Another One Down

June 20, 2016

Helllllooooo!!!! Well, another transfer down for Elder Ericson! 14 down, 3 to go! Its crazy how time flies. Especially after hitting a year. And then after 18 months weeks seem like minutes. Its absurd. I think I have finally gotten used to my days just seemingly passing by like a dream. It doesn't freak me out as much anymore. I literally lay my head down, wake up, and then lay my head down again. I think it may be a result of having the same-ish life every single day of the week. There are no such things as weekends out here and your schedule is the exact same every day, so there is no way to judge anything off of. So that's been great. Anyway, this past transfer was pretty sweet. Had lots of fun, worked really hard, and did some good work. Very successful transfer! Not in the sense that we taught a lot of people and helped a lot of people progress, but in the sense that we were committed and were diligent! As far as work wise, it was tough. Not too much going on. We were able to find new people to teach pretty regularly, but they never really went anywhere past a lesson or two. But, we don't measure our success by numbers here in the Texas Lubbock Mission so I can say that we had a successful transfer! Bring on the next 3!

Also, btw, we received transfer calls Saturday night. I will be staying in Abilene this transfer and will get a new companion, Elder Moschetti! Elder Moschetti was my district leader in Lubbock, and my zone leader in Odessa for a total of 4 transfers, so it will be pretty normal! I am pretty excited! Elder Moschetti is a real good missionary and we will work hard together and be very diligent! Bring on the sweat! Also, along with that, it has not only been getting hotter (approaching 100 degrees, but the humidity here has been up between 80%-90%! So it has been a little different than my summer last year in the dry heat of Odessa!

Really not much to report on this week besides a couple things. We went to the temple on Saturday and it was quite fantastic! Probably my best temple experience yet! I was just putting tons of stuff together the whole time and the spirit was helping me understand tons of stuff the whole time. So the endowment session itself was pretty sweet. And after that session we helped with some sealings for the brother that we went up with! I had never done any sealings before so that was pretty sweet! We were both just the witnesses, but it was still pretty sweet! I am excited to be able to go to the temple a lot more often when I go home! Definitely won't take for granted having a temple 30 minutes away! Also, I was sitting there in the Telestial Room waiting for the session to start, and I looked up at a brother walking into the room, and it was my old friend Coleman Merrill! He is down in Lubbock for his reception after getting married up in Utah a few weeks ago! So that was interesting. We sat together in the Celestial Room for a bit and talked about life. Good stuff. Gotta love the people you find at the temple! Another pretty interesting thing about that trip. We asked a member if he would be willing to go with us (we can't drive ourselves there) and he was very willing to go. Well, turns out he hasn't been to the temple in years and he had just the greatest experience going back after years and years of not going! He was just super appreciative that we invited him! So that turned out to be a win. We had no clue! So overall it was just a wonderful day at the temple!

We did some pretty sweet service a few days back. We spent some time two days in a row helping construct a shed. That was a lot of aligning, measuring, and putting together. Didn't even get nearly done with it. However it was some good work. But, here's the good stuff, after spending a total of like 6 hours working on carefully constructing a shed, we got a call to go help demolish a fence! So we went straight from our shed project and went from careful construction to being able to just destroy something! Oh man, it felt so good. I just took that little crow bar and took whack after whack tearing that sucker down! There is nothing better than a bunch of guys doing guy stuff like demolition! Good times!

As for the work this week. We had worked hard and got hardly anything. We taught one lesson, had a few less-active lessons if you could even consider them lessons, and had a bunch of service hours. But we tried and tried and tried to teach, but all of our appointments fell through and none of our potentials were around to teach. One difficult thing that we face now in the summer is the proselyting curfew in Abilene. In the summer the best times to find people is about 7-9 in the evening. However, we legally aren't allowed to actively engage in gospel conversation after 7. We can stop by people that we have already previously contacted and have appointments at that time, but we can't knock on doors just to knock and we can't approach people and engage in conversation that we normally would. So, our best finding time can't be productive finding time. Our only time to find is when its really hot and nobody wants to go outside. So hopefully we can find a way to work around that!

Anyway, thats pretty much all I got for ya this week. I am excited for another transfer of good missionary work here in Abilene! My time is getting short so its time to go go go! I love y'all and want y'all to know that there is no greater blessings than the blessing that we receive through the restored gospel! May the Lord bless you this week as you strive to follow him and exemplify him!

God bless ya!

Much love,

Elder Reed