Goodbye St. Johns, Hello Snowflake!

Well, I don't know why our member had to go and spoil the surprise that I've been transferred to Snowflake. But we all have our agency, and some people use that agency for bad things.

JK, that lady has a son out on a mission and I'm sure she was thinking she would want to know ASAP as possible if and where her son was getting transferred, so she was just following that golden rule.

But yes, I am in Snowflake. I am senior companion to an Elder Pyper, who has been out for 3 months. I am also the Snowflake District Leader over the zone leaders, a set of sisters, and a set of hermanas. And best of all, I'm on a #@~% bike. For some reason I'll never understand, mine and Elder Pyper's house is actually inside the sisters' area and there are some serious hills to get up to our area. And then the zone leaders live in a separate house... in our area... I... I... I just don't know...

It's whatever. I'll get used to it.

I don't have my planner with me, so I'm trying to remember what happened last week. I don't think anything all that important happened last Monday or Tuesday... But Wednesday was interviews with President. I told him my concerns, and he told me that if I'm distracting from the message, that's when it becomes a problem. And he's right. The message is far more important than anything else, and if I'm distracting from it, that's a problem. Now, I don't think I really have a problem with distracting from the message though. But Chad has sources and knew I was going to Snowflake, and he told me he just didn't want me to accidentally offend all the "snobs" here. President told me too that the people of Snowflake watch the missionaries closer than in most areas and warned me to be careful. But he trusts me enough to make me senior companion and district leader though, so I can't be that bad.

What I forgot to tell you last week is about what an earful I gave Elder Knight during companionship inventory about asking Chad to take care of his problems instead of coming straight to me with these issues. 

Anyway... My last days in St. Johns were filled with goodbyes to the people I came to love in my six months there. And I've got plenty of pictures of those goodbyes which I'll have to space out of several e-mails, cuz I can't just send a bunch at once for some reason.

But I couldn't have asked for a better way to leave St. Johns than what we did on Monday morning. Louie got baptized and confirmed! That man is a champion. I'm attaching the picture of his baptism to this e-mail. 

 

 

So it was a good week, and I'm excited for the time I get to spend here in Snowflake. I have high hopes for the area.

I love you all so so so so so so so so so much!

<3 Sam

First Baptism! (1/12/15 email)

Um, not to make you feel bad or anything, Mom, but I'm surprised to open my inbox this week and not find something from you. I don't know if you wrote one that didn't send or if you were just really, really busy this week. I don't want you to feel bad if it's the latter reason, but if it's the former, then you should know I got no e-mail from you.

But anyway, it was an interesting week with a lot to think about. I dunno, I just noticed this week that when people talk about my strengths, they always say it's really cool that I can be myself and relate to people while still being a missionary. But when the same people talk about my weaknesses, they say I'm too unrestrained or unprofessional, and I don't really know yet how to find that balance between being myself and recognizing my faults and changing them. Anyway, that's been my concern this past week. Well... I've been thinking about it longer than that, but it seemed to escalate this week. Chad pulled me aside last P-day and told me he and Elder Knight are concerned about how I'll be in my next area if I don't tone myself down. But he also told me he loves my personality and the work I've done here. So... I dunno. What he said is the exact same thing every elder tells me when talking about my strengths and weakness. That they love how I'm myself, but to stop being myself. I dunno, I'm going to talk to President about it in interviews on Wednesday.

It was a pretty decent week otherwise. I mean, I had my first baptism on Saturday! Brandon Ballejos entered the waters of baptism on Saturday and then received both the Holy Ghost AND the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. Our bishop felt he was that ready, and boy, is he. The guy is absolutely on fire with the gospel. And it's weird for me that after laboring for 5 months in St. Johns, my first baptism is a guy that came out of nowhere and who was so ready, I barely had to do any work. But, hey, it's awesome too.

Louie, unfortunately, had a pretty sad week. On Monday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was sent down to the valley on Thursday for surgery, and he went into it still prepared to be baptized on Saturday, but his recovery isn't as easy as he thought it would be, so the baptism understandably postponed. We're hoping to get it done this Thursday night. We'll see.

Another big event this week was getting to go to baptisms for the dead on Friday night with our friends, the Pages: Tanner and Jamie! Elder Knight and I didn't get to go into the water, but we gave the Holy Ghost to a lot of people waiting on the other side. And the Pages are the coolest, hippest people in St. Johns, so it was super fun. They're moving this Saturday to the valley since Tanner enlisted in the army, which is sad, but I'm probably being transferred anyway.

On Sunday, at 6:45 AM, I received a text from one of our bishops asking me to speak in church at 9:00 AM! Lucky for me, I did speech and debate, where I was always preparing 5 minute speeches in 2 minutes, so to write a 20 minute talk in 2 hours is kid's stuff. My topic was on how knowing I'm a child of God helps my self-esteem, and I think I did pretty good. I of course used the Lego Movie quote about "You are the most special, most interesting, most extraordinary person in the world" and pulled out my new Emmett mini-figure that Tanner page gave me as a visual aid. The 2nd counselor in the bishopric said he appreciated my testimony on how great The Lego Movie is, so I guess I succeeded.

And then in another ward, we ordained not only Brandon to the priesthood, but one of our less-actives, Brother Ken Martin, and I got to be the one to ordain him.

So yeah, it was a good week. I'm glad Brandon could have a good birthday. And Dad, I'm absolutely positive we'll all talk about you the same way people talk about Grandpa Arvo. You're right up there with him. And I love the pictures you send and encourage more.

I love you all soooooooo much. I'll talk to you next Wednesday, maybe, probably in a different area!

<3 Sam

P.S. Here's a picture of (from left to right) me, Brandon, Chad, and Elder Knight at the baptism.

Christmas

So I know we just Skyped and all, but there's still stuff to tell you guys about the week.

Honestly, it was one of my best Christmases ever. It was hard as crap too, being my first Christmas away from home, but it sure did mean a lot to me. We had a list passed around to our relief societies last Sunday for people to sign up for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day visits so that we weren't just stopping by unexpectedly or wasting time at the house. And when we made these visits, I may have been completely sick of He is the Gift, but it was worth it to get to talk to all these people I've met and come to love the past 5 months and hear them bare their testimonies and know that my time here is being well-spent. 

The last family we visited on Christmas Eve has a 20-something year old depressed and probably autistic son. The last couple times we had gone over there, this guy straight-up told us he wasn't sure if God loved him or even existed. But this time, after the video, he was just sobbing saying how grateful he is for Jesus Christ. That was a visit I'll remember.

On Christmas Day, we walked out of one of visits to find it was snowing! A Christmas miracle! And then we went to Chad's house. After the video, his wife, Raj, told us her conversion story about how she immigrated from India to Africa where she met Christians for the first time. Then she immigrated to California, married Chad, was led to St. Johns for no apparent reason at the time and then joined the Mormon church. The spirit there was incredible.

Nothing important happened on Friday to be perfectly honest. Other than me being super on-point with my new sweater vest. But on Saturday, we went down to a town called Young for a baptism of Elder Knight's. It was pretty cool. We came back, taught Edgar (we're talking about January 17 for baptism) some commandments, and then we presented Matt and Gloria with a 15-step program to quit smoking that I guess our mission uses. There's 15 steps they have to follow every single day for a week, but the coolest part was when Matt and Gloria had to crush their cigarettes before we taught the actual steps. Matt did it without hesitating, but it took Gloria a moment before she could bring herself to do it. But with tears in her eyes, she crushed them in her hand and threw them away. And then even though she said she didn't know how she could live without it for seven days, she gave us her coffee to hold onto for the week (cuz one of the steps is no coffee, tea, or alcohol). 

Guess who came to church on Sunday! Louie Quiroz! And guess who pulled Chad aside and said he wants to be baptized! Louie Quiroz! After a few months not knowing if we'd get him back, he came on his own, knowing what he needed to do. We have a date for January 10th! I'm so ridiculously happy about it!

It's gonna be a good transfer, guys.

I'm glad you enjoyed Into the Woods. I really want to see it. And I'm glad Dad's talk went well. I enjoyed the pictures too! Here's a picture of my cat shirts from Sally Jones. They're pretty fantastic.

I love you guys a whole lot! I'll write you next year! ;) Hahahhahahahahaha ugh puke gross

Man o Man, It Was a Wonderful Week!

Man, oh, man, it was a wonderful week! I already wrote about how Louie came to church and said he felt like he needed to be baptized. So we're baptizing him on Saturday at noon. But then another guy came into our lives our of nowhere named Brandon Ballejos. He was living in Phoenix and got taught by the missionaries and was ready to be baptized when he got in a fight with his wife about joining the church and ended up having a drink just a few days before his baptism. His baptism was postponed indefinitely. Well, fast forward six months, and he shows up in Elders Adams and Rayas's ward saying he wants to be baptized. It turned out that Brandon actually was living in mine and Elder Knight's area, so we've reviewed the lessons with him, and he is so solid it is unreal. So Brandon will be baptized this Saturday as well at 10:00 AM. #Miracles

So we finally have baptisms coming up in St. Johns, and all is well! It wasn't for a lot of the week though actually. Elder Knight got sick. Like really sick. So he had to stay in the house all day Tuesday and Wednesday and most of Thursday. I got to leave the house a few times with one of the other elders, but for the most part, I was stuck with Elder Knight. Oh well. 

But even with Elder Knight's illness, New Year's Eve isn't much of a New Year's Eve when you have to be in bed by 10:30. Oh well. We bought a couple Martinelli's and opened them up, but it was a pretty bland night. On New Year's Day, Elder Rayas volunteered to stay with Elder Knight while Elder Adams and I went to the tri-zone New Year's Day activity in Eager. For some reason, Eager- a town no bigger than Nephi- has a humongous sports dome at their high school. The story is that when a power company wanted to put their power plant there, the town was very reluctant. So the power company offered to build them a dome, which the city accepted. 15 years or so later, the city is now realizing they don't have the money to do the needed maintenance on the dome, so it's future is in question, but it's a really impressive structure. In there right now, they have a couple full size basketball courts and a practice football field. Sports aren't my scene, of course, so I went into the room where they were watching It's a Wonderful Life on a loop and stayed there. 

On the drive back from Eager, one of our tires blew out which was bizarre. But a nice man in a cowboy hat helped Elder Adam's and I put on the spare in like 5 minutes. So on Friday, Elder Knight and I had to got to Show Low to get a new tire, and they ended up giving us 2 new tires for some safety reason or whatever. That's Big O Tires for ya. 

I spent Saturday in Concho on exchanges! I met some interesting people (everyone's interesting in Concho) and learned how to play Phase 10, so it was a good day. 

And on Sunday, I taught Gospel Principles in Louie and Brandon's ward and they both really enjoyed it. It was about Heavenly Father and what He's like. There were more people there than at your Gospel Essentials class, Mom and Dad.

By the way, Matt and Gloria didn't quit smoking. Blargenslargen. 

I really enjoyed your story about the hot chocolate at Sam's Club, Mom! I hope Brandon has a good birthday! I really, really like Dallin's Christmas present from Brigham.

I love you all soooooooooooooooooo much!

 

<3 Sam

One Beautiful Belt Buckle (Written 11/03/14) and Yo, yo, yo (Written 11/10/14)

So last Wednesday after e-mails, my belt buckle finally came! It's sooo beautiful! As you can see, right there- smack dab in the middle- is the majestic and gorgeous chestnut stallion! And then, as you can see, there is a pistol on each side of the buckle to add another layer of excessive manliness. On the top ribbon is printed, "Elder Holladay", and the bottom reads, "Arizona Scottsdale Mission". I almost shed a single, masculine tear of joy when I saw it for the first time. 

And then I forgot to take pictures of Concho Falls while we were there because I spent my whole time there writing letters. Which reminds me, I don't know when Aaron is going to see the birthday card I sent him, but I did send him one for you guys to pass on to him somehow. I guess it might be kind of hard what with him being in socialist Europe right now. But Caitlin got hers right? Right?

That Wednesday night was our Salem Ward Halloween party, and of course, we didn't go as Jehovah's Witnesses and our bishop was very disappointed. I was a good companion though and blamed it on Elder Graves instead of Elder Blanchard (I did find out Elder Graves threw away the Watchtower that Bishop gave me, so it kind of was his fault). But Brother Page came as Emmett from The LEGO Movie, so that made me ridiculously happy. 

On Thursday, our district decided to go do some family history work. There was a nice man at the family history center who decided to give me some help. We went back several generations of Holladays to see who needed some temple work done. All I found out is that family history is a confusing mess. All these duplicate profiles for people. All these multiple wives. All these birthdays that don't add up right. This guy worked with me for 3 hours and I'm still not sure what exactly we got accomplished. That stuff is worse than college algebra. I had just read my patriarchal blessing a day or two before that, and it says I'll get the spirit of Elijah as I did family history work, but on Thursday, it just made my brain hurt.

And so on Friday all the other missionaries in the district had names to take to the temple except me. Also, going to the temple is our new Halloween tradition in the White Mountains! I mean, there's only one ghost you really ever want around, and that's the Holy Ghost! We were there for seven hours(!) doing all kinds of temple work. I myself went through an endowment session and did some sealings while Elder Blanchard did baptisms. Afterward, a lot of us stayed and helped clean the temple, which is also really cool. We got out at about 9:30, and then went to McDonald's where I got the McRib! I find that worth writing about because the whole concept of the McRib is just hilarious to me. "Let's mold some processed pork meat to look vaguely like ribs, lather it in a bottle of barbecue sauce, throw it on a bun, and then act like it's a big deal when we sell once a year!"

Saturday was spent cutting wood with Chad on his property and going to stake conference. Elder Meza had been asked to speak at the adult session, but since he got transferred, they asked Elder Blanchard to speak instead. He did good, but didn't smile once during the talk; not even during his jokes. He asked (insisted) for advice on how he could do better next time, and I told him to smile more, and he just kind of looked at me like, "What?" 

And yesterday we had the rest of stake conference. It was one of those stake conferences broadcast to the entire state of Arizona with Elder Christofferson and President Uchtdorf speaking. I wish I could tell you some cool things they said, but I was sitting with Elder Harris, and I love him to death, but you're not gonna get much listening done sitting next to Elder Harris. And we had some lessons set up last night, but they fell through. Dang it.

Today we went to Walmart again! A member in Concho took our whole district. Like last time, I stocked up enough to probably last me the whole month, but I did not get nearly as many perishables this time. Those did not last me the whole month last time as I came to find out. 

So yeah, I guess it was a pretty good week. The package you sent was fun! I thought it was funny that there were 4 packs of Jelly Bellies with Disney villains on them and then one Olaf pack. You sound pretty surprised, Mom and Dad, that I gained insight and enlightenment from the music and shows I watched at home, as if I was listening to Katy Perry and watching the Big Bang Theory. Come on. I'm better than that. Also, that sucks that Western Governors' graduation is in Florida. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. But hey, you're almost done, Mom! Right on! And I too was feeling pretty funky this past week with muscus in my throat. I was thinking it was a sinus infection, but the runny nose never came and now it's getting better.

I love you all tttttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssssssss much!!!!

And here's me wearing my beautiful buckle with my new jacket I bought at Alco's (it's getting cold!) and the new tie Jematisa Davis  sent me!

<3 Elder Holladay

Yo yo yo,

So this was the week things improved with Elder Blanchard. I think we're finally getting on the same page and seeing where each other is coming from. It all started on Monday night when Elder Blanchard asked me how I do so well at keeping my cool and avoiding arguments. He actually said he was impressed by how I never wanted to argue back with him. I just told him it's all about perspective. I could go and tell someone a bunch of horrible things about them, but I have to think about how it's going to effect my future relationship with this person (especially when I'm going to have to live with them for the next 6 weeks). 

And with that, Elder Blanchard and I have been getting along much better. We're able to serve each other, give each other sincere compliments, and we have the spirit with us more now. That's not to say everything's perfect, but it's vastly improved. 

I hope it stays that way.

We had a good lesson with Edgar last Monday night. He's opening up to a us a lot more and seems to let the lessons sink in. We're going to try and put him on date for baptism tonight, so we're excited. 

Nothing notable happened on Tuesday except we tried to go to Zumba for the first time in a few weeks and no one was there because they had it earlier that night and we didn't know. 

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Josie and the spirit's always really strong in those lessons. Her husband, Kirby, really wants to be reactivated in the church and go to the temple with her. The trick is getting her to see that this is the church with God's priesthood and she won't find that in the Catholic church. Also on Wednesday, I saw the iPhone 6 Plus for the first time, which I didn't know was a thing. It's huge though. The thing's almost an iPad (and I'm sure I'm the first person to make that joke, okay?)!

We had to cancel Madea's lesson because we had to go to a health center in Snowflake because Elder Blanchard's heart or something was giving him trouble. They didn't find anything there but he'll get an appointment in Show Low to find out more later. 

Friday was just weekly planning and stuff. Not very eventful.

On Saturday we went out past Big Lake with Chad to cut wood. Usually we do it at his property, but his friend told him he could have some wood from their family's property, and it was dirty work. Hauling huge, burnt, muddy logs around for a few hours isn't very much fun. After dinner, we started some studies and decided we needed a short nap, but that turned into an hour and a half nap so oops.

Yesterday we got to go to a fireside in Snowflake where Joseph Smith's great-great granddaughter and great-great-great grandson spoke. The granddaughter was a convert who was raised to believe Brigham Young conspired to kill Joseph, Hyrum, and Samuel Smith and that the Mormon church was horrible. It was a pretty interesting fireside (did you know only 10% of Joseph Smiths descendants are members of the LDS church?) and afterwards, Elder Blanchard and I went to talk to them, and they were pretty cool. They live in Payson and they recorded a CD with songs about Joseph and Emma and gave me and Elder Blanchard copies. 

And that was my week. Not too eventful I guess. But it was good. Except with elections. Everyone wants to talk about politics and everyone assumes I have to be conservative. They say things like "Did you hear about elections? We won!" and then I have to say, "Who's 'we?'" That's as far as I go though, because missionaries aren't allowed to talk about politics and if I did say how I felt, I would probably lose member trust. But I've heard a lot of bullcrap this week about people being scared that Obama will pull the draft, that the entire national debt is Obama's sole fault, and that republicans are looking out for the little guy. These people... are confused. And I have to hold my tongue.

Congrats on finishing your student teaching this week, Mom! I'm excited to see Dad's beard. I wish I could be growing one right now. I'm wondering though why I never got a picture of you guys as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head! Here's a picture of me after wood cutting, but a full body shot would have shown you better how messy I was.

I love you and hope you have a fantastic week!

<3 Elder Holladay

P.S. Last week I forgot to tell you the Show Low Dairy Queen is owned by Holladays and they have a bunch of family portraits on the wall there. I didn't have my camera, but I thought it was interesting.

Ups and Downs

So gay marriage is legal in Utah now, huh? Well, that was going to happen eventually. And in the history books, Utah will be to gay people as Alabama was to black people. So that's exciting to look forward to. Brother Page told us this week that Arizona is right on the cusp of legalizing it because the judge here is like, "Unless someone here can give me a really, really, really good reason for why it should be outlawed, I'm letting it fly." I hope Utahns are being gentle and loving about it, but knowing them, they probably aren't.

This has been quite an interesting week, and I'm not even sure where to start, because it was so odd how laced it was with completely awesome and completely horrible things.

I guess I'll go in chronological order and say that last Monday after e-mails, we got to go to Walmart in Show-Low! I forgot to tell you, but my glasses had gotten bent out of shape somehow (I just put them on last Friday afternoon, and they were busted), so President Sweeney gave us permission to get them fixed. I hadn't been to a Walmart- or anything so convenient and cheap with such a wide selection- since July, so that was really fun! I think I bought enough groceries to last me til the end of the month! I was even able to buy fresh produce! Imagine that! And I got two new t-shirts: one that's just a bunch of poorly Photoshopped cat heads pasted together around the entire shirt (which makes me laugh every time I put it on) and one with Queen Elsa that says, "Keep Calm and Let it Go." Now, I don't approve of the whole "Keep Calm and..." movement, but they were selling Queen Elsa shirts in the men's section, which deserves praise. The sad thing is I forgot to take pictures of the shirts to attach... And we even got to eat lunch at Panda Express, which is also the first time I've had Chinese food since July, so that satisfied a craving I've had for months, even if it's fast food. Then we had a Little Colorado ward party that night and our ward mission leader, Chad's wife, Raj, an Indian immigrant, made authentic Indian food for everyone. Elder Blanchard and I got to help serve the food, and I didn't know if it was hilarious or heartbreaking that so many people had never, ever had Indian food and they were so scared to try any. Most people actually ended up loving it, but there were some we talked to who said, "Well, it was interesting..."

On Tuesday, we got haircuts at the beauty school! You wouldn't think St. Johns would have anything beyond public school, but for some weird St. Johns-ian reason, they have a cosmetology school out in a sketchy looking warehouse by their little airport. Anyway, all of us in the apartment got haircuts for free there, and most of the students just happened to be either non-member or less-active! So one of these girls says, "You guys should come to the Zumba class I teach!" And all of the girls are like, "Yeah, you should come!" And they're all a bunch of potential investigators so of course, we're like, "Yeah, we'll try to get permission to go!" And... we got permission. So on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we went to Zumba class at the elementary school. Most of the beauty school girls weren't actually there; it's mostly old ladies. But those old ladies are all non-members too! So we've been setting up some lessons and gaining some good trust by doing Zumba. And apparently, you burn 800 calories per workout, so that's a plus.

Wednesday and Thursday happened. I don't remember much of what we did. Well, Wednesday, we had Zone Training Meeting. And Elder Blanchard started going to voice lessons with that old lady we talked for a couple hours when I had to fart really bad, so of course I had to go with him.

So Friday and Saturday were the horrible days. See, it's always seemed like Elder Blanchard and I are always either getting along super well or there's some tension going on. Anyway, the tension was getting really bad on Friday, so I called for an emergency companionship inventory to get to the bottom of it. I was trying really hard to use all of my conflict-resolution skills I learned from Adult Roles (stay calm, see what you've done wrong yourself, no attacking the other person, using more "we" statements than "you", etc.), but it didn't take long until Elder Blanchard just started listing everything he hates about me. I guess he never took Adult Roles. Anyway, I stayed pretty calm and wrote down things I did need to work on, and I kept my statements about us, instead of attacking Elder Blanchard. But after we got through the inventory, I found myself pretty angry that he gone full-attack mode like that. 

So the next day, we ended up in another argument and it reached a point where Elder Blanchard literally said, "Stop trying to make this about both of us, and just tell me everything you don't like about me!" So I broke and I did. And then he cried. And I felt really bad. So I had to do quite a bit of apologizing even though he literally asked for it. 

So, yeah, Friday and Saturday were bad. I ended up spending Sunday fasting and praying for help to know how to better serve and love Elder Blanchard, and it seems to be helping so far. Oh, also on Saturday, Louie dropped us because he's moving to California to take care of his brother and he doesn't want any flack from his family about being Mormon. So that sucked. But we'll teach him on Thursday and try to knock some sense into him.

Sunday we had a stake fireside for the youth, and President Sweeney came up to speak at it! And guess who his co-speaker was.... Elder Holladay! I actually knew I'd be doing it a couple weeks ago and forgot to tell you (lol at me!). But yeah, the stake youth council picked me to talk, and I think that's because of the time Elder Denham and I taught the seminary classes. The fireside was built around social media, so I spoke about the church's new hashtag, #ShareGoodness. I basically just listed all the ways high school can suck and how #ShareGoodness can help by brightening someone's day. I think it went really well. President Sweeney said it did. The St. Johns district also had to sing Called to Serve at the fireside, so that's why Elder Blanchard got singing lessons. But it was really a good, fun fireside. I really enjoyed it.

So that was my week. I love and miss you all! Make sure Brandon hears that. That missionary mom story in Meet the Mormons was really the only segment that made me feel real emotions. So I know that feel.

Have a great week!

<3 Elder Holladay

That's One Hot Pepper!

This week had sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much service. My goodness, we only had two real lessons this week. On Monday night after P-day, we went and pulled weeds for Brother Pullins and his wife. Brother Pullins is the high school janitor and he lets us into the school's weights room every morning, so we definitely owed it to him to do some yardwork. He and his wife are super awkward though. She's always staring at us with a weird grin on her face, and then he tells us some serious TMI stories about why his son got kicked off his mission and how his daughter is, um, infatuated with black men. And he's always asking to see pictures of the girls we dated back home, and I don't feel comfortable giving him that satisfaction. 

On Tuesday, we moved out St. Johns' justice of the peace, Butch Gunnels. Butch is a nonmember, but he's one of the nicest, funniest guys around. He loves the missionaries and is happy helping us out with anything we need, but just enjoys "being a heathen". But then a few weeks ago, he had to go in for emergency open heart surgery, and he's been in an induced coma ever since. He had already made plans to move into the basement of his best friend, Lucas Rodriguez, a super cool recent convert, so Lucas called us up saying it was time to move Butch's stuff over. I had never been inside Butch's house before, because we always hung out at Lucas', but oh my goodness, it was disgusting. Butch is a frigging hoarder. And his horse once kicked out a window and he never got it fixed, so wind had been blowing dust in for who knows how long. And Butch's dog and parakeet had just been chilling out inside the house this whole time pooping and peeing everywhere. I'll tell you what, I felt way dirtier cleaning that house out then I ever did at JC Mickelson's, so that tells ya something. It took all day long. 

On Wednesday, we mowed and trimmed Doris Chavez's lawn. We met her husband, Joe, and he was really nice and happy that we helped. Then we taught Tanner and Jamie Page, a young married couple with a 9 month old daughter that we've been teaching to help them prepare for the temple. They're really the only people in St. Johns that know what's up with pop culture and fashion and the news and whatnot, so I really enjoy teaching them. But a couple weeks ago, they decided they wanted to split up. Well, they decided to try and make it work one more time, so we decided to teach them about the Proclamation to the World, specifically where it talks about what husbands and wives need to do for each other. But then it turned into a big debate between Tanner and Jamie about gay marriage and the church's stand on it, and Elder Blanchard and I couldn't really get it back on track after that. So yeah, we kind of ignited a huge fight between an already struggling couple and then just left. Oops.

On Thursday, we continued on with the Pullins' lawn. Then we went and cut two truckloads of wood with our Salem Ward mission leader, Brother Henry Cohen and an investigator, Roman Cordova. Roman's been an investigator for a long time, but has trouble committing. Then we drove out to the middle of nowhere, out of our area, with our Little Colorado ward mission leader, Brother Chad New, to move a slate pool table out of some lady's house, cuz Chad's dad bought it. That was a heavy sucker. Then we had to move it to Chad's dad's house of course. We did get to have a lesson with Madea that night, and her testimony is super solid, but she's too worried about her staunch Catholic husband to get baptized. 

On Friday, we got called up by the St. Johns seminary teacher, Brother Richins. We had to help him put in his new fence and pour concrete into the post holes. That took an impressively long time. Then our Meadows ward mission leader, Brother Devin Brown, called us up asking if we could move some more furniture for a recent convert, Charlie Gann. Also, Pabla called us telling us her charges were clear so she could be baptized, but we had to explain to her that we had found out she had another charge pending that she didn't even know about yet so baptism would have to wait longer (we knew this cuz Brother Brown is the city's lawyer or something). Then she got really mad and said she would just stay Catholic cuz she's tired of waiting. I tried to calm her down, but what I wasn't telling her was that this new charge would put her on probation for 3-5 years, and she really wouldn't be baptized for a looooooong time. So life kinda sucks for her right now.

On Saturday, we were finally able to relax and watch conference at Chad's house. I really enjoyed it. Lynn G. Robbins', Elder Holland's, Elder Eyring's and President Monson's talks really stood out. I also liked Elder Cook's priesthood talk.

On Sunday, Madea came to the morning session at the stake center and that seemed to be really good for her. Louie came to Chad's for the afternoon session, but he had to leave right before Elder Bednar's talk which really would have helped him.  Then after conference, I ate a habenero (is that spelled right?) pepper. Well, let me back up. Chad was telling Elder Blanchard to eat one the night before, and of course, I was encouraging ("Do it and you're cool! Do it and you're cool!"). But Elder Blanchard wouldn't do it. When we stopped egging Blanchard on, I was like, "Well, I'll do it." And Chad was like, "Okay." But I decided to do it the next day when I had my camera. So after conference on Sunday, I ate a habenero pepper. And you know. It's like a bell pepper at first except after like 10 seconds, it scalds your entire mouth. I drank 3 glasses of milk and then I was just putting ice cubes in my mouth after that. It BURNED for a solid 20 minutes or so. But then Elder Blanchard figured he had to eat one too, and he did. He took it a lot worse then me. The poor guy's stomach felt really bad after and we had to cancel our dinner. He got better though, and we ended up visiting this old lady in Salem ward; just the sweetest old lady. She told us all about how she met her husband (who is now in very poor health, but she's 84 and looks like a 60 year old), all about her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, and gave us lots of marriage advice and everything. Just a sweet, sweet lady. But that pepper gave me the most painful gas I've ever had in my life! It has never hurt so bad to hold gas in, and I even took 2 Gas-X's right before! And she talked forever, and then some of her kids came to visit and they talked forever! I was clenching my fists and my teeth and was just sweating trying to hold this gas in. We finally got back to the apartment, and I let out some of the biggest, longest farts I've ever farted.

 

So that was my week.

<3 Elder Holladay