Chapter 9: Transferred! ...Again...

8/24/2020

Today I found out that I'm going to be transferred to the Grand Junction West zone to serve in the Monument 2 area.

8/25/2020

Today we had to say a lot of goodbyes, it was heartbreaking. This is why I struggle with transfers so much. We did a goodbye lesson with Brother Hightower who at the end said, "come give me a hug, Brian (he never quite got the "Elder" thing) and then he gave me the best pep-talk ever because he knew that I was pretty disappointed to be leaving this area after only five weeks. I also went and talked to the Vincents who have taught me so much about the Gospel while I've been here, that was another hard goodbye. We also talked to Brother Beutler and he started telling me about some of the spiritual gifts he'd seen in me, and I just about lost it, I love these people so much, it's horrible to think about leaving them.

8/26/2020

Today went up in flames. We spent all day trying to work on a video for our Facebook post on Friday. We really wanted to show how one testimony, or one light, can make a difference. We essentially made the fire equivalent of dominos. We tied string to candle wicks and hoped that by placing a small candle at the bottom of the course we wanted the fire to consume, it would nicely go along the string and the connecting candles and be a powerful object lesson. Well, what we really illustrated was that there was a good reason for the rules that Elders couldn't use open flames, we had permission to light the candles, but definitely not the bonfire that resulted from a single small flame... I was always cursed because I was too good at building large fires, so today when we needed a nice, small orderly one, that didn't go very well. We got a pretty funny video of it, though, complete with Johnson screaming in the background as we tried to put out flaming alcohol with a water bottle. It was interesting, and definitely the weirdest "last day" I've ever had.

8/27/2020

Today was pretty awesome! We woke up this morning and immediately started our task list for our busy day. The first item was to clean up the charred remains of yesterday's filming project from the garage. I then finished packing, and then we headed off to Uncompaghre 1 to pay a goodbye visit to Pack and Fisher. We were all really sad to part, but the rest of the day was very happy. We walked up to transfers, and my whole district from melody lane was there, I walked up to them as they cheered, and we were reunited. Collins made a comment about the "prodigal son" and that was definitely the way I felt, it was so good to see those Elders and Sisters again. Eventually my comp came, and then we set off to our beloved new area, Monument 2 in Grand Junction West. I was pretty excited to be off and to come to this new area. This new area is so cool, we have a couple of missionaries who just finished the online MTC and are awaiting their opportunity to go out to the field, and tonight I got to meet one of them at dinner. He was a really cool Elder, and it sounds like he'll get to tag along for some of our activities which we're pretty excited about. My new companion, Elder Morse, is amazing! This is his last transfer, but he's not trunky or tired at all, which is incredible, I could not be more excited to work with him. Our area is definitely struggling... but we're still excited to be here and to be able to make a difference.

8/28/2020

Today was pretty awesome. Elder Morse and I got to exercise with the Elders that we share a car with which I was pretty excited about, it had been a long time since I'd gotten to play sports with other Elders. We had a quick breakfast afterwards, and then district counsel where I got to meet everyone else in our district. There were a lot of familiar faces, but the one I was most excited about was my District Leader, Elder Collins. It was pretty great to see him and to know that he was doing well. We got to do some Facebook work here, but it's almost dead, people here are less connected than people in Olathe were, and I thought Olathe was as bad as it gets, so this area is really struggling for finding new people. Thankfully, today President announced that we were going to try to switch from a primary focus on Facebook to a primary focus on members, which was much needed, especially for us, given that our area has very little potential for Facebook. We had dinner with the Bowens, one of the counselors in our mission President's presidency. It was a great dinner, and great to get to meet that family. We did have a lot of success in calling members today, we're going to have to start doing more of that, working with the members is definitely going to be the key to our success in this area.

8/29/2020

Today was a lot of fun. We went and did a couple of service projects this morning. The first service project was helping a family move, and they were all very kind to us, thankfully they're not moving out of our area, just the area of the Elders that we share a car with. Is it bad that I'm happy that it isn't our members that are moving? Oh well, our ward is already pretty small, so we couldn't handle our active members moving. The other service project was one for President Bowen; He thought he had a leaky sprinkler system (we Elders are pretty sure it's just runoff water from his hill) that's causing his ground to slowly erode away and sink in a bit, so today we went through and dug up his grass and pipes, looking for a break in them. No break was found, but we did get sufficiently muddy. I was very happy, I couldn't believe digging up someone's grass qualified as service. We wrote notes to our members today, it went so well in Uncompahgre that we decided to give it a try here as well. We wrote the master note up, and then realized that we had a copier at the church and decided to expedite the process. Within the hour we had all of our notes done, which was a huge improvement over the hours that I had previously spent on this project. We went to an Italian Sister's home for dinner tonight. She made pizza (Italian pizza is not the same as American pizza), and so I got to try hotdog, tuna, onion, and unbaked cheese and tomato pizzas. They were all pretty great, I was especially surprised about the hotdog one, I did not have high expectations for that pizza. We shared a message with them afterwards, partially in Italian (we had one of their kids read our verse in Italian), which was cool because it was similar enough to Portuguese that it was pretty easy to understand. We also went out onto the rocks around our house after work tonight, it was awesome to see the constellations amidst all the Colorado mountain scenery.

8/30/2020

Today was a lot of fun. The other Elders had church today, and because the church was occupied (the church is where we do all of our work), and because the Elders had the car, we were stranded at our house. We did all of our studies in the morning to try to make good use of our time, and it worked out really well! I even made some bread during it, and having hot bread made the studies even better. The best part of today was probably the lesson that we got to do with an Elder who's in the MTC right now, he's a Spanish speaking elder, so today we practiced our lessons in Spanish. People were very surprised at how much I could speak (it surprised me too, but they don't need to know that). Reading El Libro De Mormon has taught me an incredible amount. We had an awesome district sacrament, an awesome dinner, and a great devotional tonight, and all of it made for a very spiritual Sunday.

The thought that I wanted to share today comes from the Book of Moses. In his writings we read: And I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten, that it was not good that the man should be alone; wherefore, I will make an help meet for him. (Moses 3:18) God always intended for us to walk hard roads, to overcome trials and do difficult things, but He never intended for us to do it alone. We're here to help and guide others in their lives, as well as to be helped in our own. This path of discipleship is not a lonely one, none of us are ever as solitary as we sometimes feel, rather we are always surrounded by angels, on our right hand and on our left, with God Himself being our rearward. With our family, friends, and all of the hosts in heaven, we can stand comforted knowing they that are with us are far greater than they that are against us.