Howdy all!
It’s been a rainy week in the down under. Seriously. It’s been good though. I prefer the rain to the scorching heat. It was kind of a weird week. I went on two exchanges, but one of them was perhaps the strangest situation I’ve ever been on for my entire mission. (that’s really saying something). It was late at night, and we had to get to the other Elders flat for the exchange, so we took a look at the public transport and found that it couldn’t get us there in time (you think Sydney would have transportation that ran more often, honestly). So in desperation, we called up a member that lives nearby, and asked if he could give us a ride. So we manage to squeeze getting there on time (barely), and walk into the flat to find out that both elders are having medical problems that flared up that day, so they say they can’t do it. They seem to be the only elders I can’t get exchanges done with, this or last transfer, and the Zone leaders said we should just go through with it anyway. So we work out a plan to do exchanges, Both Elder Van Orden and I will be working in their area. Cool. Then they tell us that they needed to go to the hospital to get the medical problems looked at, so Elder Van Orden and I will work in their area until they get back. So both of us are now working in an area we know nothing about, and our area is empty. Turns out, they don’t get back from the hospital until dinner time, at which, we have a ward activity, so the exchanges never happened. It was a bit tiresome, but the exchanges later in the week were good. (I did get literally 25 mosquito bites on just one arm though). As for everything else, We did get to commit one investigator to baptism this week! I’m hoping to stay another transfer to see it happen, transfers are this next week, and she has to go to Fiji to sort a couple of things out with her visa right now.
Time for some Questions!
How did this week go for you? Slow. It’s a bit frustrating actually. It seems like church leadership is really pushing member involvement, but it’s not really happening. The time we have a flood of missionaries is short, the number of new missionaries coming in has definitely dropped back down again. There’s less than two years for the work to be sped up, but most of the members don’t seem to catch on to that. We haven’t gotten a single member refferal since I’ve been here, and I’ve honestly only gotten one since I’ve been out. I’d like to be teaching full time, but we have to spend the majority of our week finding as we go to pretty ancient leads from the ward list, basically all who have moved.
Did the one guy ever get around to answering his phone? I hope he wasn’t purposely avoiding you, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be unusual. Funny enough, he still hasn’t answered his phone, but I don’t think he’s avoiding us. I just think his phone must be lost or broken. He’s the one who came up to us on the street, and he made sure that our number was correct. I said last week we tried to call him when we saw him, but he didn’t pick up. We didn’t hear a phone go off and he didn’t reach down to check his phone, so I think he’d actually still be keen to learn if we can find him again.
Transfers must be coming up again soon. Are you hoping to stay or go? Stay. Just barely though. I want to see this baptism go through, that’s basically it. I like the missionaries here, but I think the ones I get along with the best are leaving this transfer (they’ve been here six months), and I’m not to fond of the area in general.
Have you enjoyed being the District Leader or would you rather be just a regular missionary and not have that responsibility? Well, for the most part it’s not to bad. I love exchanges and being in the loop. It’s not to bad to get numbers and do weekly trainings. What I don’t like is having to correct missionary behavior. Most of my district is great, and I could trust doing anything. It’s just one pair of elders. Both have been out longer than me, and they don’t take what I say seriously. I hate that part.
Do you think you’ll ever be the junior companion again? Extremely unlikely. I’m already in the oldest 90 percent of the mission. I would love to be a junior companion again though. I feel like a lot of responsibility got dropped on me really quickly. I’ve been senior companion since my seventh week in the field. Not only that, but follow up training someone on the material I hadn’t been trained on. Then training a greenie. Then special assignment and district leader. I still feel like I don’t know a lot of things. Especially when it comes to finding new investigators. But I guess I’ll just have to deal with it. I’ve been blessed in the work thus far, and I don’t think that will change any time soon.
Well, I love you all, hope you’re having a great time. Summer is coming up fast! Enjoy it!
Elder Shelton