Hello!
This
week has been pretty interesting. It all started p-day when there was a solar
eclipse. I was really excited to go out and see it. As we were getting ready to
see it in the fullness of its glory, we got a phone call. The hospital called
us and told us we needed to come and give some lady a blessing, because she had
been asking all morning. So we went to the hospital and gave her a blessing.
She was Russian and I couldn't understand anything she was saying, but I think
she wanted us to stay and talk more. Then the chapel lady swooped us up and
decided she wanted to take us on an impromptu tour of the hospital. I was
really uneasy because I wanted to go outside and stare at the sun, but I
survived. We finally made it outside, and I ran and grabbed 2 pairs of
sunglasses and stared at the sun. The moon was still there, and I was able to
look at it just for a little bit.
Since
my trainer is also the district leader we go on exchanges a lot. So this week I
went on 2 exchanges back to back. The first was in Machias. Machias is 2 1/2
hours away so we left the night before to get there. We went blue berry farming
and that was pretty fun. They give you a little hand rake and you just rake
through all them and pick them up. We got a good load of blue berries. One cool
thing about the wild blue berry farms is that they don't plant them. They just
grow everywhere, and the fields look like a giant field of weeds.
After
that we went and talked to some progressing investigator. Out of nowhere it got super foggy, and as the sun
set it looked like the start of some zombie apocalypse movie. We drove out to Beals Island. It's a pretty small
island and driving to get there it looked like we were driving over some clouds
because the road was narrow and on both sides was the ocean.
The
next exchange was with the zone leaders. We met them at district meeting and
split there. We went back down to Rockland and did some work in my area. It was
all good. We went contacting and were able to get some new investigators. We
drove and slept at the zone leaders trailer that night, so I didn't get to
sleep at my place for 3 nights in a row! Thursday we drove back to
Rockland and finally worked with the trio again. We taught Carl and Blake and
invited both of them to church. They accepted the invite. After that we went
and taught a new favorite investigator of mine named Nathan. He's 17 and has
lots of questions about the church. These homeless people kept interrupting our
discussion, so we finally just gave them some Book of Mormons and they left.
People have a real drinking problem out here. It's sad to see everyone in the
state they're in, but it just makes me grateful for the word of wisdom and how
it's blessed my life.
On
Friday we went to the food pantry to volunteer again. That place is fun to work
at. When we were all finished though all the workers bombarded us with sooooo
much food. We tried saying no, but they insisted. Now we have a bunch of food.
I'm pretty sure we have enough snack bars to last every transfer for the rest
of my mission. On Saturday night a Sister going through some very interesting
situations called us and asked for a blessing. Well we went over there and she
asked me if I would do it. So I gave my first blessing out in the field. Then
not even 24 hours later after church the Branch President called us into his
office, and a little kid and his dad were there. They are less active and are
struggling pretty bad. The dad wanted the child to have a blessing. So the Branch
President asked the little boy to choose one of us 3 missionaries. The little
kid chose me too so I gave it to him with like 6 other people in the room.
Btw
there is some well known harp player in the branch. His name is Alex Bigney. We
ate dinner with him and his family, and I got to play the harp for a little
bit. Good times. Anyways I had a great week and I'm looking forward to more fun
here in Rockland.
