It's been a wild and wonderful week! I am surprised at how easily
influenced I am by my companion. He was having a tough time early this
week, and I started getting down on myself, too. But we pushed through
it. On Thursday, we went on exchanges, and it was the best day of
missionary work I've had in weeks. It even rained all day and I didn't
even care. Being with Elder "D" was just so much fun, and we caught up
on some referral work in the morning and taught some killer lessons in
the evening. We spent a lot of time talking about how we could deal with
our little issues, which was needed, I think. Mostly I just laughed and
really felt rejuvenated. I hit my regret ceiling and decided to be
happy instead of stressing about things. It was a good day.
That
day, we hit our goal of talking to 20 new people per day for the first
time this entire transfer. It felt really good to get our OYMs finally.
So on Friday, I made sure my companion and I pushed away our other
distractions for time to tract into 20 people. We did it. We finished up
the week with 4/7 days of hitting our OYM goal, and we haven't missed a
single day since the exchange. We also taught 17 lessons this past
week, which is a new record for me and my greenie. When he got here, we
were averaging around 8 per week. So that's a huge improvement.
An
impromptu zone meeting was called this Friday to announce two big
changes. First of all, we are now allowed to email friends on P-day
instead of just family. From the first presidency: "Missionaries are to
write to their families each week and are also authorized to communicate
by email with friends, priesthood leaders, and new converts. Mission
presidents should allow sufficient time on preparation day for
missionaries to write emails and letters. While in the mission field,
missionaries should receive authorization from the mission president
before entering into communication, including via email, with converts
and others of the opposite gender within the mission boundaries (see
Missionary Handbook, 36–37)."
The other big
announcement was about the mission splitting. Here are the stakes
currently in our mission and the mission they will be aligned with
beginning in July:
Murrieta to the Carlsbad Mission
Palm Desert, Redlands, Yucaipa and Yucca Valley to the Redlands Mission
Corona, Hemet, Jurupa, Menifee, Moreno Valley and Riverside to the Riverside Mission
So,
we have a transfer in two weeks, and then two or three more transfers
before the split happens. Speaking of which, I won't be living in the
same place any longer. Our homeshare decided to tell mission president
that they can't handle having missionaries live with them anymore, and
that as soon as they can find a new homeshare, they would like to be
relieved of that duty. I can't say I'm surprised. There has definitely
been some tension in the house, and with a newborn baby and two married
couples and frequent visits from other adult kids, we've felt a bit
cramped and maybe a little unwanted. I'm sure it was a really hard
decision because they really love having the
missionaries around, but having adult kids in and out all the time and a
grandchild screaming every night and missionaries taking up their space
is probably a little too much for them to have constantly.
And,
on top of all that, my AP friend told me that he's meeting with Mission
President soon about making sure all the wards have their own set of
missionaries. So it's a pretty good chance that I won't be covering two
wards anymore, starting in two weeks. Of course, there's always the
chance that I'll be transferred out of Murrieta entirely. In any case,
I'm pretty sure there will be changes. I'm trying my hardest to eat all
of my food so I don't have to try to pack it out and I'll try to be
mostly packed up ahead of time.
I really feel
like we're making much better progress in our two wards than we did when
I first got here. The ward is a pleasure to work with, and they seem to
like me pretty well. We've got some solid investigators in both wards,
and we are teaching like crazy every single night except Saturday.
Nobody wants to see us on Saturdays... yet.
I
love all of you tons! Can't believe I've been out eleven months. We're
pretty close to another general conference! I doubt it can be as
earth-shatteringly awesome as the last conference. But we will have to
wait and find out. Maybe they will announce a temple in Jerusalem or
something amazing like that.
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