Life Happens and You Just Have to Deal With It As It Comes" -Dad

So, ready to hear about a roller coaster of a week?
Before I start, just so you know, I am fine, and it is not a lie to say that I'm doing wonderfully. But with great things that happen...come not so good things....
So.
At the beginning of this week, things were great. I was over the whole missing my sister's wedding thing and reconsecrated. All was well.
Monday was crazy busy, seeing as we were giving up Saturday as a prep day so we could go to the temple. We did a lot of running around to a bunch of appointments that ended up falling through. No biggie, just missionary work. Had a good dinner at a member's home. We still had to do laundry and such but it was no big deal.

Tuesday was any normal missionary day. Nothing big to report on there.

Wednesday we taught a 81 year old lady who we had dropped for awhile but picked back up again. She wasn't too interested in the gospel, which we found out pretty quickly. But she was interested in something else. ME. She hit on me. WAY creepy. "You charge me up, Charles." "You could be a pin up." Yeah. I couldn't even tell what was going on at the time. I thought I just didn't hear her right or was misinterpreting it. But when we left my companion kindly informed me: "BAH!! She was TOTALLY hitting on you!!! HAHAHA!!!" Sometimes it does suck being this really really really really really really ridiculously good looking. Right after that we went down to Centerville for exchanges. The rest of the night was spent standing around looking like we were helping to move their only investigators to Texas, trying to fix the MLS program, and having a Book of Mormon Study Class which included us and the Branch Mission Leader.

Thursday we got up and went and did service at a farm herding cows. It was a lot of fun. I might not mind working on a farm (if only I had a better back). We herded them all up onto the truck to be shipped off. We had to do a bunch of shipments because there were quite a few cows. But they got riled up at one point and broke through a fence and got away into the pasture and so we had to spend awhile trying to get them wrangled back up. That night we taught one of our main investigators who wants to be baptized and now wants her children baptized, too, so we have to see how much they want it.

Friday was another normal day. We taught a person we had met on the street and her cousin, and they seemed pretty interested, which is awesome. At night, however, we called up President Talbot to remind him that we were going to the temple the next day and found out that there was a miscommunication there. Apparently the Des Moines Stake is in the Winter Quarters Temple District, not the Nauvoo Temple District, and we were only allowed to go to our stake's temple district. SOOO, we were unable to go.

Saturday. With all of our plans shot for the day, we spent a day walking around the town talking to people and looking at apartments for a senior couple that might come here. No such luck.

Sunday we found a member referral from Oskaloosa and taught him. He seems pretty cool and open. None of our major investigators came to church, though. But that night, while I was talking to our Branch Mission Leader on the phone, I got a bunch of phone calls and just ignored them because the conversation I was having was pretty important. One of those phone calls was from President Talbot who had to call through another phone, letting me know that today, monday, I am being transferred, or as we call it in the mission, Emergency Transferred. No, it's not transfers, there's just a situation that requires missionaries to be moved around. And no, it's not from anything I've done, but somewhere else. I know really nothing about it besides that at 2:00 o'clock today I will be heading for the Lenox Area. Not much time to pack and do everything else and say bye to everyone. So, I guess, Goodbye Knoxville....

Love you all,
Your Favorite Missionary,
Elder Charlie Gates


Oh, and i forgot to add in my last email my list of possible jobs that I could apply for after all of my experiences on my mission.
-Plumber: Fixed our toilet. The mechanism in the tank was broken so I got to replace it. I did get water all over, though, when turning off the water somehow made it come out of the pipe. Luckily I had my wrench for my bike to tighten that up and stop the water.
-Cowboy: From herding the cattle
-Realtor: Looking for that apartment
-Private Investigator/Bounty Hunter: Finding people who don't want to be found.
-Professional Mover
-Coach: from coaching the YMCA kids soccer team in Muscatine
-Bike Mechanic
-Landscaper: It's a stretch from mowing someone's lawn, but whatever
-Painter
-Counselor
-Addiction Recovery Specialist
-Remodeler
-Waiter
-EMT
-Pro-Bicyclist
-Custodian
-Librarian
-Editor: all of my companions need me for spell-check
-Columnist: From doing these emails home!
--
Your Favorite Missionary,
Elder Charlie Gates