January 27th, 2010

Hey hey hey


Wow, what a week. So we had zone conference last week like you know. THen we got home on Wednesday night and the ZL's called us to tell say "There's a huge mile shortage in the mission. A lot of the english companionships have gone over their miles, so you need to start budgeting miles at whatever cost, and it's mandatory that you come in 20 miles under your total alotment." So because English elders can't budget miles adn Elder Lusk wouldn't split miles with us to go up to Richmond, we've been on bikes since Thursday and for the rest of the month. I wouldn't mind bikes if we had an area the size of the english missionaries, but when we cover a 5 city area, it starts to suck. On sunday we did a 25 mile round trip from teh church to an appointment with a progressing investigator in Chesapeake. It was a good appointment, but it was the only one we were able to get all of sunday because of the distance. And so I was kind of mad and to top it off, one of the english zone leaders said "That's all you did with your entire day?" Oh man I was fuming! I almost wanted to yell "It's because your stupid elders don't know how to budget miles that we have to be put on bikes for 2 weeks!" I was way mad. It's just been crazy here. Since the sisters came, pretty much none of the members want to invite us over for appointments or come with us because they all want to have the sisters over and go with them to appointments, so that's been super frustrating as well. Don't get me wrong, I think the sisters are great! They're awesome, but the effects of having them here with the members just sucks.
Anyway. So that's been my week. Nothing much more to report. Biking sucks and is ineffective. Our investigators are all failing with their committments. The branch president is just offending more people, so we don't even have enough active families in the ward to start a Member Lesson Series, and the counselors and president always just say it's a lack of faith on the member's parts. It's just super frustrating. Sorry for all the complaining in this letter, I just really need to vent a little bit.
But how's everything going back in the homefront?
Oh, funny story, I just found out that one of the elders in Virginia Beach is from Elko. Elder SHelley, he graduated with Paige Ellefson. Small world, huh? I thought it was interesting the questions that Elder Kikuchi had the elders in Vegas ask. I thought it was especialy interesting that he says to ask if they have time, whereas in PMG it specifically says don't ask if they have time. I want to try out those questions and see what happens. Also, with the rearranging the morning schedule, he wrote an article about that in the August Liahona, something like "Para que los cielos se abran". It talks about going to a quiet place every morning and saying your prayers in voz alta to have exactly what you said, a "sacred grove" experience. I've started doing that since I got here to Virginia Beach. WHile I haven't had any marvelous experiences from it, I think it is just a nice time to get away from everything and just pray. But I think every mission should institute that as a part of the morning activitiy, the only problem is lack of space in the apartments.
Elder Hernandez was telling me last week about all the guys that have proposed to the sisters up in Richmond. Apparently the Hermanas get a proposal on average about once every 3 weeks to a month. Haha, how crazy is that? One of the best things about the hermanas is that they're SO good at showing love to the investigators, bt they really need to be careful about how they do it. Most of the hispanic guys see a cute white girl that speaks spanish as a chance to get some papers if you know what I mean.
Ok, well that's all for this week I guess. If you need anything from me, well that's too bad. Cause I'm STILL HERE! hahaha Os quiero mucho y espero que tengais una semana fabulosa y que todo os salga bien! No, I don't actually use vosotros with anybody, but I think it's fun and funny! haha


- Your favorite Elder