Wow x 2!!

Sept 18, 2017

Alright buckle up for another awesome week

Monday night after emailing for 5 hours... (we got permission to use the wifi where we live since our closest wifi is pretty far and we live with a member so I went a little crazy) we headed off to dinner with the Baldwin family. It was kind of crazy because they have a really young son who's name is Harrison. He is the first person on my mission that has my name. It was weird hearing them say it throughout the dinner.

Little Harrison with Elder Kelly

Well following dinner we headed out to a new move in named Karen Park. Her son is a non member that wants to learn and get baptized. He is 14 so we were pretty pumped to go visit him. Well we headed out and the sisters asked us where we were going that night since our dinners were in the same town. We responded and then a while later I realized it hadn't sent because of no service so I sent it again. Well to make a long story short we pulled up to the new move in house to find the sisters car there... we had just driven about 40 minutes to get there. Later we figured out the text hadn't gotten to them until when they were already in the lesson. A funny coincidence that could have been avoided so easily. We ended up teaching another part member family nearby anyways so it was all good. Just kind of crazy we ended up at the same place at the same time when we cover such a large area. 

Tuesday morning we had the "mid-trainers meeting". It is a meeting that is at 6 weeks after being in the field. So I got to go with Elder Denney even though I had only been training him for a few days. I snagged some cheap boots from Walmart while we were down there for the service opportunities we have. Later that night we set up a return appointment with a Mennonite family. We are excited to see how that goes. We are meeting with them later this week.

Sister Ratliff is the best!  French Toast, mmm

Wednesday we came down stairs to a huge plate of delicious French toast sister Ratliff had made for us! Later we went over to the Cooperrider home. They are building a wall in their house and we got to go help. His wife is a nonmember who is very nice to the missionaries but is not too interested in the gospel. We were over there for a few hours and then they fed us dinner. Basically we had these huge burritos that were delicious. 

Brother Cooperrider has a really long beard that the sisters had been asking to cut for a while. Well right before we got there he trimmed it up. So we took pictures to prank the sisters with so they thought he had let us cut it. Fun stuff.

"Trimming" Brother Cooperrider's beard.

Thursday we had District Meeting. Elder Barlow is our District Leader and this is my first time serving by him since the MTC. He asked each of us which doctrinal point from PMG we felt like we knew least about or wanted to know more about. Well he asked me and another sister to give training on the topics we had told him. Very clever because I did learn a lot. We also had interviews with president which is always a blessing. We found out that our mission along with 11 other missions in the world have been selected to receive iPhones! We will be getting them in October. That will be sweet!

That night we taught a man named Lindi who is really old. He is partially blind and deaf. Our lesson was basically us speaking very loudly. My throat was a little tired by the end of the lesson. Elder Denney and I have laughed about it a few times.

Friday we helped a new family move into the ward, the Acosta family. We were there with the sisters and a few ward members for the majority of the afternoon. They are a way cool family and we are excited to have them in the ward. That night our ward was doing a ward campout but since we live in the boons they basically camped in a big open field in someone's back yard. We had dinner there and before dinner we played the ultimate game of tag with all the kids. Elder Denney and I were dead tired by the end. 

Moving Day

Elder Kelly, Elder Denney

Saturday we taught a man named Mel. The sisters sent him over to us on the area book and he seems pretty interested. That night we taught Anthony with the sisters. We decided it would be best for us to teach Anthony and they are going to teach Anthony's non member aunt who he is living with. He set a baptismal date for Oct 8th and is very excited. We also set up appointments for 3 times a week so he can learn quickly. He already knows a ton and we got to teach him again Sunday night. We have another appointment tonight too. Haha.

Sweet Country Views

Sunday we had the primary program and we got to sit up with all the kids and sing the songs. It was sweet. We also had homemade bread bowls that night with loaded potato soup. To say the least I am really enjoying the country and really enjoying the food!

Don't forget that your Heavenly Father loves us and because He loves us He expects much of us!

Love you!

-Elder Kelly