11/12/2018 All Shook Up

A wide variety of things have happened since last email. Namely, I am not in the MTC anymore. The Virginia Chesepeake and Mesa Arizona missionaries left last Tuesday and us ArkanSquad left on Wednesday. It was sad to see the others in our district go because we had become such good friends. The gang was broken up.

So Tuesday was a rather drag of a day because they were all gone. Just us five Arkansas-bound missionaries. The Tuesday devotional was given by Elder Ochoa and his wife. Sister Ochoa gave a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon and Elder Ochoa talked about faith.

So when we left early on Wednesday (we checked out at 4:45am), we took a coach bus to Provo Station. Then we took the frontrunner up to SLC. on the frontrunner we met some cool people. Then we took the TRAX to the airport. Then we fly to Dallas. But interestingly, Elder and Sister Ochoa were on our flight! We saw them walking up to the gate and our group of 8 missionaries (5 from our district, 2 from another district, and 1 VISA waiter called to Bolivia) had a good ten minute conversation with them. They're really cool. They also took a picture. Idk if either of them have a form of public social media. If they do, I would love to see the picture.

Anyways, we fly to Dallas and take the skyline monorail thing to our next gate because the airport is so massive. We got to call family there, which is cool. Then after a 3 hour layover we go to Arkansas. It's 6pm. We've been on like 6 different transportation machines. It's at baggage claim we meet some of the mission presidency and assistant elders/sisters and such. President Hansen kind of looks like Tom Baker. The Faulkners are really cool. Took a picture with them per Travis/Jenni/someone's request. Then we drive probably 30-45 minutes to the mission home and have some ribs and potatoes for dinner. Classic. We slept there after a long day.

Thursday is orientation. Mostly uneventful besides learning where I am going to be trained and who with. My first area is the Central Gardens Branch in Midtown, TN. Inner city Memphis. I was super excited to hear because inner city Memphis is one of the places I really wanted to serve while out here. I was a little less excited to hear the area is bike only. No car. Leg day for the next few transfers I guess. My trainers (I'm in a trio) are Elder Paopao and Elder Perkins.

Elder Paopao: from California; is Samoan. Super fun guy. He is learning piano from the senior sister missionary in our area, Sister Davis. Plays ukelele, but it was taken away from President Hansen. Sad. He'll get it back when he goes home, and has used it for mission-wide events

Elder Perkins: from Arizona; is not Samoan. He's pretty smart, and pretty quiet. Like me, he did a year of college before serving.

So now we can get into our area, the Central Gardens branch is new and small, about 30 or so members, and quite a few of them are families from other areas called to help out here. It started earlier this year as a split from the Memphis 1st Ward. The church building is a strip mall lot.

We haven't really had a lesson yet. In classic fashion, those we had a lesson with these past few days haven't been there. We've been rescheduling them though, and we've met other cool people along the way. We've gone tracting pretty much every day. We've met some awesome people with interesting stories. I am definitely liking the people of Memphis. Except for maybe when we hear police sirens all through the night. Or their driving habits.

The weather is usually mid 30s-mid 40s. So really nice unless you're biking. Luckily it hasn't been rainy.

Our apartment is small, and when I arrived, we only had two beds, so I slept on a recliner the first night. The next day we got a bunk bed, so it's all good. The address is 2455 Union Ave Apt #4, Memphis, TN, 38112 if you want to send me stuff.

On Saturday/Sunday we had stake conference, so I haven't yet attended a Central Gardens branch meeting, but I have met members and such. The area Seventy Elder Carter presided. The pervading theme of the stake conference was ministering and charity, which was really cool. I like one of the speaker's messages where they said that ministering is not just serving those you are assigned to in the ward, but ministering and showing charity to all, like your neighbors or friends and such. The ministering program is a direct way to develop Christ-like love for everyone.

We had our first meal at a member's house on Sunday, but surprise, it wasn't southern food at all. Brother Wyman served in Tokyo, so we had tacoyaki and tempura for dinner. The tacoyaki was a m a z i n g. We got to help make it too, which was fun. It involves a special stove that has a bunch of pockets in it for the tacoyaki to go in. And you have to roll the balls to cook it all over, and by the end, you have little balls of really good food. Brother Wyman also is good at juggling, balancing, and unicycling.

This past week has been a big shakeup, but it has gone rather well and has been a good time.

Photos:

1) what meals looked like at the MTC. We always tried sitting together as a district.