Days Go By

March 9, 2015

Time keeps flying by! Officially another transfer down! I guess I will just get this out of the way early, I am staying in Sweetwater to finish training Elder Cardon. I am hardly even training him anymore... we are basically doing training together. Hahaha we still work on stuff and I take the lead for "training" stuff but he is hardly a young buck anymore and my level of knowledge isn't too crazy above his! So we have been learning and growing together! It’s been good!

Well this week was a pretty regular week. I went on exchanges on Tuesday and went to Abilene. And our district leader in the Spanish Branch so I got to practice mi espanol a little bit. I'm pretty rough these days with espanol... I did alright though. Except I accidentally said "gracias" the spanish way with the "th" instead of the "s" sound like a million times. I had to correct myself every time so that they wouldn't think I was an idiot. Oh well, I was never harmed. Which I don't think they cared one bit but whatever. It was weird though, we got fed both lunch and dinner in Abilene. That was an odd experience for me! But it was a good exchange with Elder Cuessy aka Elder Cosmo. Also one other cool thing from Tuesday is that at district meeting while our cars were being inspected we were drawing our home states on the chalk board and one of the sisters drew Hawaii and said that she was from Oahu. I mentioned that the old football coach from my high school went to Kahuku High School and apparently that’s just right down the road from her school. Turns out, she apparently knows Lee Leslie somehow. I will have to investigate a little more on how she knows him.

This week was full of trying like a million people. Since it has been cold we haven't been able to find new people. So we wrote down the names of tons of former investigators that had "try back later" on their teaching records and wrote down the names of all the less-actives that lived in Sweetwater that didn't have a "they hate us" by their name. Oh, and we also wrote down names of like 20000000 former potential investigators to try as well. Well, we had almost zero luck with that. Hahaha! We did knock into a pretty interested lady up in the really nice houses. So we are going back this week and hopefully will be able to teach her entire family! That would be solid!

On Wednesday night we went in to teach Paul with zero precipitation but cold weather. 20 minutes later when I opened the door to leave the ground was covered in snow and it was just flying down out of the sky! It wasn't your normal snow though, this stuff was more like white sand on the ground! It was really weird stuff that I have never seen before! It has warmed up now and it is supposed to stay warm for the rest of the spring, so that’s good!

They had a farewell get together for the Verschoors on Friday night at the church since they are moving today, so we went for a while. When he shook my hand goodbye all he said was, "Elder, see you in Adam-Ondi-Ahman!" and then we joked about how all the missionaries that have passed through Sweetwater in the last couple years will all just pile up in their guest bedroom if/when we go there for the big day. The second coming is all the rage with these people down here. I probably get into a conversation at least a few times a week with people on the streets about it and then sometimes it comes up at church too. People don't seem to be worried about it though so that’s good, even though I know for a fact some of them need to be a little more worried about it. Hahaha

We had stake conference this weekend. We went into Abilene on Saturday night for the adult session and on Sunday. The topic picked by the first presidency for the adult session was an interesting one. I can't remember if you have had stake conference or not but if you haven't you will soon find out. Then on Sunday the topic was daily prayer and scripture study. Very simple but VERY important and I think a lot of people got a lot out of that meeting! President and Sister Heap were there and both only talked for a few minutes. Pres. Heap blew it out of the water and everyone was just sitting there like "What just happened?" I went to the bathroom after the meeting and the stake president came into the bathroom and started to talk to me about him and said that he hears missionaries all the time say how their mission president will be an apostle someday but really have no idea what they are talking about. But he said that Pres. Heap will no doubt be a very high leader of the church someday sooner rather than later! I just hope they let him finish his time up as mission president!

Another tidbit of info, we are the only companionship in our zone (11 companionships) that wasn't changed this transfer! So that’s pretty crazy! My zone really hasn't had tons of changes while I have been here until this transfer!

We didn't teach much this week. Just a few small lessons to people you already know about. So not much to report there. But we were able to stay busy with stuff and that’s the important part. Time goes by fast if you are always doing something. Sometimes the evenings go by a little slow because the people we planned to visit fall through but they aren't too bad at all. 

I had my first homemade chicken fried steak yesterday! It was very yummy! The Thompsons were amazed that it was my first time ever having homemade chicken fried steak and always tell me I am food deprived when we talk about meat. I just tell them that nobody has food like that in Idaho and that a lot of the good meats down here are smoked and people don't smoke meat in Idaho very much!

Anyway, I hope y'all have a good week this week and are able to have continued good weather up at home!

Love, Elder Reed Ericson