Trial missionary companion

This last week has been a little crazy! Tuesday we go a call from the assistants saying that we are getting an emergency exchange and Elder Edlund ended up getting transferred to Mckinney and my new companion is from Allen, TX about an hour away! He is a "trial missionary" he has diabetes and he is just serving with me for 2 weeks.. They do trial missions so the missionary can try out the mission and see if they can handle the mission life and learn to be on their own with their medical or physical disabilities.

So my new companion is Elder Hamblin and he is a good kid but he is very very quiet!! So we shall see how this little time with him goes.. it may be a very very silent companionship. We did quite a bit of teaching this week and we actually started teaching a part member family in the ward. The lady is the member and they just got married and she told her husband if they were going to get married than he would be joining her church! so he has been the last 5 weeks in a row! We taught him the Restoration and he took it pretty well. he said if he had a witness if this was true than he would be baptized! yay!!

Mission Olympics and Kevin Harris's baptism.

This week was super slow.. a lot slower than other weeks since i have been in this area.. we have just had a ton of people cancelling appointments and not being home and that has been super annoying.. Our mission president says he doesn't care about numbers and that he just likes to see baptisms and that's totally true but i don't like seeing my numbers when they are low.. it makes me feel like i didn't put in the effort for that week.. oh well. Everyone on a mission has weeks like those. All of Tuesday we were in Carrolton Texas at a Zone Conference and it was called the "Texas Dallas Mission Olympics 2012" it was super fun.. we had to do all sorts of different events.. each event was 6 minutes longs and we had.. Free throw shooting, push-ups, soccer ball juggling, speed walking around the church parking lots, scripture memorization, preach my gospel memory and other stuff like that.. it was so fun but let me tell ya.. i was super sore for the next few days hahaha!

This week we met with Kevin Harris for the last time before his baptism! We talked to him about fasting and about what was going to happen at his baptism and he was getting super anxious! Saturday i was so excited and anxious for his baptism. He got there on time and instead of wearing the jumpsuits that the church puts out. he wore white pants, a white shirt, a white tie and a white belt! He was looking pretty fresh! He said he was nervous because Xavier the person baptizing him was nervous too! That was his first time baptizing. Elder Edlund and I were the witnesses and we had to tell Xavier to restart the baptismal prayer before he baptized him and had to restart.. so he said the prayer right and when he baptized him it looked like he wasn't going to go all the way under and then Xavier gave him the elbow to the chest and pushed him all the way down! so it was a one shot one kill! Kevin felt super good and he was way excited to receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday. He is being fellow shipped super good and the YSA actually took him to a movie after his baptism which was way cool! On Sunday while we are sitting in the chapel waiting for sacrament to start.. Kevin wasn't there.. we were getting pretty nervous cause by this time it was about 10 after the hour and then he finally came in. But he came and was confirmed a member and that was super cool! He felt super good and almost invincible:) Kevins baptism was probably one of my favorites of my whole mission!

Visiting Air Museum, teaching and LOTS and LOTS of Service !

Monday was a way fun day! We went to an Air Museum with a bunch of missionaries and looked at a bunch of different airplanes and it was also next to an airport so we watched like 4 planes take off.. Elder Bishop was with us and he left on Wednesday so it made him super trunky! That night I actually went with Elder Bishop and Elder Crockett our zone leaders and Elder Ricks stayed back home to pack with Elder Edlund. We went into Dallas and picked up brand new missionaries and took them out for their first night. Their names were Elder Christensen And Elder Buell. They looked like a deer in the headlights! Elder Crockett took them teaching while i went with Elder Bishop to say goodbye to some of the families in his area. We dropped by this guys house and his name is Wayne but the missionaries call him Lil Weezy! Well he only speaks English and his wife only speaks Spanish.. i don't know how that one worked out but we got to his house and we asked his wife where Wayne was and she pointed down the hall and said shower.. well Wayne came out with only shorts on ........ (see email for rest of story)  Well later that night we dropped the new missionaries off back in Dallas and we picked up Elder Sinclair and another missionary so we could house them that night. They were coming in from east Texas so when that happens.. they have to stay with missionaries the night before transfers.. Well we drove 30 minutes back to the Zone Leaders area and visited with a member family forever!! We got back to their apartment and didn't get to sleep until 2:30! We stayed up telling mission stories and laughing super hard! Maybe that's why they don't keep more than one companionship in 1 apartment?! hahaha

So we woke up the next morning and we had to leave at about 8 to drive into Dallas for transfers! I got to see tons of missionaries and took some pictures.. if you guys want to.. there is a member that takes pictures at every transfer and has a Texas Dallas Mission page on facebook and i am sure you will see pictures of me!:) After leaving Transfers i felt super trunky! Elder Bishop is one of the missionaries i am going to miss! We didn't know each other for too long but we acted like we were best friends! I told him that after i get home we are going boating!:) Well I got my new companion that day and his name is Elder Edlund. He is from Pleasant Grove Utah and has been out for almost 19 months now. He was serving in the Desoto area and now they combined our areas and so we both now cover the Desoto ward, Mountain Creek Ward, and the Duncanville YSA. This whole week has been super crazy with trying to figure out our investigators and our miles because as of right now.. we have not gotten any extra miles and our area is 3 times as big now!

This last week we did lots of teaching and lots of service.. We actually moved a family out of their house and President Durrant told us that we are not a moving service! We also are helping this part member family Restore a very old camper trailer that has been sitting in their junk yard back yard forever! They have so much stuff in their backyard it is super crazy! They scrap metal so they can get a few extra dollars here and there.. a lot of people do that down here in south Dallas. Sunday was my most tiring day ever! We had to be at church at 7:30 for ward council and we did not leave church until 5 at night. Something cool that i like what the YSA branch does is.. every fast Sunday they have after church whats called "break the fast" and everyone brings in food and we have dinner! its way fun and cool.. i really enjoyed it especially since i had been fasting since 4p.m. the previous day! This coming Saturday we are having the baptism for Kevin Harris one of our investigators and we are super excited.. i will send pics next week! As you can see.. i have had a very busy productive week!