Monday, December 22, 2014

Merry Christmas from Elder Peery

1. Big dog who knows how to really beg.  Would you say no to her?

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Here is an update from Hendersonville:

On Monday I went with some other elders to go disc golfing which is essentially frisbees and golf mixed together--great idea and concept and loads of fun to play…Unless you're Elder Black. The poor kid got injured while WALKING towards his frisbee. I think he sprained it, but by his performance of screaming, you would've thought the whole foot came off! It was quite dramatic but I can't blame him for the injury.

However, we can make fun that he was injured playing such a casual sport, which is precisely what we did on Tuesday at the bishop's storehouse. Elder Black and his companion were not there due to the injury but once the sisters and Hermanas heard about it, everyone was laughing and suddenly "breaking their ankles". It was a lot of fun and when we told him about it later on his only reply was "Ya'll are jerks!" Followed by laughing.

The storehouse on Tuesday was insane. We got there at 9:00am didn't leave till 5:00pm. It was so busy, that the entire stock would have run out had it not been for one of the members feeling prompted to check the supply order the day before.

Just to give you an idea of how much stuff there was, we gave out over 250 gallons of milk. It was insane. Afterwards Elder Womack, who is the district leader, and I went on exchange and were treated to a steak dinner at Longhorn which was amazing. After that we went over to one of his member's place where her non-member friend was there and pretty much asked us why we do what we do. It seemed so incredulous to her that we come here "giving up women?! Jobs?! Women?! School?! WOMEN?!" She didn't understand the whole don't-date-on-your-mission thingy. She also grilled Womack because he's a cattle rancher in Wyoming and she used to be a vegetarian.  It didn't help his case when he let slip that he enjoys hunting. 

On Wednesday I gave a training on the importance of using the Book of Mormon. I had a box inside of a box that I used for this demonstration, and I am going to try to explain how this worked. Let me know if you are confused. So first off, I took a big box and I opened the bottom of it making sure that it wouldn't stay shut completely. Then I took a smaller box and taped it on the inside. So like a box inside of a box. Then I had people place some of the reservations they had heard about the Book of Mormon in the end that had the other box in it while holding the bottom of the box the entire time. I had someone get up to teach me using the Book of Mormon and when he showed me the reference in the Book of Mormon I quickly let go of the bottom of the box and grasped the handles on the big box. The force of the gravity change caused the bottom of the box to open and candy fell out that I had placed in it the night before. Everyone minus a few were stunned at what happened. My companion who had watched me create the box explained how it worked. The whole idea was to show that when you show an investigator hidden treasures in the Book of Mormon, hidden blessings will blossom in their lives. I thought it was pretty clever. Later that day we did some tracting, and the only cool thing I guess was that we found an Irish man named Paul who was from Belfast. The guy was in the middle of a lot of the rebellions going on so he moved here. Cool story and hopefully we will go back. 

Thursday night I got to have dinner with my cousins at Zaxby's, which is a fun fast food restaurant. Since I figured I may be getting transferred in a week, I wanted to have one more dinner with them before they left for Georgia for the holidays. We also had a good meeting with Bro. Rose, our ward mission leader who is helping us create a revolutionary idea on member missionary work. If it works, this could change the mission.  I'm not 100% knowledgeable about the details but essentially it's all about getting members excited about talking about the gospel. 

Friday I came down with a sickness which I still have now which really sucks. And then Saturday we had dinner with a missionary couple from the office staff who brought us some packages and goodies.

Sunday was pretty cool cause that was when we had our Christmas program. There's a little girl with a disease that basically has her paralyzed for life. She's in primary and wanted to go up and sing with the primary kids but there was no ramp. Two brothers (15 and 13) were prompted by the Spirit (or their mother), walked swiftly up the aisle and carried her chair onto the stand. She was so happy, and it was so touching. I also joined the ward choir and was the solo bass of the group thanks to being sick. Normally I'm a bari-tenor.

After sacrament meeting, President Abernathy, the Madison stake president, announced that our ward boundaries are getting realigned and it will shorten our area. 18 active families are affected and it was a big shock to everyone. But he also said that this is just the first change and that because our ward is booming, it is likely there will eventually be a building near Hendersonville for us to go to. Later on that day we had dinner with some members of Nashville Tribute Band, and it was super fun.

Today we had an adventure when a little kitten kept meowing at our door shivering from the cold. Elder Hansen doesn’t really like cats, but I made sure to find it a good home by giving it to a member who knows of some no-kill shelters. It was super cute, so no doubt it will get adopted soon.

2. We had a little friend come in this morning so I gave her some milk. Very small kitten.

That's about it. I plan to create a gigantic Christmas thingy for the people who email me so that will be fun.

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Elder Peery


3. The crew:  (From left to right: Elder Hohneke, Elder Stutz, Elder Cullum, 
Elder Womack below Cullum, Elder Hansen, Elder Colver, Elder Black, and me)

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