Monday's are my favorite days - both Elder Hemsley's checked in!

Parker had a good first week!


Is this real life? Jk

First week is in the books!  We arrived in Arizona on Tuesday.  We were greeted by President Toone, his wife, and his assistants.  As you can see he is a massive guy!  Very friendly and very funny.  We went straight to the mission home, did a few welcome to Tempe meetings and presentations.  For the sake of time to write everything I wont go into details.  He then let us take a nap!!! He was like i'm sure you all are exhausted from traveling and stuff so go take a two hour nap and then we will head to the Mesa Temple to walk around.  So funny.  Elder Bradley was my roommate for that and we could stop laughing one because we got to sleep and two because we actually are in the feild finally.  After those events we came back had some interviews, had dinner and went to a host family's for the night.

Wednesday was transfer meetings.  It was like a pep rally almost.  Tons of missionaries, all from their respective areas.  President Toone did some speaking, and then he started to call out transfers.  My companion is Elder Goff.  He is from a farm in Idaho.  I am the 4th person he has trained! So he is pretty much a pro at it.  He gave me a sweet tie when I came to give him a hug!  After transfer meeting we collected all of our things from the trailers.  Yep me bedding, my bike, my camel back are all set and working great.  The bike is such a nice bike holy cow.  We then had a few more meetings got our credit cards, did some paper work.  And listen to this... Yes I am a facebook mission so I had to clear out everything.  I will be using it for proselyting everyday.  Also We are a completely paper free mission.  Everyone is assigned Ipads!  They are used for our area books, our schedule, and we can use LDS library to show investigators videos.  Everything has to be pre downloaded because they only work on the church's wifi! I thought ethan would be a little jealous of that ahaha.  Tempe is where the first presidency tests out all of their new equipment and new methods. Then I went out and gave a few messages and met people

Thursday was my first real day out in the field.  I go running with Elder Goff every morning, so Emily i may be able to give you a run for your money when I get back!  Then we met a few less actives.  I am still trying to get used to all the names.  Then we taught a lesson to a lady named catalina.  She had already been taking the discussions but we taught her lesson three which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I committed her to be baptised and she said yes! So that is kinda in the works . She is out of town for a long time so the baptism wont be until mid August.  It is nice because we always have dinner appointments.  Haven't gone one day without a member giving us food.  other than that it was a slow week because everyone was going out of town for fourth of July.  Tempe gets these Giant dust storms and they are freaking crazy,.  We had to bike the hardest I have ever had to bike in the 110 degree heat to get out of the storm and back to the church.  I live with the zone leaders and they drove us back to the apartment and called it a night.  

Friday was fourth of July and literally everyone was out of town. We just found and gave a few messages.  Then at 5 we had to be in.  President toone approves some music which is nice, like Josh Groban, and other musical instrument songs. So we played music and played ping pong!   He approved using a few recreational activities such as ping pong for that day since we were stuck in the house at 5.  So we played on this tiny table and one of the ZL's had a net and padles.  It was basically minature ping pong ahah.  That was such a great night and really bonded with the Elders, becasue before that I really didnt know them.  Elder Chote, and Elder Gilliand are the ZL's they are both super funny.  So Elder Goff and them have been out for like 18 months so I really feel like a newbee.  haha

Saturday we biked around visited less actives, and some investiators.  Like I said it was tough becasue everyone was out of town.  That day went by kindof fast.  There was more to it, but I forgot what I wrote in my journal about it.  We did eat dinner with the Bate family.  They are a really really old couple, but are absolutely hilarious.  They bicker and mess with each up but truely love each other.  He Brother bates loves to mess with missionaries, very blunt.  Apparently he made the last missionary cry haha

Sunday was kind of a change because you still have to work hard.  We had to bike to chruch in our suits in the heat.  Absolutely brutal.  But I went up bared my testimony in scarament meeting to like 40 people becasue the rest were gone.  The other meetings went well, just your typical church meetings.  Although, if I have to explain one more time why I don't have an accient i think I might scream! haha it's yes i'm from Georiga, no I don't have an accent, becasue I lived in north georgia and my parents don't have accidents... blah blah... After that we taught a few lessons visited a very interesting gamer family named the Delaughters.  Really nice just really odd  That was about a tenth of all that happened.  I'm just a bad typer and to much to say in the little time I have!  I will try to send some pictures real quick too. 

Ethan had a good week too!

Helllloooooooo Mum. 

I know I may say this a lot, but this week was totally all over the place.  By Thursday I had been on three exchanges in 7 days.  So I rarely had the same comp for more than two days.  They were my first exchanges that I had conducted on my mission as DL, so that was pretty sweet.  Went everywhere from the middle of nowhere to super ghetto inner city Denver.  So if any week has the right to be called all over, this one certainly does. 

Hope everyone had a good fourth of July, and hope Parker has had a good first week.  The day I got into the mission was literally the longest day of my life.  Up at two, bus ride, plane ride orientation, & back to your area to work before dark.  

Fourth of July is always the weirdest day to try and do missionary work.  And ours was made doubly hard since we had to drive on a donut.  Blehhh.  But we did go to a ward Barbecue with most of the families that I've met so far.  That was fun, even if it did rain a bit. 

Anyways, here's a run through of my week:

Monday was cut short because I exchanged with the Strausburg Elders and had to go all the way out to their area.  If you've never heard of the bustling metropolis of Strausburg, Colorado, you wouldn't be the only one haha.  Maybe 3000 people.  But there are enough members there and in a few of the neighboring towns to make a ward.  Thats where Elder Johnston and Elder Rampton work.  And man they have a ton going for them there.  They hit 25 lessons in one week there.  That evening we ate dinner with a family whose name i cant recall, but we spent wayy too much time there.  Took forever.  But they did give us an old couch that they had no use for.  We put it in the bed of our truck and then went on our way to a lesson that fell through.  After trying some more people, we spent the rest of the night attempting to get the couch into their second story apartment.  We determined it was impossible so we ended up pitching it.

Tuesday was the busiest day I've had in a while.  The Strausburg ward has a lot of missionary work.  We did some service that morning, and then we went to a lesson with a lady named Dolores Tippet.  She was very interested in the gospel, but was letting unimportant things get in the way.  Ultimately they determined that they were going to take a break from teaching her and resume in a month or two.  Good lesson though.  Then the Johnson family, the member who went to the lesson with us, took us out to lunch.  The small town feeling is kinda nice.  Everyone knows everyone else.  Really friendly.  

After that we went wayyyyy out into the boonies to teach a lady named Vai Sperling and her LA roommate Jeff.  That was a pretty good lesson, but Jeff kinda tried to dominate the lesson and make the visit all about him.  But Vai is cool.  She's gonna get baptized as soon as her divorce is final.

After that we had an appointment to go visit the Cowart family.  Big mistake.  They have a daughter who is nine that the missionaries have been teaching, but the Dad refuses to let her get baptized.  The missionaries had never met him before, and so we started talking to him and the reason came out.  He is super super anti.  We basically had to endure his ranting and his beefs with the church doctrine for about 40 minutes.  It was horrible.  The spirit totally left the room and didn't really come back for the rest of the night.  I advised Elder Johnston to drop the Cowart family and not continue teaching them.  He didn't like that very much haha.  oh well.  

Ate dinner with another family and taught a less active kid named Johnathan.  Good guy.  Then I went and gave a baptismal interview to Dan Ellington, their investigator who got baptized two days ago.  Long day!  Elder Johnston is a good missionary so I think I learned more than I taught haha. 

Wednesday was good.  District meeting in the morning, where everyone had the opportunity to bear their testimony of the BOM and how it has helped their investigators receive conversion.  then we got to visit and chat with our new mission president, President Mehdenhall.  Great guy.  excited to work with him.

We had a few appointments fall through, but ended up teaching a former investigator named Verra Tursow.  She seemed interested in continuing to learn!  Cool older lady.  

Ate dinner by ourselves, and then we had an appointment with the Lakes that got rescheduled.  So we visited the Bishop and his family that night.  First time I really had the chance to meet them. 

Thursday was a good day.  Elder Tonga came to our area and Elder Lee went to the Buckley ward.  He is a cool guy from the south mission.  We taught 3 investigator lessons.  One with Otis, a former who seems a little hesitant but very receptive to the spirit.  Then we taught Darwin and Carmen.  So legit.  We talked about the Plan of Salvation for a long time.  They wouldn't let us leave they were so interested!  Great people.  

Ate dinner with the very odd Yeckley family, and then we taught the Rowley family afterwards.  She was the YW rep for girls camp and we talked about the non-members who went.  They had a great experience.  

When talking with Elder Tonga, I discovered that his comp, Elder Poor, was really nervous and not-wanting to go on an exchange with me.  The basic reason is that I had given him a few suggestions to consider when he asked how he could better his ward, and he didn't like them.  Apparently he was nervous about having to work harder than he wanted to when he was with me.  That made me sad :P  He's a good guy, but very shy.  Missionary work is hard for the shy. 

Friday was lame cause we spent the majority to the morning trying to change our tire.  We broke our old jack, and then had to solicit the help of the zone leaders and brother Mata'ele.  

Did some planning, appointments cancelled, went to the Ward BBQ, and had to turn in at 6. 

Saturday was crap.  Suffice it to say that all appointments fell through, and we had to jump through hoops to try and get our car repairs approved

Than Sunday was good except for a meeting in the morning with the Stake that i was totally unprepared for.  It was my first one :P

Church went well except for an Elder's quorum lesson that went way political.  But darwin and carmen had a great time none the less.  Carmen wants to be baptized and Darwin is really getting there.  They just need to get Married!!  But that's really easy to fix.  

Anyways, that was my week.  I'm in a bind for time so i gotta go.  Love all of you!  Tell Grandpa to email me an article or two regarding the Book of Mormon's prophecies of America if he can.  Strange request I know.  

Love you! 

Elder Efan