Monday, February 15, 2016

Week 89 in the Field: Cold and Snow Can't Stop Sunday Success!!!

Snow out in the country.

Okay so this is the last week of the transfer which means transfer calls is this weekend! This will mark my second to last transfer call of my entire mission. Basically meaning I have about 14 weeks (1week extension for all native speakers) left of my mission starting tomorrow (3.5 months left). Yep. That's pretty crazy. Hopefully this last week of the transfer will be good!

Monday, in a very large contrast from last Monday, we literally did nothing for Pday. Like seriously we just stayed in the apartment and emailed. No card games, no church movies, it was just a pretty boring day. It was also very cold. In the evening we tried two people but no luck.

Tuesday was very cold. In fact it snowed. But not enough for it to stick to the roads, so we decided to use the car. We went out to this area near Woodbury, TN and tried some people in the area. It was very cold as we knocked trailers trying to contact a referral. We also contacted some less-actives in the area. We then went and tracted some places in this suburb area where it was around 15 degrees and one guy agreed to listen another time though because of our determination, which was good though. Later in the week a few members called asking, "Did we really see you guys tracting in that weather?! Keep up the good work!" Made our week.

More snow – winter wonderland in McMinnville.

Wednesday we had district meeting and Hermana Lutui and Elder McClain focused on reactivation. Elder McDonald, who's from South Africa was there, and it was kind of cool ‘cause he trained McClain and McClain was training Elder Cox so it was basically a family reunion. After that we took the car to get it fixed and while that was happening, I encouraged us to go tract the nearby area. The main door that opened was another Church of Christ lady who bashed us. This marked the third time in eight days we'd been bashed. New mission record! After that we got the car back and later on went to see Debra. We watched the movie Mountain of the Lord which basically talked about the building of the Salt Lake Temple and the various sacrifices associated with it. She enjoyed it and had a lot of great questions.

Thursday we struck out all over the place but the highlight of the day was when we were walking down this road near the projects and this dude yelled at us "Hey! Are you guys Mormons?!" We said yes and then he was like, "Come on over here!" He turned out to be this less-active guy who had a very big grudge against the bishop because of various reasons. He invited us in and introduced us to his wife who was also an inactive member. She was very fond of giving missionaries nicknames, however the nicknames she gave us didn't make any sense whatsoever. Mine was "brat" because my step dad is a retired Army Colonel... Even though he was already retired by the time I even heard of him... But anyways we get to talking with him and he went on and on about how he has so many financial struggles as he proceeds to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes while he's speaking... Not to mention the eight dogs in varying sizes who were all over the place... And the at least 10 liters of soda in the fridge... When we asked him if he ever thought of quitting smoking or cutting any of the unnecessary expenses to help his financial situation, he kind of laughed and said "But I like it!" *face palm* He invited us back on Saturday and his wife also wanted us to come over for dinner this Saturday... Yay.

Friday we did a lot of weekly planning and then we had dinner with Sis. Wayman who made us soft tacos which were awesome. She basically enjoys taking care of the missionaries because of the blessings she receives for doing it. She's a really nice lady for sure. After that we went to try some more people but the only house we were able to get into was Bro. Mathis. He's one of my favorite members I've worked with here for sure, and he was very happy to see us. We talked about the things that give us exceeding joy. He talked about his son and how even though he has downs syndrome, he's brought him and his family a lot of happiness. "He could put me in a headlock fastern' any of yuns can!" Fun family for sure.

Saturday the Hennessee's were finally moving into their new and furnished house. Looks 100% different. But since we had some set appointments, we had to split up. So we sent the Ox of the companionship, while Beckett and I went to go to the appointments. Literally every appointment we had set cancelled. EXCEPT for the good ol' less active. Literally the same thing happened. The same show was even on the tv. It was funny. We later talked about the experience with bishop, and he cautioned us to be careful with the guy. So we will visit him every now and then.

We also saw Billy that day and I noticed he had a guitar. When I pointed that out he told me to strum something while he followed on a violin. So I played most of the song Hotel California since it has more chords than most songs I know (It's also Elder Barrus's favorite band) and he played along with the violin. It was really fun but sadly during the lesson, he told us that he wasn't really going to progress really. We were sad but told him we'd stop by again to say goodbye when one of us would be leaving the area. We then tried to visit with Debra in the evening but she was asleep. Which was actually a very good thing because...

Sunday in the morning Debra texted saying, "What time is church?" We literally exploded. Well not literally but you get the point. It had been 20 weeks (about 5 months) since an investigator had come to church. But sure enough Debra showed up and we finally had an investigator at church! We had a good Sunday and Bro. Caten was released and Bro. Woodruff was sustained as the new Ward Mission Leader. We are excited to work with him starting next Sunday. In the afternoon we went teaching with Bro. Burt and struck out. And in the evening we went with Bro. Hale and... Struck out. Bright side is that we have three exchanges set up for today and tomorrow and then one more on Saturday.

Hopefully we will go out with a bang this week. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with transfer calls. If I'm staying, I could finish in McMinnville. If I leave, I will finish wherever I'm going. Either way this week will probably be stressful.

Talk to you guys next week with the big news.

Elder Peery


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