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