Called To Serve: Week Four - Rockland, Maine

It's been quite the week! After getting to the mission home my MTC district went to the AP's apartment to sleep. They've got a nice penthouse on elm street. So we slept there and headed out for the new day. We received a little training and then we went into a chapel and got our new companions. It felt like we were doing that sorting hat from Harry Potter! When my name was called I was pretty nervous. President Blair said over the mic "Elder Clifford, you will be serving in the Rockland Maine Branch, and your companions will be Elder Wendel and Elder Harper." So there's that, I'm in a trio being double trained. There's also a program called 12 week and I'm being thrown straight into week 7. So that's fun!

Anyways so we began our trek to Rockland. So before we even get to our house we stop by at an investigators house. As we were pulling in an angry dude came running out telling us to leave, it was a great first impression to the area. But so far he's the only person I've met like that. Everyone else is so happy. This branch feeds us like crazy too. There's probably 50 people who come to church, and I've been fed every night except for one. We have dinner appointments every night this week too. The members are so nice.

It's also beautiful out here. I live about 2 minutes from Camden. It's a little tourist town. I'm pretty sure almost everyone here smokes, and they're really friendly about it. I've been offered a few smokes!

Fun fact: I live in a barn. It's a nice barn though. We live across the street from some members named the Beveridges and they own a farm. They hook us up will all sorts of vegetables.

Btw Sister Blair's grandpa was President Hinckley. So that's pretty awesome.

Btw there are tons and tons of animals out here too. So I've been playing around with just about everyone's animals I can find. They're great for finding investigators. All you have to do is ask to pet their dog or like hold their lizard. Then they're forced to talk to you until you let them have their pet back!

Anyways we have some investigators and they have a baptism date now. So we will see what happens. Also I met a less active woman and we were just having a conversation and stuff, but I guess she hasn't been to church for a really long time. We stopped by her house on Saturday night though and she talked about why she doesn't go anymore. Anyways after ward council on Sunday morning we came out of the room, and she was just sitting on the couch with her daughter. I guess it was a pretty crazy thing to happen, because some people were making a big deal out of it. We ate dinner at her house, and she's way funny.

We also went to this random Jamaican farmer party. It had live music and great free food. There was some tasty jerk chicken, and as I was eating this other curry stuff, one of the Jamaicans came over and asked me how I liked the goat! It was great! There was also a blueberry festival all the missionaries in the district went to in Machias. It was a lot of fun. We signed Elder Harper up for the blueberry pie competition, and he won!

Anyways it was a great week, and I'm ready to have some more fun.