Sup y'all,

So this week was a little rough. Had a lot of investigators drop off the ol' ship Zion. But at least that means we get to go find new, more elect ones right? So there's that. One of them was pretty solid till he got anti-ed. And the other ones are just not very committable. We went and saw Gary Ny, who we've taught on and off over the past few months. He answered the door wearing a ball cap and holding a banana and his left eye was shut. It looked a  little swollen and he doesn't live in the best part of town so my first instinct was that he got mugged or something. So I asked him what happened to his eye and sure enough he tells us he got punched in the face. Then I asked him when it happened and he was like "about 3 years ago." He says it super casually too and takes big bite out of  his banana as he's sitting down on a chair. I was like "3 years ago!? This is the first day I've seen your eye closed like this and we've been over a lot the past few months." And he goes "yeah they punched me pretty hard"😂😂😂  (looking back on it we think he may have been high) I was like "yeah they punched you pretty hard!" Elder Hatch and I were dying laughing because he was being so casual about it all. So I jokingly say "you know if you run that banana on your eye it'll make it feel better." And Elder Hatch pipes in with "it's the potassium, kinda like how they put cucumbers on people's eyes." So Gary looks at the banana and then starts rubbing into his eye, I was completely taken aback that he actually stuck the banana in his eye. The funniest part was the eye started to open up and he was like "wow this is really working!" And then he starts putting it into the other eye that's not even hurt and there's chunks of banana all over his face and he's giggling like a little girl and Elder Hatch and I are crying on the ground it was so funny. And Gary's all like "wow, that really helped thanks guys!" Then we tell him he's got banana all over his face so he steps back into his apartment to clean it off and I hear this thug guy who's street name is NewYork inside go "Yo Gary! What's all over your face man!" It was one of the funniest things I've seen on my mission.

Danny didn't come to church yesterday, but we have a lesson with her at a member's home this evening. I'm pretty excited for that. I really feel like she and her daughter will get baptized. We also met a stellar part member family yesterday who just needs their 16 year daughter to be baptized and they want to go get sealed in the temple this summer. They'll be really fun to work with. So to answer your question, no we don't get a ton of time in our area but the time we do have we make it work. President expects us to have a model area for the rest of the mission which is kinda stressful seeing as how we've got a lot of other stuff to do, but we just find a way to get everything done. There's always a way with proper planning.

I also saw Liam Galvin this week! He came to Charlotte with his family and took us out to lunch. Sounds like he's coming to Oregon the week of the 14th-18th. He's going to school in Canada so I won't get to see him much, but in excited to take him all around Oregon.

So that's about it. This week is Zone conference week so I'll be driving all over the place. Today for p-day it was Elder Caroll's birthday so we went to a trampoline place and played dodgeball. There were some kids there that were probably about 12th grade or so. They had 8 people and we had 7 so we challenged them to dodge ball and had a great time.

Sure love ya!

Howdy y'all!

It's been a good week. Yesterday we had an investigator named Danny and her daughter Kiara come to church for the first time. It was pretty exciting for us - we've been trying really hard to get her there and it seemed like she really enjoyed it. Her brother, Kristyle, got baptized in December so we're hoping he can be the one to baptize her. Maxwell was also there in his all white suit and alligator pointed shoes. It's was real good.

On Saturday Naima, Leticia, and Selena went to the temple for the first time. That was great. It's always fun to see recent converts go within the first 6 months of their baptism. It's a pretty good indicator of lasting conversion. We've got to work on getting Maxwell there now.

We also found this lady named Julie who's read all the standard works and went to church for a long time in a different part of North Carolina. The only thing holding her back from baptism is her husband and her feeling like it's not the right time yet. She said we could come over and visit anytime, so I'm hoping we'll be able to resolve some of her concerns and get her going to church again.

I also got to go on an exchange to Welcome this week. It started off with Elder Hatch and Hampshire driving away back to Charlotte with our car keys and quickly discovering our phone was dead. Once that fiasco was over with things went a lot better. The next day was the ward Easter activity so I got to see a ton of the members. It was nice to be back. We also did exchanges with Greensboro, which ends up being sooooo much driving. I hate driving these days.

For P-Day we went and played a ton of beach volleyball at a member's with some more missionaries. It was pretty fun. My volleyball skills are pretty bad, but other than that it was a jolly good time.

Welp I guess I'll hear from you next week!

Howdy Family!

Yesterday our investigator Ronald showed up to church unexpectedly! It was a huge blessing to us. We've been working super hard trying to find some solid people to teach and it seemed like nothing was working out and then boom! He still attends his other church but he's been reading the Book of Mormon and has some great questions whenever we see him. Also Maxwell came and I got to sit by him - that made me happy. We also had the excommunicated member there, he's been progressing really well. He and his family are really fun to teach.

So like I said we've been working really hard to find solid people and we've been blessed pretty well in our efforts. We found this family from Nigeria and the dad looks exactly like Damian Lillard, it's nuts.  Last night we came in clutch with a young guy from Jordan who's been looking for new religious books to read because he's not the most active Muslim. He was pretty excited about reading the Book of Mormon. Hopefully everything works out.

Last night we had dinner with the Halls. They're a great family in the ward and she makes homemade soap. She gave us some, but we have to wait forever before we can use it. The materials have to settle I guess.

Today we went to the park and played ball with a bunch of skreet ballers. Had a good time. The white missionaries got wrecked for the most part. This week I'm going on exchange to Welcome. I'm pretty excited for that. We've also got a few zone conferences and another exchange. Should be another busy week. Other than that nothin' much new happening here. Looks like y'all had a fun time in Utah. Let me know when more people get their mission calls.

I don't remember if I told you this but one of the senior couples on the office knows the Schultzes. I don't remember if they said Mark or Len. Tell them the Deweys say hi. And the Everys, also in the office, are friends with the Carrs that live at Eagle Crest. Small world.

Pictures say more than a thousand words, so here's some pictures!

Howdy y'all! I hope y'ins are having a grand time in the ol' city of Salt Lake. Conference was amazing wasn't it? I'm pretty jealous Dad got to go to the priesthood session. That was probably one of the best sessions of conference I've ever seen! How'd all the young men like it? I tried looking for you, but I guess the camera man wasn't feeling it.

This has been a little bit of a rough week. It's always an awkward adjustment getting a new companion who doesn't know the area yet. Elder Hatch is the best, though! We're having so much fun. But it's been wild. On Wednesday we got a call from President and he asked us to have an Elder in our companionship for a few days. Turns out he needed to take care of a few things and ended up going home on Saturday. I'm pretty sad he's gone, but I'm happy he had the courage to go and talk to President about it. So having him with us kinda threw our week off a bit. On Friday evening we got a call letting him know his flight was going to be Saturday at 6:30 so we ended up staying up until 1 helping him pack all his stuff and then got up at 5 to take him to the airport. There was another night this week we had a different Elder stay with us that was going home because of depression and earlier in the week we had to get up to take Elder Peterson to the airport. It's been pretty rough on the sleep schedule.

Because of all this jazz we weren't able to get much work done. So Sunday comes around and we haven't found any new investigators and we've got like a half an hour left in the day so we say a prayer and hit the skreet and found 3 new investigators! One is the wife of a different investigator and they've got like 9 kids and the other two are a mom and daughter that seem pretty nice. So that was my little miracle for the week. We also taught a family from Syria this week! They've only been here like 5 months so we took a recent convert that speaks Arabic to help, but it turns out their English was solid. Pretty neat experience, but they're not looking to convert, just study the Book of Mormon. We gave them one in Arabic so hopefully they'll read it.

This week we've got MLC and an exchange in Winston. I'm pretty excited to get back to the regular flow of things. It seemed like the last few weeks were a little weird. Probably because Elder Peterson was going home. Our investigator pool has kinda shrunk lately, so I'm hoping to find some solid people in the next few days. Our excommunicated member we're working with has been doing really well. He's come to church the past few weeks and hasn't missed a day of reading scriptures. I'm hoping to see him re-baptized before I leave.

(In response to my question about whether he likes sushi since fish makes him sick.) Yeah, I guess I like sushi? I'm not really one for eating out but if I'm going to eat out sushi would be my first choice. Unlike most food, you don't feel terrible after eating it. Turns out raw fish doesn't bother my stomach at all. We went to this place called Brazilian Cafe this week and I ate a slab of raw tuna. Pretty good stuff. Also we got crepes with Elder Monteleone, the guy in the picture below, and it was soooooo good. Then it totally wrecked our stomachs. Awful!

Wow. I think I know how parents feel on Christmas morning now. We were up until 1 again doing transfer logistics and then yesterday I had to get up and call every zone leader at 6:30 am. Transfers are almost as exciting as Christmas, but when you stay up 'til 1 hurting your brain trying to figure out where everyone needs to go the excitement kinda gets lost. Then in the morning everyone is all pumped for the news and I'm like ugh. Ward council is in 30 mins.' So yeah, sorry for waking you up on December 25th at 5 am the past 18 years of my life.

My new companion is Elder Hatch. He's from California and is super good at water polo. Nine months ago I saw him at a meeting and was like 'Elder Hatch, one day we're going to he companions' and boom, prophetic. It's pretty crazy though because he only has 6 weeks left on his mission which means at the end of this transfer I'll get another companion. At that point I'll only have 2 transfers left so I'll probably end up finishing my mission in Matthews, which I'm pretty happy about. It'd be pretty hard going from the busy busy life of being an Assistant back to the slow work of a district leader. Especially on my last transfer in a new area. I'm pretty sure President will keep me here though. He kinda alluded to it in my interview this week.

So what is our family's schedule for August? Liam Galvin is planning a trip down to Oregon to come visit me and Elder Andersen. We're gonna go hiking and hit up Portland. Hope you don't mind but I told him he could stay with us. I suggested the 2nd or 3rd week of August. He's the one from Canada I got close with in Danville.

Haven't finished recording Maxwell's story. It's a long one so we're taking it a few recordings at a time.

I went and got all-you-can eat sushi again this week! I was on exchanges with Elder Carol. Then, like two days later, this young couple took us out to eat and since it was Elder Peterson's last week they let him choose wherever he wanted to eat. He chose this place called Cowfish that has sushi and burgers and is apparently really good. Well, we got there and the wait was like an hour and a half so we had to find somewhere else so we tried this place called Baku. None of us had been there and it turned out to be the weirdest place I've ever eaten. The waitress kept trying to get us not to order sushi even though she said it's the best in Charlotte and we were sitting on these weird couch things and they kept offering us alcohol and when the food came out it was like a ton of money for barely any food. The member felt really bad and offered to take us to McDonalds instead. It was a pretty fun night.

Well, I'm off to President's to meet the new missionaries!

This week we had Elder Zeballos come our mission. He's in the 1st Quorum of the Seventy and is from Chile. He and his wife were here Thursday and Friday and then went to the Gastonia stake conference. They gave pretty good talks and he had a special MLC with us afterwards. They were super humble people and really care about missionaries. Because of the storms up north they almost couldn't come but ended up driving 11 hours to get here. Even though it's been really fun to have all these General Authorities here, I'm glad it's over for a bit. We've spent a ton of time the last two weeks making sure our sound system works and setting up tables and chairs for all these meetings. Now I'm ready to get out there and baptize some more people.

We also found this really great investigator yesterday. He's from China and his father attended BYU. He's got a lot of Mormon friends and he's coming to church next week. His name is Shane, and I feel like he has a lot of potential. If he joins the church he'll be an Elder's Quorum president for sure. Gary is still doing well. He really fits in well at the YSA Ward. He told us this week he fasted for like 4 meals for God to help him stop smoking. We didn't even invite him to fast or anything. I love Gary so much!

Yesterday Maxwell received the priesthood! He would have gotten it way sooner but he was sick one week and then we had the conference with Elder Cook. Maxwell is such a solid convert.

So I'm pretty tired. I don't think I've ever been so tired in my life. Transfers are this week which means I'll be even more tired in a few days. So much work and on top of all that I need to find people to baptize next week. I'm getting a new companion next week because Peterson goes home. I'll be sad to see him go. He's been really fun to work with, and we've gotten along swell. Crazy he only came out 4 months before I did. I'm starting to get anxious about choosing a career and a lifestyle and everything. Good thing I've had 4 General Authorities here over the past few weeks to show me how it's done. It's been really interesting hearing their life stories and how they got to the point they're at now.  

Sure love ya!

Howdy.

It was a good week. I'm pretty tired. On Sunday morning it snowed which was really strange.

Elder Cook came with his wife and Elder McArthur and his wife and Elder Klebingat and his wife. On Saturday we had a meeting with them and the whole mission at the Charlotte Central stake center. It was amazing. The Cooks and the Klebingat's both spoke. Honestly, if I could choose between sitting down and having a conversation with Elder Cook and Elder Klebingat I'd choose Elder Klebingat. Elder Cook really blew it out of the water, but Elder Klebingat said some really insightful things. That guy knows the scriptures really well. He talked about why missionaries go inactive when they get home, and what you can do on your mission to avoid that. Then yesterday at the big conference he talked about the pre-mortal life and the war in heaven and he dropped some serious deep doctrine bombs. Apparently he's a convert and he's only like 45. He's the youngest 70 in the 1st quorum. Elder Cook's testimony on Saturday was fantastic as well. Gave us a few things to focus on to be better missionaries and said the church needs more outgoing and personable missionaries.

On Saturday I saw a ton of members from my past areas which was really neat. The Clays from Danville and Dusty, one of the recent converts Elder Everette and I taught together was there as well. I saw a few people from Welcome and a ton of people from Providence.

Most of my week was just spent preparing for that conference. One day we had to go to Best Buy and get some audio equipment and another day we had to spend a ton of time making sure all the audio equipment worked, which it didn't, and we had to figure out why it didn't work, that was a headache.

My birthday was wonderful! We went out to lunch at Sabor and in the evening Kevin had us over and made this Columbian dish that was super, super good. It had a ton of rice and beans and avocados and eggs and sausage. The Jacksons, our ward mission leader, got me a cake and we ate it at ward coordination. Don't feel bad at all the package came late. I was totally fine, just worried about my voice recorder. The Lexington Elders said the package was slightly open when they got it so hopefully nothing was taken. When I got it it had a bunch of snacks, a piñata and my voice recorder in it. Thank you again for it!!!!

This week we've got another 70 coming, Elder Zabollos. He'll be here for a few days. Tomorrow we start transfer planning, which is always fun. Should be a big week.

Okay I love you!