It feels great now that it's in the low 100 degrees! Phew!
Welllllll that's another week gone. I know I talk about how time is so weird here a lot but it literally feels like I was sitting writing emails yesterday. Well just another adage to the fact that on the mission the days are weeks and the weeks are days.
Soooo. Tyler and Lorna (the Native American couple with 3 super cute kids) are on date to be MARRIED and BAPTIZED for the first weekend of October. Lol we wanted to have it sooner but Tyler gets paid October 1st and wants to buy a super nice wedding ring for Lorna, and since we didn't really have a good solution for that. It's happening the first week of October. I'm so excited, I need to get a picture with them but they're amazing, he's this huge man, maybe give or take 6 feet tall but he looks like he could be a defensive lineman in the NFL (google Vince Wilfork and you'll get an idea of his body type). So finding someone to literally baptize him is going to be interesting but it'll all work out and I'm pumped.
Something random that's just kinda cool/interesting is that since there's sooo many members that live in Arizona whenever we're out riding on our bikes, even in parts that are super urban with very few if any members on our ward lists, we get people honking and waving, people smiling and yelling, "hey Elders!" out their windows, people buying us food in fast food places and people just walking by give us hi fives and thank us for serving. It's super cool, and just nice to have there be so many people around who are aware of what we're doing and thankful for it. Definitely one of the best parts about AZ so far.
Another story happened this week with me getting my Spanish mixed up/not paying as much attention as I should have been... (it's hard ok when they're only speaking a language you don't understand very well to pay attention 100% of the time). But we were in Sunday school at church, just in a normal gospel doctrine class when without me really hearing or understanding exactly what's going on I just see a lot of people start standing up. So not to look dumb to I stand up. And the teacher looks at me shakes her head and tries to laugh as discretely as she can. I obviously get confused by why she's laughing and look around to see none of the men in the room standing and only the women. I look down at my comp as he's laughing too, and start to realize as I sit down as fast as I can, that she asked all the women to stand so she could read something just to them. Ughhh my comp, the teacher and the other men around were laughing but Latinos are so nice they were all laughing with me, and patted me on the back and just said, "it's ok Greenie" in what little English they knew. Haha I swear I could write a whole email about experiences like that but I'll spare you all from reading and me from the public shame.
This past week was super disrupted and disordered just for a variety of reasons so other than Tyler and Lorna we didn't really make much progress, including with Andrew and his family from Brazil. They've been super busy moving so they canceled twice on us. We had a missionary emergency transfer into our apt for the last week of his mission just for random reasons, and while it was super nice to ask him questions and get his advice on stuff he wasn't super focused on the work so it unfocused us a little bit too. But he left on Wednesday and we've been able to get back on track a little better, even if we aren't having quite as much fun in the apartment without him.
Something that's kinda crazy is that there's 22-25 new missionaries (half Spanish) coming into the mission, that most that's come in at one time in over a year, so the APs and President are I'm sure going crazy trying to sort out where to put everyone, who to train who, logistic stuff like that. So my guess is that I'm going to stay in the same area with Elder Wright (transfers are October 5th) but people have been saying they might need him to train someone else, in which case I might be moved, and end my training or early, maybe get put with another trainer, get moved to an English area for a while or who the heck even knows what. So ya stay tuned that'll be interesting to see what happens with that. I'd love to stay in this area if I can, but I'm sure whatever happens will work out and be what's best for me.
Hmmmm other stuff. It's been surprisingly confusing switching from one mission President to another and being here without ever meeting the old Mission President. Like some missionaries are complaining about new rule changes or how they're frustrated by this or that, or love how we don't have to do this now, or are confused by a switch from this. And I just kinda sit there likeeeee, um I don't know what you're talking about at all I just know what I've been told to do by President Robinson. And it's also confusing because there's all these things that aren't rules that are mission culture that everyones used to, but that are changing so I'm stuck having to learn those old cultural things to get by right now, while also trying my best to obey the new structure that's being implemented. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but ya it just hasn't been as smooth as I thought it'd be. But I'm sure in the next 3-6 months it'll be up and running with all this uncertainty behind us.
Below is the L. family and us taking our squad pic because Elder S. (with his arms stretched out and confused) didn't know what the word squad meant. Hahah so we took a pic to show him. Gotta love em.
Well that's all the time I got, hope you all have a good week, thanks again for all your emails (sorryyyy if I don't get the chance to respond, as usual I'm short on time)
Elder Merrill
