First off, typing that has made me realize how fast time has flown.
Ok, so Mesa. Mesa is pretty nice, I'm not going to lie. All the members here are SO nice. We get fed dinner every night, and they're very supportive of missionary work. We get honked at as we're biking all the time, and there's so many members where I'm serving that it almost feels like Utah. One of the most unique things about Mesa is that there are orange trees EVERYWHERE. Just randomly lining the streets, almost everyone has one in their backyard, it's crazy. There are so many, that some of them are actually "decorative orange trees" and they bear fruit, they just don't taste good. Crazy to me. And the harvest is going on right now, so we get tons of citrus from people, which is great.
Christmas here is way cool also. The Mesa temple gets decorated with tons of lights, and on Christmas night the missionaries got to sing there. It was a way cool experience. Having the temple in my mission is nice because we have a Visitor's center we can use for teaching and as a conversation starter when contacting, and I'll get to go to the temple on Wednesday. They go once a transfer here, so if I'm here longer I'll get to go more than once, which I think is wonderful. Our roommates actually were able to go to a convert's sealing which I think is so cool.
My companion's name is Elder Doman. He is from Loveland, Colorado. He is probably one of the healthiest people I've ever met. He loves fruit like nothing else, he'll put away 3 oranges+ for breakfast and he was a cross country and track guy in high school. He's been out only about 5 months, and he's training, so that tells you how great he is. He and I are actually whitewashing our area (which means we're both new to the area) and he has been wonderful to work with and a great example.
As for this week, last Monday was interesting. We had a lot of success finding in one of the apartment complexes in the Fraser Ward. I've been assigned to two wards in the Mesa North Stake, the Three Fountains Ward and the Fraser Ward. Three Fountains is pretty middle class and what I would call a "newly-wed-nearly-dead" ward. Lots of young families and older folks, but almost no youth. Fraser is a little poorer, but much more active and with more variety in ages of people. Anyway, in that apartment complex we talked to a lot of people who were interested, so hopefully we'll get some new investigators out of that work.
Tuesday and Wednesday I was sick. A lot of missionaries in our district have been getting sick recently, but I think I got something different. I had a really nasty stomach bug for about 48 hours. Not fun.
Thursday I was doing better and we had dinner with Bishop Dampt (pronounced Dompt) and his family in the Fraser Ward. He is originally from France, and his whole family speaks French, so I was able to speak a little (I try not to speak too much French because I don't want my companion to feel left out) but I was able to listen to a lot of native French which was awesome.
Friday we had a missionary party of sorts for New Years. We played a lot of games like kickball and human foosball and had this delicious steak lunch that I wasn't able to eat much of because I was still kind of recovering. We also had a fireside in which we said goodbye to an Elder who has been having some heart problems and is being sent home to recover.
Saturday was a really interesting day. All of our teaching appointments fell through. We had some on Tuesday, but I was sick, and we had a couple this day, but no lessons. I actually still haven't taught a single official sit-down lesson my whole time here. We weren't left with a whole lot of investigators when we came in to the area, so we've been trying to find more and not teaching much. We did find a less-active member who has been struggling with his testimony. He wants so badly to come back and find his faith again, he just doesn't know how. I hope we can help him, he seems like a really cool guy and he really wants the best for his family.
Sunday was cool because it was my first time in a ward council and I got to see how ward leaders really try and address the needs of everyone in the ward.
I hope this email is satisfactory and that you enjoyed it. As some more cool stories or experiences come I'll try to include them here as appropriate.
See you in two,
Elder Miner
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| Thanks for all the Christmas presents! |
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| I'm sending pictures now because we're at a stake center, and we'll probably do most of our emailing from another church with better wi-fi off of our ipads, but all of my pictures are on my camera, so here you go.
This picture is me and Elder Doman soaking wet after riding our bikes home last Monday through a crazy rainstorm.
Also, just because I'm not in France doesn't mean I can't eat like it sometimes if I want. :)
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