Week 58 Journal: 19 wards in my new area

Week 58 Journal

Monday, August 7th, 2017:

P-Day was spent with me packing for my transfer, as well as shopping, and emailing.  I have a fairly large amount of stuff, but the majority are missionary things that I'll leave behind or otherwise donate before I go home.

I said goodbye to a few people, including Suaad, but didn't get to say goodbye to everyone.  We had a lesson with Suaad and bumped into the other people I said goodbye to. Unlike some other missionaries, I don't like to tour around to say goodbye to everyone.  I'll try to visit some of them after my mission, though.

I've been put with Elder Parnes in the East Millcreek and Canyon Rim area.  It's in the same zone that I’ve been in for the past three transfers. Elder Parnes is on his third transfer now, so he just got done being trained. This is still his first area. He's my first companion who has been out significantly less time than I have.  He's from Maryland, Southeast of DC.  He has Crohn's disease, which can make his body physically less capable of handling stress.  He doesn't shirk from missionary work, however, and tries hard to be obedient.

Elder Wagley got another companion who's been out the same amount of time, named Elder Wagley.  No joke.

Tuesday, August 8th, 2017:

My moving apartments went quickly.  The whole process tool less than an hour.  The apartment is fair.  It's not the best of the four I've been in, but it still works very well.  No dishwasher, though. Our area is bounded by 2300 E, 3900 S, and the Belt Route (I-215).  We cover a large, hilly area on bikes.  It's just south of I-80 from Monument Park (my second area).

My new area

There are 19 wards in my area. Wow! Here's a partial list:

To show what a small world it is, I just met the parents of Olivia Hartt's fiance, who grew up in my area. (The Hartt's are a family in my home ward in Great Falls.)

I’ve been told that we need to rebuild trust with the members in this area.  One particular missionary (no longer here) was unprofessional.  And it didn't help that when another missionary had to go home, the areas were pinched into the zone leaders' area for two weeks.  Elder Parnes told me the area got little attention for those two weeks, given they covered four stakes at once.

I’m told that it resembles a "junior East Bench," complete with many people who already have their minds made up on the church one way or the other before we talk to them. Many people work 9-5 in our area, so it becomes "smaller" in the afternoons. 

Today, we biked around the upper half of the area (the Canyon Rim stake) and talked to whoever we could. I found that the members are very willing to help.  There are some younger families mixed in, so we even have returned missionaries to help out.

We tried contacting some people after dinner.  Following that, we went to a shaved ice hut called Hōkūlia's that gives us free shaved ice.  It is a popular spot, so we always run into a few people there.

We synced to end the night.  Area book has already updated!

Wednesday, August 9th, 2017:

We shopped today, as our apartment had no food since it was vacant for two weeks.

We also biked around the lower two stakes today.  There's a lot of change in elevation to our stakes, but biking around is a good way to see who is there.  Mostly members, but them seeing us is a good way to show we are working.

Our evening had three meetings, two of which were with high councilors over missionary work.  All three have reported that their stake presidents have emphasized missionary work and are trying to get their stakes more missionary active.  I’ve realized that the member trust in the missionaries is pretty high for most in the units, because the problem missionary wasn't very recent, and the missionaries since then have done well.  We'll see how it goes.

Thursday, August 10th, 2017:

Planning!  The first large chunk went well, but afterward we started breaking apart because of phone stuff and my digestive tract wasn't doing well.

We passed off an investigator–the first one I've met in this area–to the sisters in YSA.  They are the same sisters that were in my district in Winder West.  My companion and I met him along with the sister missionaries. The investigator, Jilin ("G-lean"), is a very nice man who likes ping-pong.  He said that he wouldn’t go to church unless someone beat him in ping-pong.  He also had us take off our shoes and wear slippers, He had five pairs of slippers, and there were five of us. One pair was Charizard slippers, so I claimed them.  Someone had to wear them.

 At dinner, the ward missionary who invited us over gave us both nice speakers.  They're small, but have metal sidings and seem pretty high quality.

The evening flew by as we contacted people.

Friday, August 11th, 2017:

We almost finished planning today.  We need to work on decisiveness, but the reason we haven't finished is also in part because we didn't have a large block of uninterrupted time for today's and the second part of yesterday's planning meetings.

Our Friday District meeting was preceded by correlations with the two senior couples in our area, a weekly thing.  Their names are the Shephards and Sorensens.  District meeting was on resolving concerns (which would prove useful the next day).  I gave the safeguard training and introduced "data privacy," a concept I knew about since I did computer security in high school Data privacy is discussed in “Missionary Work in the Digital Age”.  It's something our mission is going to have to shape up about!

I got the medicine refill my parents sent me.  I also have a few letters I've been trying to send, but our mail service doesn't have an outbox–only a clip to hold letters on the outside of the PO box, and I wasn’t sure how secure that was–but I’ll give it a shot.

We went to have dinner at our apartment.  Jeremy, a member who helps us out a lot in the area, gave us a ride and joined us in our apartment.  Apparently, he's been working so much with the missionaries that he been accepted in the apartment a few times…

We visited in the first ward for a while with Jeremy.  The rest of the night, actually.  We were able to find a family and offer our help and notify another of a wasp nest above their door.

Saturday, August 12th, 2017:

This day's schedule was weird.  We started with a baptismal service for someone Elder Parnes taught, caught a ride from President Hillier, had lunch and patched up the last part of weekly planning, and headed to a lesson for Tristyn and her mother, Staci.

Staci was running errands, so she asked to move it.  We eventually settled on 8:00 the same day, but just as we did the family we were going to help move told us they were behind and needed help at 8:00, not earlier. We set up splits with me doing the moving and Elder Parnes doing the lesson. A sister came by and got our photo for one stake's biographies of us.  I got a little annoyed at her editing my profile (for taking out that I liked video games and that I came on a mission to gain a testimony; she changed it to gaining a stronger testimony on my mission).  I didn't show any annoyance, and later realized it was undue on my part.

We then waited for the father of the family having us over for dinner to finish a stake leadership meeting, and ultimately joined him at the meeting.  The speaker, a general or area authority, compared the priesthood to an umbrella.  He was so passionate.

We had dinner an hour later than normal at one of the local restaurants, Shivers.  They have a nice burger and shake business.  Some of the other local restaurants we go to are Big Apple Pizzeria, and Spedeli's.

We contacted others afterward, then went on splits.  Moving went well for us.  The lesson must have gone well, too, as Tristyn is on date for the 20th!  It's not solid yet, though.

Sunday, August 13th, 2017:

We spent our Sunday in the Canyon Rim stake, giving a talk in one meeting.  It was on the 13th Article of Faith.  I focused on how to connect our improvement to Jesus Christ and Elder Parnes covered "who, what, where, when, and how."  He did really well.

The stake president's son gave his farewell talk, so we attended specifically to catch the president and set a time to meet.  It was crucial to do so; we had a meeting with the stake's mission leadership earlier in the day and they were ready to work!  We're going to text WMLs for work we should do in their wards and keep the meeting to a monthly Sunday group.  I'm excited.

Our dinner calendars are out of rhythm. We'll have to sort them out soon.

Elder Parnes crashed after our late lunch.  He hasn't been sleeping well; that and Crohn's has been draining his energy.  We made it to a few things as we were able. But the night was very slow.