Troubles -- Troubles

I am having big problems with Aaron's blog account. I can't get it to sign in so that I can put a new post on it. Grrr. . . . So, I am going to put his latest email on mine; it won't get to everybody, but at least family will be able to read it. I'll have to put last week's on here too, as I wasn't able to enter it either. Here you go:


March 22, 2010

No coat is such a nice luxury. It may have dipped into the 20s a couple of points into the winter, but only a couple. Most of the time it was cold enough to need a coat, but only a lightweight jacket that would cut the wind. Most of the time it seemed to stay in the 40s and 50s most days. It should still rain a little, later on, but for the most part, it shouldn't rain too much more until maybe September or October. I'm not looking forward to the summer months, but I will be glad when I don't have to worry about being rained on for awhile.

I never got out to the portion of our area with the almond orchards. I'm sure the blossoms have fallen and the leaves are coming on by now. It's interesting here, though, because when it's maybe 45 degrees, it feels great and there isn't too much need for a coat (unless you're biking and need it due to the added wind).

I can't believe it's already two weeks into the new transfer. It's almost like I'm in a bobsled, speeding along. We had our zone conference on Tuesday, which, as always, went really well. I liked this one especially, because there wasn't a single role play where we broke off and pretended. It was all instruction, study, and council.

This month, the mission has been focusing on study skills. Every month (it did change every transfer, but now it's every month) we have a mission-wide focus. March, the focus is on learning to study more effectively and all that from chapter 2 in Preach My Gospel. It's interesting and my study is a lot more satisfying.

I'm looking forward to general conference coming up. I can't believe it's only a couple weeks away. It seems quite recently that the October one happened. What made me even more shocked is when I realized that Mother's Day is only about a couple months away. It seems like Christmas just happened and I had just called home. It'll be crazy.

We committed to playing dodge ball, today. We'll be spending our afternoon playing that. It'll be a good day.

Aaron
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March 29, 2010

I had salmon, this week. It was the second time I've had fish on my mission, and the second time I've had fish (unless, of course, you count tuna or fish sticks). It was pretty good. It isn't my favorite thing, but it's good.

I had a pretty cool experience happen, as well. We got a call from another companionship in the area because someone needed a blessing in the hospital that is in our area, here. It turns out it's from the 5th ward, where I started my mission. The guy who needed the blessing had had a heart attack, or something. I knew the family pretty well. I was able to catch up a little on their lives in the past year. Also, their home teacher turns out to be Bro. Mau. When I met them, he was a member, and very less-active. The rest of the family were not members of the church. I started teaching them and they started really doing well. After I left, they were all baptized. Now, they're all doing well and active, more of their extended family are joining the church, and he's a dedicated home teacher that is giving priesthood blessings. It was an awesome afternoon to be around them and see the change.

We had a good Sunday. We had four investigators at sacrament meeting. They all seemed to have had a really good experience there. They all stayed the full time, as well. We were pretty excited.

I think it's crazy that General Conference is this weekend. We just had it, but here it is, again. On the other hand, even Christmas seems just recent, but that was three months ago. To hear that Andrew is starting to walk and talk is pretty weird to me. After all, he's only -4 months old. I'm going to try to take a lot of pictures today and the following week, and get a CD made next Monday. I have maybe two or three transfers-worth of pictures on this card. I'm afraid of it doing like that last card did.

We have our zone activity this afternoon. I'm sure it'll be volleyball or something. That's good, though. I like volleyball. It's a good day.
Aaron

New Beginnings

Here is the mural we made for the front of the room.
We had six girls in attendance. They pose here with
our stake young women's counselor.

The front of the room taken from the back.

A display of some of the new personal progress materials

What better refreshments for the "jungle" than fresh fruit!

Wednesday was New Beginnings, "It's a Jungle out There". It seemed like we had a lot of stress putting it together, mostly because we all work during the day and had trouble getting together to work on things. It went well though and was fun while it was going on. My biggest problem was that I had a fairly long talk. During the first half of it I covered the 2010 theme and tied it into our New Beginnings theme. We talked about how there are a lot of dangers in the jungle, but the girls also run into dangers in the world today. These can be mostly avoided by recognizing them and knowing what to avoid. The second half of my talk was about the new personal progress program. We mentioned that the values covered while doing personal progress help the girls avoid those dangers they face. We also covered many of the changes and tried to answer any questions the moms might have. Well, the talk wasn't really my problem. My problem was that I started it out with a little bit of a scratchy throat. By the time I was finished I had basically no voice at all. It's a couple of days later now and my voice is just beginning to come back. I still can't sing; the Relief Society is supposed to sing in branch conference tomorrow. Oh, well. I'm just glad I will be able to actually talk when the stake YW leaders meet with us.

New Notebook

Here's my new work space (mostly for Young Women)

I intended to put this on here last week, but things have been busy. Alan surprised me with a new laptop (notebook actually). I don't know what the difference is unless it's just the thinness of it. I left for young women's meeting a week and a half ago; when I got back this was on my desk in place of my old laptop which is so slow that I thought it had almost died. You couldn't tell sometimes if it was just being slow or if it wasn't acting at all. This new one is really nice. Too bad it wasn't "on the budget". Anyway, here is a picture of my little work space. I swiped the desk out of Aaron's room when the missionaries came and we were forced to move furniture around.

Speaking of missionaries, one of ours is being transferred already this week. It seems like they just arrived. The mission president has a young man from one of the Pacific islands who needs to work on his English. President thought he might get more practice in a home. He will arrive Thursday.