New area, healing

November 9, 2015

-New Area

-New Companion?

-Recovering

-Touch of Christ

My new area is called Lawrenceville, We are bordering North Carolina,

and my new companion is..... not so new? He has been my companion

before. His name is Elder Hansen! I was his companion in Staunton.

When our mission president announced it and I was already sitting next

to him, we both jumped up and I bulldozed him by accident because i

gave him a hug and he was caught off balance.

My "new" companion Elder Hansen 

The reason I say recovering was because we were recovering from Elder Hansen's last companion. We have no dishwasher and to give you a idea about the mess he didn't care about cleaning, Every single dish in our apartment was

dirty except 2 forks, a bowl, a spoon, and 2 plates (Elder Hansen's

dishes). There was week old cake in the sink smashed in between 3

plates.... and that’s what I shall explain as recovering = cleaning.......

New address for Christmas cards..

1587 Lawrenceville Plank Rd.

Lawrenceville VA  23868

Friends on missions- My Uncle Merrill sent this picture of my great friend, Brian Fairbanks on his mission in New Jersey.  Merrill, who lives in New Jersey took it from the car and sent it to my mom.  Brian is in the middle.  

We have a family of 10 people and the mom had an arthritic attack on her arm and her arm was in severe pain and it was paralyzed from the shoulder down to the fingers... we went over and talked with her about how coming to church would help her situation and I felt prompted that she needed a blessing.   Elder Hansen had that same prompting during the lesson but he didn't know when exactly and said that we should give one tomorrow but I insisted it be then before church tomorrow. We gave her a blessing and I don't know what words were really said but we left and she thanked us, She wasn't able to come to church the next day because of the pain (or so she thought) but what happened was right after the blessing she "felt Christ's hands wipe away the pain" and her arthritis pain in her arm  vanished completely.

Elder Day

Virginia Autumn, Transfer coming

November 2, 2015

This week was not too eventful so I am going to put down one or two things down.

Virginia Autumn

-Elder Edelmayer went home for surgery

-I am being transferred

-Halloween

-record # of pizza slices at Cici's

-Makeshift pingpong

Elder Edelmayer received a phone call from our Mission President

asking if he could pack within 2 hours because his plane flight was in

8hrs to go back home for a few surgeries, he will be back out in

January. That was crazy because we thought that he was going to leave

Monday next, not Wednesday when we got back from an appointment. Elder

Tobey and I shared the leadership responsibilities when he left.

Before we all left on transfers and stuff- Me, Elder Semu, Elder Kellis, Elder Edelmayer, Elder Harmer, Elder Woods, and Elder Tobey

I got a call Saturday night on Halloween when, (since we were not allowed to

go knocking doors) and asked to go visit members of the congregation, I

was playing ping pong at the Greer's house.

I ate personally  21 slices of pizza at Cici's and that act won the prize of it being free (paid for by another missionary). Eating that many pizza slics would have been the worst mistake

of my life had it not been free...

Makeshift Pingpong

Elder Tobey found a small ping pong table in the closet of our apartment so he made a makeshift table. It is fun to play on in the mornings if we have time before studies.

Moving helpers=pizza, the black box, inspections

October 26, 2015

Tuesday was another day of meetings 8am-5pm. Our mission is  being tested to work something called a "black box" which is a  device we sign in every time we go in a car and it measures our driving speed so we don't go over the speed limit , it also checks that seat belts are on and it

checks reckless driving. Every time one of these happens it gives us a

warning and then if we don't correct after a few minutes we get a

point deducted from our mission driving privileges and depending upon

the amount of times you have a mark means whether you can drive on the

mission.   Because our mission president's wife has breast cancer my

companions and I got the word out (with great help from the assistants

to the president) to have 3 zones of missionaries (140+) all wear

pink. There were only 3 that didn't...

Here I am... 

Wednesday and Thursday mornings were cleaning mornings because we had

an apartment inspection and we had kinda half cleaned but it didn't

really even work because there are 5 dudes and very little motivation

to keep an apartment clean... Unless you are bribed with food. Works

like a charm. Wednesday afternoon and evening I don't know what my

companions were doing because I was with a member from the

congregation visiting people that I knew were and are interested in

the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thursday evening we found out that Elder

Edelmayer  (the guy who went to ER) is headed home for his 3 surgeries he needs, he should be back in about 4 1/2 months though.

Friday was the apartment inspection and the missionary who did the

most cleaning was so sad when he found out the person that usually

does a food treat to the best apartment did not do it this time. Sad

days for Elder Tobey. We helped our next door neighbor move for the

afternoon because he was moving from an apartment to a house and heck,

not only did we need a change of pace from finding and cleaning, it

was a great opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ! His two

daughters are now being taught.

Giant pizza for helping a family to move 

Saturday we finished up the move and since it went from 10-noon our

neighbor bought us pizza (this thing was 28") and he also offered to

take us to dinner! This guy was way too generous to us....

Later that day we taught a new investigator named Maleek and his

neighbors (Isaiah and Dequan) were over there too, three new people to

talk about Jesus with.

Sunday we had church and after, I was tired “as a bear during

Hibernation” so I took a nap. After the nap (during our lunch hour) we

walked to Danny's place and while playing football we taught him and

invited him to be baptized. He accepted! Woo hoo!! We had dinner at a

house where the two boys (12 and 14) were comparing how many injuries

they had trying to one up each other. That was so dang funny!

Washington DC temple trip and Pink soledarity

October 19, 2015

Originally I had typed out an email but it was deleted during the time that I put my laundry in the washer and dryer. I am still quite perturbed over that.

Monday the elders of our area decided that we are all going to wear a pink ties

for Tuesday a zone workshop, where a group of missionaries get

together and learn from my mission president. The reason for that is

that we have recently found out that our presidents wife has breast

cancer and we want to show our support and help in anyway that we can

while continually doing the work of Jesus Christ. Our Mission President was touched and said "that's so kind, I'll have to take a picture and show the cute

girl at home" (is wife) that was on Tuesday when he said the quote. Also on Tuesday the Assistants to the President took me and my companion out

to China King. This is a Chinese restaurant and it was really good.

After that we went finding for the rest of the day and taught three

lessons.

Pink Soledarity

Wednesday we had two major events happen and I'm going to reverse the

day to be able to explain both. The event that happened first is our

temple trip to Washington DC and the second is Elder Woods turned 19

so we got him a cake after we are done with everything I'm distracted

him for picking it up. First thing that I'm going to explain is the

cake. We got in a few minutes early and decided to walk to Walmart and

buy a cake for him and come back, this is actually really good idea

and perfect timing because right when we got back inside and turned

off all the lights he was on his way home up the street so we lit the

candles and waited for him to come in. It was great planning on all of

the missionaries surprising Elder Woods. The second thing that

happened was we went to the Washington DC Temple. Elder Toby had

someone that he was involved in baptizing make more sacred covenants

in the temple on Wednesday so we were able to " tagalong " and be able

to go into the temple. We felt so much peace and many answers were

received while truly trying to find be in tune with the spirit of God.

Something that I found out is if we need to learn it, it will be

learned. It might take a while or it might not even be in this

lifetime, but we will learn it eventually.

At the Washington DC Temple 

Thursday we walked roughly 12 miles to three different appointments

that all cancelled...  All three of us had some sort of shenanigans  (issues) going

on with their legs or feet, the thing that went wrong with mine is my

heel started bleeding after we finished the night.

I had to figure out how I could stop the heel bleeding but it wasn't a

constant run so it wasn't too bad. We also stopped by medical center

so one of my companions could pick up something that he needed for a

medical visit the next day that we went to.

Friday we went to the Spotsylvania medical center and while one of my

companions was in there taking a CT scan again I was able to contact

Elder Hopkins and tell him that I was in his area and he should come

on down and visit. He was able to! And I was so excited!!! That night

we walked a few miles to go and see someone who actually wasn't there.

But my companion saw a light on a house that was a former investigator

and he had the impression we should stop by at the same time that I

had the impression looking down the same street that someone needed us

there. His name was John Johnson and he had gotten back from work two minutes ago. We were both surprised and happy to be able to teach a lesson teach him to come closer to Jesus Christ through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Reunion with trainer Elder Hopkins, front and center.  I am second on the right 

Saturday was all a blur the only thing that I really remember is what

happened Saturday night, and that was Elder Toby's trainer on the

mission visited us from Washington DC where he had flown in around

9:30 PM. Elder Toby was really excited to see him! Turns out his

trainers father knew the Fairbanks family (from our ward) when he got up in Saugus.

That was an adventure as well having him trying name the people that

he barely remembered back in the Santa Clarita Valley and me pulling

up the iPad and checking them on list that I had of the stake back

home. Sunday we are able to teach a lot we return to bed earlier than

10:30 PM because we are all exhausted.