Monday, February 25, 2013

Letter from December 17th, 2012

Well I get to talk to you in a week so...... okay okay I guess I'll still send you an email. This week really just flew by and I can hardly believe I've been in my new area with a new companion for a week. Elder Ririe and I have been getting along AWESOME!!! I think he's that golden companion I've been waiting for who together we're able to really go above and beyond in terms of missionary work. Elder Ririe is actually from Loveland Colorado and his best friend Elder Lane is also in the mission. I then found out that night that I had actually gone on a double date with Elder Lane just over a year ago. Crazy right!?!?! My new area is definitely a change of scenery from the Red Rock Zone I just came from. Since being here I've already been pretty humbled by the struggles so many of our members and investigators are going through. We've been teaching a man named Joseph who early this year was shot four times paralyzing him from the waist down and completely turning his life upside down. He's now in a wheel chair struggling to get around his home and suffers from all kinds of nerve pains. Our bishop who is also in a wheelchair has help to inspire Joseph and help give him hope for the future. It's so weird coming from such a wealthy area to an area where everyone is going through some kind of trial in their life.

   I was so excited for church yesterday and got to meet many of the members in the ward. I felt so welcomed and loved here and can't wait to get to work with them. There hasn't been a single baptism in either one of our wards here in over 6 months so we've got some work to do! My companion and I have been going through our area books and have made up a huge list of people to go and visit. We created a system of organizing each person on our list by area and then have boxes to mark when we visited, if they're interested, and a side box for notes. We then mapped out mini area's within our boundaries and created routes to take so that we can use the least amount of miles, or walk the routes to save miles. I'm really excited about our system and we've hoping to be able to start using by tomorrow. One of our goals as companions is to really focus in on the ward and it's members, part members, and less actives. Since arriving in the field I've found that a large part of missionary success comes from those people and so we're trying to give it the best shot we've got. Plus we've already doubled the number of lessons in a week that this area has seen in a while.
   Living with members has definitely been a different feel for me but I love it! We live with the Baldwin family who have helped me to feel right at home. It's also great just having my companion with me rather than another set of missionaries because we're able to stay more focused with far less distractions during our studies. I love our new ward missionary leaders and bishops and can already tell that they're going to be a huge help in the missionary work.
   So time for funny story of the week. My companion and I went to go stop by a less active member in the ward who is Hawaiian. He asked if we had a dinner that night (which we didn't) and then proceeded to feed us...and feed us...and feed us. Ha he would bring us a dish and just as we would start to eat it he'd microwave something else and bring it out to us to eat. We ended up with soup, chicken, hot dogs, salad, spinach, some weird vegetable, rice, beans, and kimchi. Now kimchi for those of you who don't know is rotting cabbage and is a very acquired taste. I luckily recognized the dish from our ward mission leader in our last area who was making (rotting) some in a jar and had us smell it. GROSS!!! My poor companion however did not know what it was and grabbed a bit nearly throwing it right back up. I grabbed some to be polite and when our host went to go make us some more food I mixed it in with my soup and moved on to the next dish :)
   Well like I said I'm super excited to be here and to serve with my new companion. I can't wait to skype in a week and I'll give you a call that day while we get it all set up. I'm not sure what time it'll be exactly but it should be sometime between 10-4 our time on Christmas day. Love you,
Elder Reeves

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