Trade your heros for ghosts? - 02/19/13

Transfers! My companion and I stayed put. I had a hunch that they would put a new set of missionaries in the Murrieta Hills ward, leaving us with just the Cole Canyon ward and no car. But my intuition was completely wrong. Things are staying the same for now. I don't know if I properly communicated this, but because of the shortened schedule at the MTC, our transfer schedule is losing a week this transfer. So it's only five weeks until the next transfer, which will be 25 March 2013. That also means my release date will be 8 April 2014. My mission will be a week shorter than two years unless I am given the opportunity to extend.

 

I lost one of my best friends who will be training in Beaumont - Yucaipa Zone - for his last two transfers of his mission. My MTC companion is in Yucaipa, training, as a district leader in the same zone as my former DL who will be a zone leader there. They're also going to be sharing an apartment. I bet they're going to have a ton of fun. Yucaipa is generally regarded as a pretty yucky place. But I'll be the first to say, some people turn their noses up at working in the poorer areas, but the ghetto is my favorite place to do missionary work.

My finger is slowly recovering from where I burned the heck out of it trying to do an object lesson involving a lighter and a boiled egg. It blistered up like a balloon the night after it happened, then it popped, and then the blister part peeled off, exposing the red tender skin beneath. That sore has been healing for the past week, and it's actually a lot better now. I also got a haircut the day *after* the baptism. I guess I'm typically a day late and a dollar short. But I'm glad that my hair is more manageable now.

My motto for the week has been "Go to work and it all works out." And let me tell you, things have been working out pretty spectacularly in the very recent past. We had only a handful of scheduled appointments a few weeks ago. On Sunday, we had 18 appointments scheduled for this week. I know not all of them will bear fruit, but that's a huge improvement. I have been a huge believer in setting up appointments for the week at church on Sunday, and it paid off big time this week. We'll see how many of those turn into return appointments and productive missionary work.

Oh, and we got another new investigator in the Murrieta Hills ward. His Dad is an inactive member. Thanks to some seriously awesome fellowship from the ward, we got a lesson with the investigator on Tuesday, and a lesson with him and his dad on Sunday. It appears that we are on the fast track to reactivating the Dad in Hemet and baptizing the son in Murrieta where he lives with his Mom. Mom doesn't have a whole lot of interest, but Dad wants him to go to church, and he comes every week with the fellowshipping family. So we're on track there.

 

I kid you not, three other youth in the Murrieta Hills ward brought nonmember friends to church and introduced them to us. Two of them don't seem quite ready to take the lessons just yet, but the other one is being taught in a member's home on Tuesday of next week. I am so proud of our youth! Oh, and it looks like another ward member has a friend who's ready to come to church and hear from us, too. It's funny to me how the past ward mission leader was convinced that Murrieta Hills was dead, a lost cause, and now that we have a motivated WML and focused missionaries, the work is just pouring down like the rains from heaven. God is so awesome.

 

Cole Canyon is a great place to work, too. We had our baptism for "RP" on Tuesday, and he had a lot of friends there. I got to confirm him on Sunday. It felt wonderful to see our work play such a huge role in his life and the life of his friends. I don't think we've dried up that gold mine just yet. I think his friends and family are going to come around soon looking for us. I'm still impressed with our WML in Cole Canyon. He got us in with a family that I was convinced wouldn't want us around, and I am very glad that he opened that door that I didn't think I could open myself. He's a very motivated guy and I am very happy to work with him.

Well, it looks like I'm going to have a wonderful week this week. God, my companion, and I are going to do awesome things!