Great Week from Elder Hemsley #2!

Man this transfer is flying by!  I am already in week 4!  Looks you are finally getting out of the tiny
hut which you called home for almost a year.  It looks like you are literally gutting the new house to. 
You will have to send me pictures of the finished product! I cant believe Ethan will be home soon!
Its gotta be getting close? Is it his last transfer?  That is going to be weird calling in Christmas and
he being sitting at home and I am the one on the other line haha.  This week was pretty stressful
but awesome.  Training is going good.  Elder C is a very emotionless person,  the very
unenthusiastic type.  But he is a great missionary so that is really all that matters. He does love to
disagree with me in pretty much anything, and to pick apart everything I say.  It doesn't have to be
about missionary work either haha.  Probably  just a way of him trying to have an opinion since he
is older but I have been out longer.  But we get along fine, and we get alone as a house really well.

Monday: Monday after we emailed then went shopping.  We have to bike with all our groceries
home now becasue the zone leaders cant pick us up and neither companionship in our house
 have a car.  So that was interesting.  Then after that we got permission from the AP's to go to
Arizona Mills mall since Elder C and Elder S needed new suits.  It was crazy because everyone
 just stairs at us the whole time.  Plus after being a missionary the mall seems so worldly, fine
apparel, shiny lights, crowded halls.  Kindof funny.  I am pretty sure I have actually been to that
mall before.  I think Dad Emily and I went to it when we were flying home from provo when Ethan
was at BYU, small world right?  I did however manage to buy to sweet ties haha.

Tuesday: We had zone meeting so the zone leaders and sister training leaders trained us instead
of the district leaders.  Our zone has be destroyed with emergency transfers, and people going
home for medical reasons.  So our zone so small.  In the past they are usually like 25 people
now ours like like 8... haha We then had a few lessons with some new investigators which was
pretty awesome.  Still kindof bummed how we lost a bunch of people because of the ward changes.
 We then had the T family boys baptismal interview so Elder S did that.  They both did great so they
would be baptized that upcoming Saturday.  Then we mapped out the new area we have which is
going to take some time since we are on bikes and it got a lot bigger.

Wednesday:  Was a less productive day proselyting because we all got to gather as a mission and watch

Meet the Mormons! I loved it! If you havent gotten a chance to go see it, go.  It was incredible.  The church
 has gotten so much better at producing movies and media.  So yeah we are kindof hipster because we
saw the movies before the public soo yeah.. jk  Then we had a few meetings where president Toone
 addressed us.  He always says he has a quick thought but the thoughts end up taking a long time
haha but I love listening to him speak.  I would sit there listening all day if I could.  We visited the
oldest part of our area where some of the older families live.  I think we surprised them because
missionaries dont go there to often.  Families came up to us at church thanking us because the
older members were talking all about it and were so happy that we stopped by.  We did however
have to do a lot of biking because of visiting them.  It was worth it though. 

Thursday:  Was alright of a day.  Not much happened becasue we didnt have a lot of luck visiting
 people. I pretty much had to plan the Toledo's entire baptism because our ward mission leader is
released and was out of town.  The entire ward was at a ward camp out and the T family weren't
answering on who they wanted to do what for the baptism.  We didnt have anyone to print and
 make the programs and we were afraid since the ward camp out was Thursday to Friday, and
Friday to Saturday that nobody would show for the baptism.  So I was a little stressed out that day. 
We had a lesson with a new nice lady and her daughter and our member was sick but still decided
to come.  So he proceeded to cough, sneeze, lay there, fall asleep, and play with the families pet
bunny while we tried to teach them.  Note to self never take that member to any more lessons haha.  

Friday:  We had weekly planning and to be honest it is tough to plan for stuff when we have pretty
much baptized our teaching pool (which is a good thing to) and we lost most of the people we stop
 by.  It was good though because I was able to find someone to print out the program and we got
all the information from the T family, we let all the auxiliary people know.  Elder C always focuses
on the pointless things.  I am like we have a freaking baptism tomorrow and you want to just sit there
 and put in our daily things that we dont even need to put in the area book app... But something I am
going to work on is I kindof realized I try to do everything myself to much even when I was the junior
companion.  So I need to start getting him to be more involved because he is the one being trained,
and even if he is unwilling to.  

Saturday: We had the baptism!!! It turned out great! They asked me to perform the baptism so that
was my first time baptizing someone! It was an amazing experience.  I was super nervous but once
I got into the water, all the nerves just went away and both baptisms went smoothly minus one of the
boys legs coming up the first time haha!  The baptism was a success.  There was a great turnout to. 
I have realized the people that come to the baptisms are the members that I have gotten the closest to. 
They dont even know who is being baptized sometimes, they just come to support me since I have
been in the ward for a while and each of my companions havent.  This feels like the ward I have been
 going to my whole life.  It is crazy! It will be sad when I get transferred.  After the baptism we hit the
bikes and visited people from the new ward.  We stopped by this one members home.  Randomly like
 we were like, lets go by this guy.  We skipped tons of people just to go to this person.  He lives alone
went inactive for a little while and deals with depression and other emotional problems.  He was really
nice at first but started to question who sent us to his home, and we were like umm nobody... (in actuality
it was the spirit but nobody from the ward did).  He broke down in to tears saying he was afflicted but
never said what.  So we gave him a blessing and a hug and he was really grateful. 

Sunday:  Was the first official day with the ward being twice as big.  So we shook so many new hands
 just trying to get to know everyone.  It was packed too.  Then we had the Toledo boys confirmation
which they asked me to do also since I am the one who has taught them since they moved here.  We
 have established pretty good fellowship but the mom really wanted me to do both the baptism and the
confirmation.  The first was I was pretty nervous but after I started speaking most of the nerves went
away.  I dont even remember what I said really but people kept coming up to me saying it was
wonderful.  So I got to do my first baptism and confirmation this weekend! How cool is that. 
I didnt get any pictures at the baptism so I will try to get Sister T to send some to you guys or
post them on facebook!  We then had ward councel which is always a blast in this ward.  Bishop
said they had a goal of 10 baptism this year and since I have been here there has been 6 so I think
we are close if not already reached that goal!

That was my week!  It was pretty awesome with Meet the Mormons, then the baptism, the blessings,
and then meeting the new ward! It was an exhausting week.  Now I am stressing because we need to
find new people to teach! haha  Other than that how has you guy's week been?  I will try to send some
pictures soon, I just always run out of time haha! Love you all!  

Love 

Elder Hemsley #2

Six Weeks and Counting Down! - Then He is Home

"Hello Elder Hemsley, this is Sister Hollingsworth in the mission office.  What airport would you like to fly into next transfer?"

UMMMMMMMM WHOA. 

Thats how my week started this week.  All of the sudden my days were numbered haha.  Although I suppose they've been numbered for you guys for the whole time.  But it was a real eye opener for me.  I didn't know how to answer that question haha.  Deer in headlights for sure.

Anyways, Hello everyone!  Hope life is swell back in the ATL.  Its been cool to see all of the pictures of the new house!  Can't wait to come home and help out with everything.  That looks like a super sweet deck in one of the pictures.  Can wait to get some serious grilling going on that one.  

Life here in the G V ward has rather interesting this week.  The biggest source of craziness was that we ended up totaling at over 140 miles OVER what were were supposed to on the car last month haha.  So by the end of the week we were told that we had to park it for a few days and bike.  That whole thing just totally makes me laugh just cause of how ridiculous it was, but I''l tell you more about it a little farther down.

We also found a bunch of new investigators this week, which was sick.  Since we dropped everyone, we've had a lot more time to tract, which Elder A hates haha.  But I keep reminding him that we ALWAYS find somebody when we tract here in A.  Getting them to actually keep commitments... is a different story. 

So Monday was a super rainy P-day.  It Stormed and hailed for sooo long.  And plus the church was closed cause the carpets were being cleaned, so what does that leave us to do?  Play football in the rain!  haha.  Recently the Elders in the zone have been going through a football phase instead of basketball, so I broke down and started playing with em.  It's been fun!  Caught a touchdown and got a bunch of sweet blocks.  It may seem silly, but its kinda a big deal for me haha.  

Didn't have a dinner that night so we went to the F's.  She is pretty much the mission mom and will always have extra food for the Elders.  We needed it too, cause we were broke haha.

Did a lot of finding that night.  Eliminated a few potentials from our books. and found some more people to take their place.  Parker must be having a completely different experience, cause everything that we do is on paper.  Its kinda frustrating. 

Tuesday was a neat day because we got to go help the ward clean the new building and get it ready for the open house in a few weeks.  We showed up and there wasn't a ton to do at first, but we hung out with Brother C and found a few things that we were needed for.  Its a nice building, but very different from the one that we are in right now.  The basketball court is perpendicular to the chapel if that makes any sense.  Kinda cool!

Had DLC's that day which was less than productive.  There aren't a whole lot of people who are really behind this new Zone vision that they're pushing.  As Elder R put it: "Its like telling a three year old to paint a picture of a flower.  No matter what the kid hands to you when they're done, you're gonna tell them 'Oh what a pretty flower! Good Job."  I thought that was an apt comparison haha.  I initiated a referral finding contest in the district this week to try and help people "One Up" their new investigators.  

Hung out in the sketchy C Ave. area of our ward and did some contacting around there.  Thats when I got the above mentioned phone call.  That was a super weird feeling haha.  Then we found this lady named Elizabeth who at first seemed interested, but then slowly helped us understand that not only was she not interested, she was NUTS hahaha.  It was hilarious.  We were at her door for like 45 minutes listening to her rant.  She started talking about how our church is the "richest church in America" whatever that's supposed to mean, and then pretty soon she had drifted off in to ranting about everything from bad doctors at the CU medical campus, to Obama.  I love stuff like that.  They're just stories to tell haha.  

Ate dinner with Sister Y at Outback Steakhouse.  That was a treat.  She is a single older lady who loves to eat haha.  So that was fun.  Then we went to our appointment with J and taught him the first lesson.  He's a cool guy, but man if he gets going he wont shut up.  He's attended every church from Catholic to JW to Scientology, but he has never found what he has really been looking for.  Thats where we come in!  Great lesson, but you gotta fight to get words in. 

When we had our correlation meeting with Brother M.  He's been having some adverse reactions to his stomach surgery, so he's been out of commission for a while.  Which doesn't really help considering we were uninvited to ward council last week.  Nothing we did, just a change in emphasis in the stake.  We need that ward interaction :P

Wednesday was cool.  Went to work out in the morning with the other Elders, and then we did studies at the church.  Then we were there till District meeting where I unveiled a new tool for everyone to start using.  I made copies of an old "My Personal Vision" chart that Toombs gave us a while ago, and challenged them to have their own vision that they can recite to themselves.  Just like the one we have from Preach My Gospel.  It was cool.  Then Sister B gave a training on the Plan of Salvation.  

After lunch we had a lesson with a new investigator named Theresa.  Taught her lesson one and it went super well.  One big thing we run into with people is the idea of moral relativism, and that everyone can "walk after the desires of their own heart" and "do what is right in their own eyes" like the Book of Mormon says.  She was like that.  But still pretty solid,  

Did some more finding and then came across a lady who had a great grandmother who was LDS.  So she invited us back!  Then we ate dinner with the B Family.  

That evening we taught Jeremy , a native American dude who's been going through a lot of hard times.  Potentially going to get a divorce.  Thats always tough.  We gave him a blessing and then he taught us some Kung Fu moves on his big wooden Wing Chung dummy haha.

Thursday Was dominated by us having to go down to Firestone and get an oil change, where we struck up a conversation with this old Black dude named Dave.  I'm so glad I grew up in Atlanta sometimes haha.  Helped me learn how to speak Jive a little bit haha.  Plus he loved jazz and such.  Invited him to the open house and everything.  

Tracted after lunch and found a Hispanic lady named Ingard who we taught the first lesson to right then and there,  She was super cool and had been eyeballing the new church building every time she drove by.  Its in a great location.  She's Catholic but doesn't like the whole Saints thing.  Can't blame her haha.  Idolatry never was happiness :P

Ate dinner with the C's that evening.  We had to sit our on the porch for like 30 minutes cause brother C was running late.  Cool family.  

We had an appointment with a guy named Brother C that night, but he bailed.  Not to surprised about that one.  Dude looked like a cave man.  

Then we had an awesome experience with the Sisters that evening.  They are teaching a guy named Cletus, who has proven to be a little too gangster for them.  So what do they do?  Give him to US!  It was such a funny hand-off lesson.  It was like trying to teach Snoop Dog.  It was the best.  Somehow I earned the nickname "the General" right off the bat.  We were all trying not to bust a stitch while he was talking,  He was a little out of it haha.

We're totally going to go back. 

Friday was boring.  Service in the morning, lunch at Churches Chicken, and then we planned for a lot of the afternoon.  Then we got a call the the Zone Leaders wanted to come "talk" with us.  I was a little nervous to see what that was all about, but I had a hunch it was about the Mileage thing.  When they finally got there, they basically treated us like two year olds and gave us a lecture on how "there are consequences for our actions."  Then Elder  insinuated that we had used it for non-missionary purposes which was bogus.  So the result?  The car got parked for a couple of days.  Don't get me wrong, I totally get that we could have done better with miles, and I don't even mind getting the car parked to make up for the mileage.  But they went about it in such a condescending, holier than thou way.  They basically told us that we needed to repent.  All it would have taken was a simple "Hey so we talked to the office and we need to park your car for a few days to make up for the mileage that you blew."  I would have been fine with that.  But instead they took the opportunity to try and "chasten" us.  

Ate dinner with the N family and all of their extended Polynesian family.  Some of them requested that I play guitar for them since they had seen me play at Rosetta's.  So I played them a version of Nephi's courage off of the Poly-Trunky CD.  Its a CD some Polynesian missionary made of a bunch of songs that he wrote, arranged and recorded while on his mission.  I've gotten pretty good at singing and playing simultaneously since I've been out.  

Visited the very awkward P family that night, and then we went home like 20 or 30 minutes early cause Church's chicken wasn't sitting well with us.  Then the zone leaders showed up to take our keys.  I was cool with it until they started asking why we had come in so early.  I told them why, but we got a bit of a lecture about staying out until nine.  I thought that was kinda funny since they had showed up at our place at 8:40 instead of nine like they had said they would.  Basically what that meant was that they didn't have anything to do in their area, so they came to our place early.  And then they lecture us about the same thing.  It was a tad frustrating.  Not that I'm diminishing the importance of staying out until nine, but still.  

Conference weekend was pretty cool, but relatively uneventful for proselyting.  We watched the first two sessions at the Wilkes family's home, Watched Priesthood at the church, and then watched the Sunday Sessions at the M's place.  Some overarching themes that I picked up on were Self-reliance, agency, and the importance of prophets.  Christoferson has become my new favorite to watch and listen to.  The dude is a stud.  Bednar's was my other favorite, and I also remember Elder Cook's being really good too.  

Aside from conference, we ate lunch with Sister C on Saturday, got stood up for a few investigator appointments, and ate dinner with the A family on Sunday.  Then we finished off the week by visiting the W family, a really young couple with a 13 month old.  They were really cool too.  Made me start to think of how close that could be for me... yikes.  

Anyways, I would still chalk this one up to one of the better weeks that we have had this transfer.  Hopefully this one will be even better.  

Love you!

Elder Efan