Before you think that my Subject is proclaiming my pile-ness (Pile is a term in the mission for a lazy missionary. While this sounds like an insult, realize that most piles revel in their pile-ness. Kind of like apostates. There aren't many piles, so don't think that missionaries are lazy bums. Just hobos.), let me explain. On our way back from all of our meetings this week, we drove through Britt, Iowa, hometown of the Annual National Hobo Convention. We stopped briefly at the Hobo Museum and Gift Shop and got a couple free brochures and a cheap magnet. While some misguided teachers in school stressed the offensiveness of the term hobo, know that hobo is a compliment in the homeless society. As a chart in the Museum said, a hobo is someone who travels to work; a tramp is someone who travels but refuses to work; and a bum is someone who neither travels or works. Hobos travel the countryside looking for work on farms, or at least that's what they traditionally do. Hobo is short for Hoe Boy. And my companion quickly made a few correlations, and came to the conclusion that we're basically high-end hobos. And that's definitely what I felt like this week.
We traveled down to Fort Dodge tuesday night and Elder Bisschop and I headed out the next morning to Des Moines. We then got the privilege of three days of meetings. The meetings were really good, so there's no sarcasm in that last sentence, but it was everything outside of the meetings that was crazy. After the first one, we broke for the evening and I discovered I was traveling to another companionship's area in Des Moines to do work with them. I was assigned to that with three other missionaries, not including the missionaries assigned to that area. Six of us, altogether, in a one-room apartment, traveling in a five-person Mazda 3. Yeah. So we squeezed into the Mazda and went off to work, all splitting up to do and visit different people. I went with the senior companion, who's also a trainer and district leader, to visit some people with a member. One was a potential who is catholic, but only because her husband and children are such. So when we read off the Articles of Faith with her, she loved them, especially the Godhead vs. the Trinity and how we don't believe in original sin, and wanted to discuss them more. So that was good. Also visited another investigator. The next day, in the evening, my companion-for-the-day, the same as the day before, took me out to eat at Jimmy John's, a place neither of us had been before, to celebrate my year mark. I ahd also been able to see nearly all of the elders from my MTC district I had come to Iowa with and got a picture with them. One of them, though, Elder Vidrine, went to the Omaha mission, so he wasn't there for the picture. We then went and taught a group of four investigators and committed them all to a baptismal date. They're all from Africa and way cool, but afterwards they fed us. I scooped up my amount of spicy beans and chicken and poured it on my rice to discover two chicken feet looking up at me. My heart sunk. My stomach too. As I sat down by my companion-for-the-day, I looked over at him, horrified, and down at my food. He laughed and offered to eat it for me. I quickly, yet secretively, obliged. All you foreign-sent missionaries, just know, there's a good reason I went stateside. I only would have eaten those things if I could have gotten a picture of me doing it. As far as I can see, there's absolutely no reason to eat feet, there's nothing besides gristle there. Otherwise it was a really good meal. The next day we started traveling home, but it took forever to get everything done that we needed to, such as supplies and that, so we just barely had time to head back to Fort Dodge to spend the night, setting another baptismal date along the way with an 8 year old. It's always great to hear from the grandmother of a child that you're trying to teach "I usually take her off of her pills in the summer." I really wish she could have made an exception for us. We headed home the next day, Saturday.
So, besides that, the work here has not really progressed much while we've been gone. Our investigators, Carol, Cheryl and Cayla, didn't come to church, but last I spoke with them they were reading the Book of Mormon and Praying as a family. A member brought somebody to church that now wants to be taught, so that's awesome! We've had a bunch of member referrals lately, which is how I like it. Keep them rolling in!
Some changes we found out with this conference:
Zone Conferences will now be quarterly, along with interviews and Zone Leader Council.
Leadership Training Meetings, like the one I just went to, will be every other month and about the same length until the first of the year.
The only thing continuing on the transfer schedule are transfers themselves. So pretty crazy stuff.
The rest of the time was on some really good training that will improve missionary work a ton. They're not changing Preach My Gospel, as that is going to be the thing they plan on using, and believe we'll be using, forever. All that they've taught us is just from Preach My Gospel, just focusing on different points than before.
But that's about it. Almost exactly one year left! Not excited about that as much as I used to be, now it's kind of depressing. I can barely remember my first name, let alone what normal life is like.... But It'll be good when it happens. Good thing it's not for a long time.
--
"But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in." D&C 127:2
Elder Charlie Gates
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
