It’s honestly been the craziest two days of my life. All President Back told me was that I’m training, and that I should come up for transfers. The AP’s then fed me this bogus story that I was going back out to the mission banishment zone to open up a new branch and train. I was scared out of my mind. All the other trainers and I went to the mission home to find out what was going on in terms of waiting for our greenies (new missionaries) to get here, and then President asks if he can come talk to me. He sets me down in his office, and says that I’m training….. the whole mission. He want’s me to serve as AP (mission lingo for Assistant to the President) . It’s been crazy! Coming up, I had to wake up at 4:00 in the morning to make it to transfers on time. I was up until about 12:00 getting the departing missionaries ready, and we had to get up at 4:00 again this morning to see them off. We’ll be getting up again at 4:00 to bring in the new missionaries. Life’s going to be crazy. Dropping the departing missionaries off was insane. It’s been non-stop raining here for the last two days, and Sydney traffic is always bad. We had one part this morning where we literally moved less than 100 yards in an hour. It was a massive miracle to be able to get all the missionaries off, what should have been a 20 minute drive took about 4 hours. Luckily every single missionary caught their flight. I’m sure that there’s a lot of stuff ahead, but I’m exited to be able to be with President Back. My companion is awesome. I’ve served around him in one of my previous areas before, and I couldn’t have hand picked a better companion from the whole mission. This will be his second transfer as AP, and then he’ll die (finish his mission) at the end of it, so I’ll have one more companion before I go home.
Well, sorry in terms of photos. I took heaps this week, but I’m nowhere close to any of my stuff. This AP stuff has been full on! I’ll be lucky if I get any time to unpack until about thursday.
Well, It’s good to see that there’s snow. I really miss snow. We’ve been getting really cold rain, and when I was in Canberra, there was this mostly frozen rain that started to pour, but I really miss snow.
Well, love you all heaps!
-Elder Shelton
(Letter from Josh to Dad)
Hey dad.
Sorry, conference notes are going to have to wait. They’re tucked away somewhere with the rest of my luggage, it may be a little while before I’m able to get to it.
Things have been good. I’m really tired though. I get the feeling I’m going to be exhausted until the end of my mission. Suddenly, the mission scheduled of going to bed at 10:30 and getting to sleep until 6:30 has gone out the window, but I’m really looking forward to it. I’m with a great companion, probably my favorite missionary in the mission. His name is also Elder Pedersen, but he’s another one, different from the one I just had. I may have mentioned him before from my letters when I was serving in Minto if that gives you any reference.
Well, I hope you’re week is going well. Sleep enough for both of us! We’ll be able to talk soon on mothers day, and I really look forward to that. Love you heaps!
-Elder Shelton