one car saying whether or not it was ready and all but two cars were good to go. This took almost four hours, bleck! We went and got hoagies from a place called Wawa which is pretty popular around here and is really good but they switched mine and Elder Murphys sandwich and condiments up :/. We then doubled into the other wards sisters area which we quickly found to be full of rich people which is quite daunting when the largest buildings you are accustom to are super skinny and only two stories tall. One guy allowed us in who was husband to a less active member and we had a really good chat but he told us that no one could convince him to change religions, which he wasn't active in any of his anyways. We once again had three lessons set up but only the one held but it went very well. We taught Prince, Darius, and Sunnah how to have a family home evening which was fun, I taught them all how to play the flour game, where you slice bits and pieces off which they thoroughly enjoyed and then talked about receiving Patriarchal Blessings which really intrigued Darius. It was fun! Saturday was filled with Weekly planning as well as doubling into our wards sister area where we found a lot more dauntingly super rich people! Like seriously their houses are ginormous! We found a less active lady who was only less active due to not wanting to go into Philly for church, but anyways she locked us down on her porch for about two hours asking what was new in the church... And when she asked what was new she meant the church's new recommendation for individual member food storages :3. She also asked Elder Murphy what he did in the military which he responded that he was a bulk fuel Specialist. Nobody knows what that means but I guess she didn't hear the beginning part that he worked with big gas pumps (ten gallons a second sort of deal) and only heard the part about inflatable tanks... She was very confused on how the military was using inflatable tanks haha! Sunday we had two appointments and a member coming out with us just a little while after church, which all cancelled again! But thankfully we were able to drop by a less active who was a back up and also had an unplanned for meal appointment which was really nice and it worked out perfectly! We later proceeded to go and meet Kevin and Elle with their three day old baby! Super cute but beyond tiny. Came just a bit early by about three week and was only five or so pounds. Super cool though and from there we went to some recent converts homes to once again teach about Patriarchal blessings but I'm fine with that since its something different from the usual grind (which I desperately need right now :3). Once again I'm still not sure what the connection with Liberians and the TV show King of the Hill but apparently they love it :3. Well that about does it for the week. We went to an ok Chinese buffet today but that about does it.

7 Months to Disappointment, Soggy Roads and a Back Seat Mover, Quite a Blasphemous Lesson

Well, theoretically I feel that I should allow you to know that after seven months of waiting after the initial announcement I was quite disappointed today in my product of purchase. I will let you all know that I do not recommend the captain crunch doughnut hole that is now available at Taco Bell |:P. Yes a long shot I knew and a risk that was almost worth the dollar... Almost as in it was a grease ball, yeck! Anyways news of this past week Elder Murphy and I logged in over ten hours of drive time this past Tuesday as we traveled the mission moving apartments and making deliveries to unhappy Elders. We went all of the way down to Bear Delaware again to finish moving out the Hanks, again. They are a senior couple and super nice it's just Elder Hanks had a bit of a habit of telling us how everything needed to be done, as we did it the way it needed to be done, anyway. We then traveled four hours up to Honesdale to deliver an AC all the way, through driving through super heavy rain. We didn't get back till 10:30 that night :3. We once again didn't have to much going on for us this week but we were thankfully able to triple our lessons... It's not to much when the last weeks was only two but we had six none the less. Also we almost had a meal appointment daily which is strange to me. I like meeting all of the members and trying their delectables but I fear what follows since they always make sure you take large helpings :P. We had a really awesome lesson with one of our investigators Edwin. He had a few concerns about following the Prophet 100% as we began the lesson but we made sure that he understood that it's perfectly fine to have questions especially since he's not even a member yet. Without them how could we grow? We showed him President Monsons talk from this past October and as soon as he mentioned Daniel in the Lions Den, Edwin fell in love with him. Hopefully he will be baptized next month but we need to get him a new work schedule before he can. On Friday we had a very strange lesson with a less active part family couple. Sister Hicks and her non member husband David and the two little cousins that they take care of. We were going to have a lesson on the Plan of Salvation which kinda happened but Sister Hicks decided to do all of the teaching and taught one of those lessons that you just cringe to hear. The Celestial Kingdom is where God is but not many people will go there with the terrestrial being where most of us go and then the Telestial Kingdom is where all those who are still searching go? By the time she quit jabbing they asked us to leave since Dave had to go to work... We left them a pamphlet and asked them to read it :/. So I'm sorry if this letter is a little short and a bit boring but it's really distracting to write when you have two extra Elders around and the game of choice is "capture the gun" which involves the lacrosse stick I found and wrestling, to try and get your opponent off of it... Elder Murphy taught it to us and proceeded to have a thirty minute match with one of the other guys. All in all our house hold took the champion belt, woot!