Week Forty Four

This week was one of the most busy I've been on my mission. Between teaching and driving we almost had no time to find, but we made it work and between the two areas we are now teaching 5 new people in these coming days. #blessed 

I got my first tick bite this week!!! I was driving and I looked down and it was on my LEG! I pulled over and we pulled him out. It was terrifying. He had just bitten me because he didn't leave a mark or anything. The Lord protected me from him. I had to go to the pharmacy and get some medicine though. Pray that I don't get lyme disease. 

We went on exchanges with the zone leaders this week. I was with Elder Glenn and we went hard together teaching and trying to find in Randolph's area. (which is now mine.)

Anyways, I don't have much else to say because it was just a lot of driving and teaching, but its been a good time. The trio is great. Trios are unstoppable. 

Have a great week!

The tick.

Week Forty Three

Hello everybody! I don't have too much time to write this today, so I'll try and fill you in as quick as possible. 

Ok. So this week started off with zone conference at the Joseph Smith Memorial. It was really good. The focus of the meeting was about the Book of Mormon! We did a lot of different things. One of the things I was actually good at was a street contact approach. You walk up and ask them to ask a deep question or question of the soul, and that we could answer it with the Book of Mormon. Before my mission if I had to do that I probably would have curled up in a ball and gave up before it started. We played a game with it, and my Book of Mormon studying payed off.


Big news! On Saturday night we were both sleeping when we got a phone call. Elder Butikofer answered, and the first words I heard in my dazed panic were. " Did President or the assistants call you?" and now my panic turned to fear. Over the next 30 seconds they told us that the district was being broken apart and an emergency transfer was happening. Then they hung up leaving us more confused. Unfortunately we lost Elder Griffin. Here's the crazy part though. We are now in a trio with Elder McCormick, and we cover Colebrook, AND Randolph! We cover almost half of New Hampshire! So now I can say I got a new companion, and have a new area to serve in. Because of this change President has given us unlimited miles on the car, and we are gonna be busy literally 24/7 until transfers in 3 weeks. We also are a 1 companionship district. So we are isolated. Send some extra prayers our way😂😂

Anyways this week was good. We had a great lesson with this amazing man named Robert. During the lesson he just stopped us in the middle of talking. He looked down in the Book of Mormon and in the most serious voice he said. "I'm severely troubled.... I am troubled by how comfortable I am with you." You probably heard the sigh of relief out there in the West. 

Y'all have a good week out there wherever you are, and good luck with whatever you do! 

At Zone Conference

Random pictures from the week.

 

Said goodbye to a new acquaintance.

Week Forty Two

This week has been pretty awesome! One of the highlights of it was definitely getting to talk to my family and two of my best homies Zac and Dono! It's crazy how fast time goes out here, because it felt like I had just talked to my family. I'll probably be saying that the next time round. 

Haha anyways spring is finally here in Colebrook. All the birch trees have their leaves now so it's really light green out here. The weather is perfect out here too. Which means more people outside. We were able to find a record breaking number of people this week in Colebrook, and I guess last week the mission found a record breaking amount of people too. So I'm glad it's going well for everyone!


So earlier this week we were visiting a less active, when out of the corner of my eye I saw two people playing on a basketball court. I hadn't even seen a basketball court since being here in this area, so you already know I forced my comp to run over there and ball up with these people. We got over there and asked if we could play and they were all for it. It was a father and son, and I chose to be on the sons team. Long story short, the son was wearing a Kyrie shirt and I was wearing my air mission max 12s and we destroyed! Like we dominated. Afterwards we shared a little bit of our purpose, and they invited us back to teach the Restoration this week! 

We went on exchanges this week with Randolph and I had a pretty good time there. Things went really well there. On Friday night we forgot to bring supplies out with us finding and we were pretty far from the car. So we went with what we had, and that was a Book of Mormon, Restoration pamphlet, and a Word of Wisdom pamphlet. We gave out the first two really quick and we were left with a Word of Wisdom pamphlet. Well, we turned the corner and saw some man smoking in a wheelchair. So we went up to him and talked to him about life, and how he got into the position he was in. Man, you could have called me Dr. Phil, because I felt like a therapist. A lot of New Englanders will tell you their life story if you're not quick enough with the contact. We gave him the pamphlet and told him about the Word of Wisdom and he told us to come visit him next week after he had read the pamphlet. The rest of the exchanges went well.
 
This week was great though and reminded me of why I love the mission so much. Seeing home made me miss it juuuuust a little, but then I remembered how much fun it is out here. There are so many awesome experiences and people out here. 

I hope y'all have a great week. Byeeeeeeeeeee.

A cool bug.

Fiddleheads.

Elder McCormick pointing at Mt. Washington as we crossed a river.

My comfy bed.

I had some awesome BBQ.

Pictures sent to Momma C. by a branch member.

Mother's Day Skype!

Mother's Day

Happy Mothers day to the most hip, in style, cool, caring, kind, selfless, loving, most awesomest mom out there! You're the best, and I thank you for being my mom! Love you!

Week Forty One

Man this was an awesome week. Before I do anything though I have to give a shout out to my mom because its her birthday. I'm pretty sure she's the best mom out there, if any of y'all wanna argue it, you know where I'm at. Come and get me. 

This week was full of excitement. It started out with a bit of a scare though. On Tuesday I was just flipping through the baptismal record, and realized our zone leader didn't sign his name! Long story short and by the grace of God, we got it signed. The Randolph Elders just happened to be going on exchanges that night with them! So we were able to race up there and get it to them. We delivered it right into the loving arms of Elder Griffin. Who by the way, went to my high school. We were talking one day, and then we started to recognize people we were referencing, and locations, and then we figured it out. His name is Trevor Griffin if you know him. He graduated a year before me. He's awesome!

This Wednesday I got to feel my warmest day in New England so far. It got all the way to 85 degrees! It was great! It was amazing to see how many different people came outside that we hadn't seen before. I think the people that went to Florida for the winter are coming back! So that helps us find more people. We go out teaching with our branch president each Wednesday, and it's great. The branch is really small, but they are definitely doing there best to make it grow.
I got to clean a goat barn this week. It was actually the barn my kids live in, so it was really a service back to them. All you dads out there, you gotta be involved in your kids life. They're only kids once. Anyways they're like parkour masters right now jumping on everything. The hay hadn't been cleaned all winter, so there was like a foot of dense hay we had to get out. A lot of stabbing, and a few blisters later we were able to finish the barn. We were teaching some older guy the Plan of Salvation while we were doing it. Man old farmer dudes can talk. Keeping them on topic is the hardest part of teaching. I mean, I like to talk about tractors and what type of pitch fork works the best as much as the next guy, buuuut the gospel is more important.

The most exciting news is probably that Nicki got baptized! When I met her she had been meeting on and off with the missionaries for around 5 years. Well one day we had a district meeting and we talked about our purpose and making it known to the people we teach. So we told her our purpose and asked if she would get baptized on May 5th if she found out what we were teaching was true. Well she found out it was true and this past Saturday we rented out the pool, and had a baptism. Our branch meets in a Methodist churchhouse so we have to have our baptisms in the public pool. It was awesome!

It was a tiring week, but the weeks I'm the most tired are usually the best. I know that this gospel is true, and I'm glad that I have this opportunity to share it. I hope y'all have a good week, and don't forget to have some fun. 

Hike we went on.

My kid's barn.

Nicki's baptism.

Random pictures.

 

Moroni 8:5 And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins;

Yesterday I had the awesome experience of being with Nicki for her baptism! I've got to say it was the strongest I've ever felt the spirit at a public pool. It's been great being able to teach, and see Nicki work towards this goal. She's got an awesome spirit that she carries with her. I know that this gospel is true, and that Jesus Christ set an example for us to follow. Let's all be like Nicki and do our best to follow his example each day!