Mama Rika Missionary Update...He Hits the Ground Runnin'

Fake Jam Session

Saying Goodbyes...

Wednesday:

Transfers are kinda weird now that they've switched to Thursdays. Pday was on Wednesday, Not a ton to report. I basically just said some goodbyes and packed. It's kinda how Pdays work right before transfers. 

Thursday:

We awoke early and departed for the Clarksburg church building, and thus began the long journey from Clarksburg to Roanoke. Since we had to make so many stops, We didn't arrive in Roanoke till 5pm. It was a lot of time on the road. There were 19 new elders and sisters who came in this transfer and only 4 that left, so we opened up quite a few new areas. That's always fun.

My New companion is E. Brandon. He's a really great missionary, and a really cool guy. He's from Nevada.  Come to find out, we actually have the same birthday! Sweet! I'm really excited to serve with him. 

We arrived at our apartment and realized we have a ton of things to accomplish. There were a ton of new missionaries coming into the zone, 5 missionaries were training, and many of the missionaries were "doubled in" meaning neither missionary had been in the area before.  That includes E. Brandon and I, neither one of us had ever served in Roanoke before. And to top it all off, E. Brandon hasn't been a Zone Leader yet, and we have two new district leaders in the zone. Like I said a lot of new things going on. 

oh and did I mention that we have to prep for Zone Conference on Wednesday too? Sheesh! It's been a crazy few days to say the least.

Oh yea, and only a handful of members and investigators knew that there were going to be so many changes in the zone, so nobody was really prepared o  help break in 4 new missionaries to the Roanoke 1st ward.

So mostly for the past few days we've been trying to figure out the layout of the areas and the zone, and make sure that everyone is settling in ok. 

We met with the bishop Thursday night. He's a great one and we're excited to be working with him. 

Friday:

There wasn't more than a half an hour all day long that I wasn't on the phone. The darn thing never stopped ringing. It was ridiculous! We had calls coming in from all fronts. Missionaries needing to know where their area boundaries are, how many miles per month they had with the car, different supplies they needed, etc. The Office needed information on a bunch of things, like the number of bike in the zone, and other thing. Plus we had to make a ton of phone calls on our end. 

We had to make a quick run to Salem to get a missionary his lost coat and we also needed to do some shopping to get some much needed supplies. 

We had a few other runs around town to meet with the ward mission leader, as well as find a few investigators to teach.

We didn't end up getting dinner till after 9 when I kicked off my shoes and poured a bowl of my favorite cereal. After that short and well needed break, it was more phone calls and planning till we tucked ourselves in at about 11:30. 

Saturday:

First thing in the morning we helped a member move. We had expected it to only take a few hours and we would be done by lunchtime. Well, We, two other missionaries and basically one other member showed up. We worked from about 9am till 3pm instead of our planned 9 till 12. We were pretty sore the next morning from all the things we packed around.

We got home and planned some more, tried to visit some members and some investigators, but mostly we just cleaned the Apartment. I'll tell you what, Bleach does wonders! If only it'd fold my clothes too....

Sunday:

Bright and early we had a stake PEC to attend at 6:30am. Then we had correlation at 9 and church started at 11:30. It was at about 8 this morning that we fully realized that the previous elders had three people getting confirmed in church. All of which needed rides to church, but none of which had them. We scrambled around and through the help of the members we were able to get all of them rides and get them all confirmed as well. 

We didn't really get out of the church building till 3 and we had dinner with the bishop again later that day 

We had to report numbers that night which is always crazy, and in this case, we didn't get done until late again. It's going to be nice when we finally get a relaxing day...

Well, that's all for now.