April 23, 2012

"My district acting like dorks..."

Simply put, ward trust is through the roof. Most people at this point comment that the last guys sucked and that we are awesome, which feels good. We have been working hard and trying to be visible with our efforts. Things are still slowly getting put back together, but the ward trust thing is over with and that is a huge relief. 

There are so many part many families in this war that it is a little ridiculous. Add to that the fact that this ward has been softening the hearts of all the less active members and this is going to be great. There is a lot of potential that could easily pan out and if feels like it is only a matter of time. We are hopefully are going to get teaching this week which will be refreshing and once that starts happening the war is going to get excited. 

It feels funny having to use such nondescript terms for what is happening here but there are too many names that could dry up or go golden to really say much of anything. Mostly I don't feel like typing the massive list. 

The results that we have been reporting  to the ward council always cause a big discussion. "Have you ever gotten in with them?" No. Have you?" "No. Wait, what did you find out and how did you do that Elders?" It is rather entertaining. :)

Funny story. We got a referral this week fro a homeless man that lives behind Walmart. All the missionaries that gave it to us could tell us was, "A member of our ward has been talking to this guy and they say he lived in the trees behind Walmart. That is all we know" So we found the grove of trees and looked and to our amazement  we saw a tent!  Wow. It wasn't even a joke! What is better is that it is totally in our area. Now we just have to find a way to catch him at "home". I don't know what we will do if we start teaching him, but its just cool that we found him.

I am just glad to be here at this point. Biking feels great and the work is satisfying. I love Greeley and hope it stays that way.

April 15, 2012

"This should be a great trackting street!"

Greeley is flat and full of wonderful people. It is a college town with lots of apartments but still has a mature and stable population with related housing It is like a city that essentially stops and becomes rolling pasture land. There is a lot of farming and beef is king. There is a huge slaughter house in the south of our area and it gives Greeley it's infamous smell. The smell isn't that bad and when the wind is blowing out of the north you can't smell anything, but smell it does. It feels like a mix of Wy and Co. In short,  this is going to be a nice place to serve. The area is a family ward and mostly south of the 34 bypass. The bishop is a bit odd and is something like if "House" was nicer, a business man and a bishop. He'll say something like, "Now don't be offended but..." and then say something a bit abrasive and usually directed at you. After about 5 minutes the thought stops and things go on like nothing happened. It made for an interesting ward council meeting and since we were prepared, it didn't bother me when our mistakes were made the subject. I wasn't offended and then when he was finished I made a simple counter point, to which he responded that I should have stopped him. I just laughed and was very comfortably delivered  the rest of our report. I was told that I did very well by other members of the council afterwards and I considered it an achievement to be able to walk into a situation like that and play the part of one experienced in social interaction. :) 

We live with the Jacob's and have a sweet set-up. We live in the basement and have a pool table, a ping pong table, a little kitchen and a great bathroom.

Release Date!

We got an official release date for our boy!

August 13, 2012

He will have to hit the ground running! 

We are supposed to be in Indianapolis for my mother's 80th birthday and family reunion August 15 and then BYU starts August 27th! 

I hope Reid doesn't mind his momma going to college with him...  I am not joking!

Greeley Colorado

Sad news. I am currently emailing your from the Highplains library in Greeley Colorado... Not that Greeley is a bad place that I won't love but I am no longer in Arvada with Elder Jones. President Toombs and I got to talk and he decided that it was Elder Jones's time to give being the senior companion thing a shot. Apparently, President was going to leave me one more transfer, but with such a good report, he did some transfer revisions and made Jones the senior companion with an awesome new missionary. I am really proud of Jones and the solid effort that put in to becoming more confident and making more decisions. I know that he is going to do a great job and with a ward like the 1st war our investigators are in good hands.

I am back on a bike and that is probably a good thing. I was starting to get soft. :) The ward is biggish for a bike area but manageable and the members seem to be on top of missionary work. They just had a part member family reactivated and baptized which is great and I plan to take advantage of the momentum. The last elders were punks and I am surprised the Lord blessed them so much.

I am with Elder Van Ausdal. He is really nerdy but in a weird way. He is like me only more extreme in about every way. I like video games. He played them constantly. I am into fencing. He did a form of regulation backyard sword fighting involving padded PVC weapons his family would make. He designs things on the computer like what Eric Armstrong does. This one is odd. He was engaged before coming out but broke things off to come out. (She is not waiting)

And I am out of time but I love you guys and will continue this next week.

April 2, 2012

Have you taken any pictures? I don't know why I stink at taking pictures but it is probably that it never comes to mind. I think "oh that's cool' with my camera in my backpack and never think to take it out.

Things seem to have  plateaued here in the Arvada 1st ward. It was strange but we were not able to meet with hardly any of our investigators this week. They were out of town, having to find a lawyer, working last minute jobs, sick, you name it. It all came down to "not this week guys". Hopefully we can get things rolling again this week.

Elder Jones was my senior companion this whole week and did a great job. He is still visibly uncomfortable with the idea, but is filling his role quite nicely. I was proud of him and only had to step in one or two times. It was nice to see the progress that he has made and see him really working towards this goal. He did a better job than I did my first week as senior companion and that is cool. If I can build him up just a little more, I think that I am out of here.