Dear
Family and Friends, July
7, 2014 at 11:03 a.m. (EDT)
My
Companion is: Elder Holley
My
Companion is from: Slaterville Utah
My
Companion has been out since: December 2012
My
apartment has: A kitchen a dining room. a study room. a
bedroom. another bedroom. a living room. and a bathroom. washer in bathroom.
dryer in dining room. its huge.
Are
you the designated driver? We switch off.
What
type of vehicle do you have?2011 Toyota Corolla
Do
you ride bikes? Yes.
How
big is your Zone? 12 Elders and 6 Sisters serving in four wards.
Where
do you shop? Hannaford, Walmart, Kohls, Market Basket,
you name it we got it!
How
is the Teaching Pool? Growing.
How
are things going? Great!
O
this week has been crazy, I saw a police chase, Watched an Elder re-enact Starwars at
District meeting, Watched crazy fireworks over the river, Walked pitbulls at
the dog shelter, and taught a man from Bhutan.
I
had no idea what to think when I got called to Bedford. Bedford was the
assistants area when I first got to the mission. They just barely moved the
assistants to Manchester. The city of Manchester is split by the Merrimack
river for ward boundaries. Manchester Ward gets East Manchester. Bedford Ward
gets West Manchester. We live in West Manchester. "The West side" in
Rimmon Heights.
My companion Elder Holley is awesome. We have taught several
times together and we work well together. He is an exactly obedient missionary
while for me I like following the spirit of the law. I do whatever it takes to
make missionary work effective. One thing I have learned from him is how
important it is to talk with everyone. We talked with everyone this week. On
the streets just walking, not including lessons, or stop-bys, average of 50
people per day. We even talk to people that are on the other side of the
street. We just ask them. "Have you ever talked with missionaries
before?" Can we share a message about Jesus Christ with you?" If they
look at us confused we ask, "Do you speak English?" and they will
say, "Me no Speak English." There are many Mexicans, Nepalis, and
Bhutanese people, as well as African refugees. Havent seen a lot of Asians
though. Talking with everyone has made me feel accomplished and it makes for
good stories. We get a lot of bashers. We talked with one man and we asked if
he believed in Christ. He said No. He said he was an Irish Catholic and that
Jesus wasnt an Irish Catholic, he was a Jew. We run into a lot of drunk people,
especially around July 4.
On
Wednesday we saw a police chase. I saw A guy driving a Ford Expedition with a
cop car with his blue lights on behind. I thought he was going to slow down but
then I realized that he was accelerating. He flew by us at 50 on an inner city
street. He had 3 cruisers behind him. He drove down our alley and jumped out of
the car about 3 blocks away from our apartment. There were cops everywhere.
It
has been really fun. A lot of people seem
to respect us since we are missionaries so I feel relatively safe. The ward is
really great. So whenever we get tired
of talking to thugs we go to Bedford and go tracting. The members are really
excited to do missionary work. We had several referrals this week.
It is really
neat to be here so close to the mission office. We are emailing at the office
right now. It is 3 miles from our apartment. And we pass a Taco Bell while
driving here.
Tomorrow we have a mission leadership council in Manchester. All
of the Zone Leaders and Sister Training leaders come here. So tonight a bunch
of Elders are going to stay at our apartment. We have 3 bunk beds. Tomorrow
after the meeting we are going to drive them all back to Vermont, and stay Tuesday
night in Montpelier.
Then we go to Concord District Meeting Wednesday where I
will stay for Wednesday night for an exchange.
So it ought to be a fun week.
Elder Wells and Elder Zilles are the assistants. We see them all the time. They
do their laundry at our apartment. They watched the fireworks from our
apartment Saturday night. It rained all day on the 4th.
Well I hope I answered
your questions. There is too much going on here to tell you everything.