The one where we hold weed, go ghost bustin,' and transfers

Hey hey everyone ik ive been slacking on the emails as usual but these past few weeks have been PACKED FULL love you guys and hope you have fun readin' my emaillll :)

NOV 4th

The first story I wanna share is the Ghost Bustin' story. So we get a referral from this one daughter and she calls us and says hey does your church cast out evil spirits and I'm like uhhh yeah sure (keep in mind I don't believe in ghosts or evil spirits) so me and my companion Elder Checketts go to meet up with these (crazy, but nice) people and we go inside the house and we literally just say my comp just says a prayer to bless the home and the mom goes "uh you did it wrong" and I'm like ohhhhh ok. I give up so we say welp some Elders have done it before ill send their number to you guys and they will get it out for sure. So we leave and the other Elders come and ofc they cast it out so obv there not real. But it was a fun lil experience I'll remember to tell my kids.

NOV 7th

Today went by just as usual and we get home from a service helping some members rake leaves and we get home about 8:30 and we get called by some elders that I'm super good friends with and they say hey we need help moving our investigator out and moving them to White City and they only say it should take me an hour which is all right we can stay out past 9:30 if we're with other missionaries.

So we get there and we start packing and it's just taking longer and longer to have her go through her stuff and to put it in the trailer that was about 100 yards away. So we get to the end of it and it's about 9:45 and we are definitely supposed to be home by now but she explains to us how she would have to sleep on the floor and it was just not a safe place for her as her kids are not very nice to her so we ended up making this decision to help unpack her stuff in White City where she was moving to.

Before we left for White City, she had these four marijuana plants that I saw and was saying to the other elders we got to get a picture with these before we leave because the likelihood of us ever seeing these and a person being cool with us holding them and taking a picture was very unlikely. So we take a solid picture and packed the marijuana plants in the truck and we head off to White City which is about a half-hour drive. So we got there around 10:10pm and there were missionaries that are in White City and Eagle Point those two cities are super close to reach other so there were eight of us hoping to unpack this trailer full of her stuff into this house so it went by super quick we got done unpacking all the stuff at 10:30 exactly.

We hurry and hopping in all the cars and drive back to our apartments as we're supposed to be home by 10:30 and we end up getting home around 10:50 and it was probably one of the funniest nights of my entire life as the person that we were helping move was born with cocaine in her system due to her mom using while she was pregnant so sad but definitely, a night to remember.

NOV 13TH

Awesome pday. Elder Cox and I went mountain biking and got all muddy!! It was super fun but the best part of the ride is what happened at the end. probably the coolest, Iwe were going to the trail head i looked down and I saw a wallet on the ground so i picked it up and we were like ohhh shoottt we definitely gotta deliver this after we get done riding.

So we get done with riding and we are all muddy like it was bad bad muddy but we had to deliver the wallet that we found. So we started driving to the address that was displayed on the drivers license, and it was only 13 minutes away so that was a massive win because we didnt have a lot of miles left in the month haha.

Anyways we got to the neighborhood and it's a gated community sadly but as we were trying to find the person to call them through the intercom system we found their name and we tried calling them a couple times but no one answered and we got pretty discouraged cuz we weren't able to get in..... and then a truck pulled up behind us and was signaling us to do a U-turn so that we could follow them in!! So hype that happened bc we for real could not get in without a code. Obviously, God helped us with that one because we were doing our good deed of the day!!

So we pull up to the niceeee house and we get out all muddy and we walk up the long driveway and we go knock on the door and this womanI is like looking at us funny and i explain that we found this wallet while we were biking. Sis he starts to freak out in joy and it just so happy!! Because her husband was literally looking for it right as we handed it to her!! So told her where we found it and she was so happy! She slipped us some money hehe and we were on our way out! Glad to do that good deed because I know the feeling of losing a wallet haha (but I found mine lol)

NOV 14TH

Our newest friend his name is Jay and he's Asian and he is progressing super well and he literally agrees with everything we are saying so that was so awesome! Hes 23 and is just looking for a church with a solid foundation, so we taught him a whole bunch and it has all gone well!

TRANSFER NEWS

That night we also found out that I was going to be leaving Central Point and the Medford Third Ward. I'm moving up to Grants Pass in the Redwood Ward and I will be training a branding missionary. So that means I will be whitewashing the area!! Ahhhh so instantly I was super overwhelmed and felt like I had a whole lot of pressure as GP area is doing very well in terms of investigators!

NOV 16th

The 16th of November will always be and probably one of my favorite days of the mission as I got all packed the day before we headed up to Eugene to the mission office and that's where we stay the night before the new missionaries come in but the night of the 16th me and Elder Anderson were comps for the night because we are both training a brand new missionary!! Woot woot!! Me and Elder Anderson are super tight and we were so hyped to be comps together for the night!!

I said my goodbyes to my homie comp Elder Checketts (gonna miss that kid), and we get up to the Eugene Stake Center we help everyone with their luggage. The double APs ended up leaving us at the Stake Center just to walk around talk to people, keep in mind it's like seven o'clock at this time and we're in downtown Eugene where it's extremely sketchy so we ended up walking to KFC to grab some dinner and after that we ended up making the decision to walk to the Oregon Ducks Stadium which is about us six-mile walk from the Stake Center which is where we got left at.

So we make it to the Ducks Stadium obv talking to thousands of people at 8pm on Friday (we didn't see/talk to anyone) it's super foggy but you can still kind of see the stadium so that was super fun. We were able to meet up with some other Elders that also whitewashed into a Eugene Ward and they were also walking around and talking to people that night as they were just getting food so we met up with them!!

Then after we had the AAPS pick us up and drive us back to their apartment we slept over at their apartment with all the departing missionaries that were going home so we got woken up at 3:00 a.m. and then we went back to bed, we woke up at 3:00 a.m. because they were super loud so that wasn't great but we just stayed at the apartment and slept until 6:30.

The next morning we went to go work out at their NICE apartment gym so that was sweet then we got all ready to go to the Stake Center and we had a training meeting to help us with training a new missionary, so that was cool and then our NEW missionaries came in and I met my brand new little greenie, his name is Elder Griffiths. He is a reassignment from Japan so he's only here for about 6 weeks definitely (HOPEFULLY) he is anxious to get out into the mission field in Japan!

So after we meet our new missionaries we pile in all of our luggage in our car and we head to our brand new area to me. We got all unpacked and settled in. But the reason why that was like the best day it's just because I was able to be comps with Elder Anderson and just to be surrounded by a whole bunch of cool missionaries that day and we were able to go to the Ducks Stadium so that was sick in itself!

PRAYER AND FASTING

Saturday rolled around and with my current situation, I was super overwhelmed with whitewashing not having a clue how to be a trainer to brand new missionary, and not getting along with my comp right off the rip. So ended up getting on my knees and praying and halfway through the prayer get this HUGE feeling that I needed to fast on Sunday. I knew that was the Spirit telling me that I needed to fast to be able to get those answers. These answers are what needed to be able to feel that sense of guidance. So I started my fast.

First Sunday in Grants Pass, Redwood Ward and we got through our first hour of church. 1 out of my 3 questions were instantly answered in the first hour of church. Then the second hour rolled around and the two other questions I had were also answered!!

I know for a fact that with me fasting praying and pleading unto the Lord, I was able to see those miracles that happened to me at church. It was just so cool to finally see what prayer and fasting can do to someone's feelings and what answers can come from it. Definitely one of the biggest spiritual experiences I've had on the mission and a very big testimony builder obviously!!

After I was able to meet everyone at church and kind of gather everyone's names and put those names to faces I was feeling WAY LESS overwhelmed with the task I had coming up this transfer!! But i got it lol

P DAY

we played some soccer on a turf field and it was actually pretty fun but holy cow all my cardio is GONE but oh well we hang out and praise the lord there's an In&Out here so we got that for lunch and that made me happy and I hung out with the Elders I get along with so that was really sick!!

Gonna be a super fun transfer ahead, but we will get through it just gotta put our trust in the Lord.