What A Week

What a week... easily the most miserable of the mission.

I’ve been sick this week... it's almost an ear infection. Last Tuesday my ear started ringing a little bit, but I thought nothing of it and brushed it off. Wednesday I took real notice of it and it started hurting and my ear hurt, my head hurt, and I felt nautious (no idea how to spell it = P ). Came home after district meeting and stayed in the rest of the day. Thursday same deal. Had to come back in and only got about an hour of proselyting in. Friday I was able to go out for a little bit, but had to come back in as well. Got about 4 hours of work done that day. Saturday I was able to be out and about all day, but it was still uncomfortable and hurt a bit. Sunday and today are the same deal. One of the bishops in our area is an ENT and took a look and said there was some inflammation in my ear, but nothing specifically wrong yet. He gave me some meds and wants to look at it again on Friday. It’s been a miserable week. Lost 3 days of working and I really don’t like that. But I don’t like working while feeling like crap either, so it's a lose-lose situation either way.

That’s really how my week has been. Pretty much been sick or feeling like crap all week. We did pick up a new investigator this week. She’s good friends with a member family and has been talking for the last 3 years or so about how she wants to get baptized when she's 18. Well, her 18th birthday was 2 weeks ago and she said she wanted to start meeting with us. Had dinner at the member’s house and then had a Q & A session the turned into the 1st discussion. Was a good lesson. She was talking about how she wants to get married in the temple, yet she doesn’t know much about the church. I think she'll probably get baptized eventually.

Transfers are next week. We get calls on Friday. I can see me staying, I can see me leaving, I can see me moving to the other side of the stake. It’s so unpredictable. Write to the mission office till I can tell you what's happening. I don’t want another mishap w/ my mail. I’m still getting the most mail out of anyone. My companion just got his 1st letter since I’ve been here this last week. Always fun to brag about my mail. They all claim greenie mail, but mail is still mail. Either way, I really love and appreciate the letters.

Well, that's my week... sick. I think I’m on the mend though. I’m able to get out for the most part. We’ll find out next week what the real problem is I’m guessing.

Take care everyone.

Love,

Elder Blomquist

We Love Pictures!!!

Crane family.  They take very good care of missionaries in the Meridian area.

The Crane family thinks every good missionary needs a Boise State University T-shirt.  After all, isn't everyone a BSU fan?

Above, standing on a frozen pool.  

Below, Elders Blomquist and Crosby standing on the frozen pool.

Three Elders were too much and it started to crack.

Elder Blomquist's new best friend, Nick.  He had LOTS of dog hair on him afterwards.

Elder Crosby got ice cream sent from home for Christmas.  Elder Crosby is from Houston, TX.  Any good Houstonian knows about Blue Bell Ice Cream.  It is one of THE best ice creams around.  It is only available in select areas of the country.  When Ricky was little, we toured the factory.  Free samples at the end - YUM!!!

The Khallis family.  The are another family that takes good care of missionaries.   He is a chiropractor and gives them adjustments.

 Elder Blomquist says this is getting ready for companion study.  Yes, that is a sword.  Maybe it is the Sword of Truth.

This is a picture of a job chart at one of the houses he visited.  I don't know if you can see it, but by Caleb's name it says his chores are playing and being awesome.

Perfect Timing

Ok, I did forget something (what's new though?). I got a package from the Waxmans that was pretty cool. It’s kinda sad at the same time too...

In the package there was a tie, envelopes, stamps, paper, and pens. I was excited about that!! Kinda sad when you get excited over pens and postage though = P . But on the other hand, I had 2 envelopes left (used one to write back to them), 4 stamps (used 1 to mail their letter), out of paper (had to open their pack to write to them), and my last pen ran out of ink the next day. It was perfect timing for what was in there.

Transfer is almost over. We’re just starting week 5. Only 1 more p-day after today. The work's moving here in Caldwell. Slowly, but it's going up. We’re going to split the area again next transfer. It’s not working too well right now the way it is. We’re working and having dinner in one ward, then having to get to the other side of the stake in 5 minutes to make it to another appointment. The changes should make it easier too. Sundays are a nightmare too. we have church at 11, with meetings before, then church w/ meetings before at 1 at a different building. Covering 2 buildings who have sacrament back to back is difficult. We’ve had to leave sacrament early lots of times to make it to meetings in the other ward. with the split we'll only be covering the 1 building so it'll be more manageable.

It’s been COLD this week. started snowing last Wednesday and it's been cold, rainy, and windy ever since. It was fun in the snow though. It was district meeting and we played in the snow after. We probably got 3-5 inches of snow, more than I have ever seen fall ever before. Luckily President gave us another car in the area till the end of transfers so we've been off the bikes in the bad weather. Woulda been miserable on bikes.

We decided to go to mutual this week. The YW in the ward have a goal of 108 baptisms this year (most of them overlapping each other), so we decided to go and participate in their talent show and expose us to them. It was fun. We did bumblebee bumblebee skit. Everyone loved it and we won 5th place. I love doing that skit. It was different and a little weird not doing it w/ mark, but it worked out good.

What else? Not much has happened this week. We’ve been spending our time contacting people (mostly members) and trying to pick up the work. It’s really frustrating, especially during the days when nobody is home, since we haven’t gotten in too many houses. We’re getting a few referrals, but contact them all is hard when we can’t catch em home.

That’s pretty much everything that happened. Nothing exciting this week. Well, last Monday we got pulled over. Elder Bell was driving 45 in a 35 zone. The cop had another call so he let us off the hook, but that's only the 2nd time I’ve been in a car getting pulled over (the 1st was driving in a church parking lot when I was 14 learning to drive and someone called us in on suspicious driving)

Well, that's this week. Hope everything's going good. I’m still loving it out here and having a blast

Love,

Elder Blomquist

Scary Experience This Week

Happy belated birthday Mom!! Hope you had a good one. Pretty sure that you had a better day than I did. I was sick on the 11th... felt dizzy, dry heaved, slept for 2 hours, then stayed in the rest of the day. It wasn’t fun cancelling dinner or sitting out on the lesson we had scheduled that night.

 I don’t have a lot of time, the family history center closes in 30 minutes, so I’ll try to get everything I want to say.

 It's been a hard week... President said something about watching for pride in zone conference on the 6th, and I took it to heart and looked at what was going on and found some pride in me. Spent the week praying for humility, and I got it alright... pretty much every day last week at least 1 thing was unpleasant that worked to strip me of that pride. Anything from a comment someone said to upset me to the death of the 1st counselor in the mission presidency, things were just bad this week.

Went to my 1st funeral. President Kotter (1^st counselor in the Mission Presidency) died last week and his funeral was on Friday. I never really got to know him, but he spoke at zone conference even though he wasn’t feeling too well, and then he passed away 3 days later. It was a good service.

 Had probably the scariest experience on my mission now too. We took the ward list and started contacting the members/less active/part member families, and we went to one house and the wife said they weren’t interested. The husband came out as we were about to ride away and basically yelled at us for coming by and that he was ex-military and if we or anyone from our church came by again there would be problems. 1st time for both me and Elder Bell, so we had no idea what to do. It was kinda scary.

That’s pretty much been this week. Next week should be busier, the area is starting to pick up some, but there’s a still lot of work to do. We taught about 5-7 lessons this week, and hopefully we'll have more than that next week. I’m excited about this area. If we keep diligent and work hard, it'll pick up and be a really good area.

We’ve got a baptism on the 3^rd of March, so hopefully I’ll be here for that. Transfers are Feb. 6, so we'll see if this is the area I stay in for more than 1 transfer.

Take care everyone!

 Love,

Elder Blomquist

I Love It Out Here

I love it out here on the mission.  I don't want to come home, even though it's 20 months away.  This is my life and I'd be kinda lost without it.  I love the work.  This week should be our busiest week.  We already have about 2-3 lessons a day planned. 12-15 lessons would just about double our usual number for the week.  The area is starting to pick up.  We've been biking the whole transfer so far, but we're gonna start taking the car.  I'd rather be biking but I see the need for the car.  Our area is huge.  It takes about half an hour to ride from one church building to the next.  And we have some people who live way out in the boonies and we don't really have the time to be biking out there and bike back.  Gonna start planning better and using the car so the area should pick up even more when that happens.

Lots of finding.  We don't have too many people we're working with so we're on the finding.  I really don't like it.  One of our wards is pretty missionary minded.  They have about a dozen or more ward missionaries (there's over 500 people in the ward though).  On Fast Sunday, they had 400 people then and the week after it was like 360 or so.  We had to open the gym and set up more chairs.  They are all pretty active.  They do all our new member discussions and visit members to fire them up and help them with missionary work.  That ward has always been one of the best wards, but the way I hear it some missionaries in the past hated that ward, (heard a missionary who served here 3 month ago or so say that), and the work died.  It is weird ward to be working in.  They do things in a way different than any other ward I've served in, but they've got potential.  Once we get things going again, I bet it'll be our best ward.

I'm excited about/for this area.  I think we as missionaries need to be more obedient and diligent, but it's got potential and I'm excited to see what becomes of it.  Even if I do end up getting transferred.  I've planted some seeds and paved the way for the next set who serve here.  As usual, I probably won't see the fruits of my labors (although you never know - transfers are unpredictable), I'm laying the foundation.

Love,

Elder Blomquist

Giving Blessings This Week

Crazy to think I’ve been in Caldwell for 2 weeks now. It feels like an area I’m gonna stay in for a while. Things are starting to pick up. We’ve been visiting members and working w/ a few less actives and investigators, but we've really been trying to fire up the members and get to know who we're working with. It’s been good in 1 of our wards. We rode or bikes out to Notus, which is about 10 miles away, from there to Greenleaf, about 3-5 miles from Notus, and got a ride back to town. Word spread pretty quick about our ride, and members are really impressed and member trust is huge in that ward now. They know they have missionaries who want to work, let’s just hope they use us.

Had a good weekend. I think I taught the most powerful lesson I’ve ever taught on my mission. This lady wants to be baptized, but has a smoking problem and I think 1 or 2 other things she needs to work on before she can get baptized. I don’t even know what I really said, I just opened my mouth and it was filled. I shared a few scriptures, shared some experiences, and just bore testimony. She knows what she has to do, and by the end of the lesson she was like "just pick a date for me". I thought she was referring to smoking, so I asked "to quit smoking or be baptized?" She said baptism, but we thought it best to fast and pray about it (this was Saturday and fast Sunday was the next day). We’re seeing her on Wednesday, so hopefully something good comes out of it.

Gave a few blessings this week too. There was an old woman in the hospital that had a stroke and they didn’t expect her to live long. We went and I gave a blessing. It was kinda weird giving a blessing to someone who's about to die. That’s pretty much what I said, this life is temporary, you will be missed, but be at peace. It was just kinda weird.

But I did give another good blessing. There’s a less active in our ward whose neighbor just got diagnosed with cancer from the neck to top of the legs. She said she wanted to build her faith back up and this guy asked if he could bring "the boys" on over. She said yes so we went. I gave a blessing and it was another one of those where I’m not too sure what was coming out. I think it was pretty much about trials and how God gives us them to learn and grow and to use this one to grow closer to Him. She said we could come back and start teaching them, so that was pretty good too.

 Still pretty slow in this area. We got about 7 or 8 people we're working with, and only 1 of them is a less active, but we could easily have more. Starting a new area is hard. Elder Bell's been here for a while, but covering 5 wards he doesn’t know too many of the people and we're still learning the area. I’m getting it down pretty good though. I can get around almost all of 11th ward. Still learning 4th, but I’m getting it. Things have gotten better since last week. We had a zone conference on Friday, and I got some things I needed to hear. I fasted last Sunday (Jan 1st) for help with the area. I was struggling hard and just needed to know what to do. Zone conference was perfect. It wasn’t everything I needed, still need some help with the people here, but I learned some things I should do to help the area.

I feel like this area is gonna be one that I’m staying in for more than 1 transfer. That's what I thought about the last 2, but I’m pretty sure I'm gonna stay this time. We’ll see though. Still plenty of time left in the transfer for things to happen, and it's all God's will anyway. Whatever he has in store for me I will do. I look back at the last 2 areas, and I’ve learned something from each area. I think I’m actually a better missionary than I give myself credit for. I’ve always tended to think I’m never good enough, but I’m starting to realize that maybe I’m just good enough.

 I think I’ve gained 5 pounds now though. The biking here is tough; I think my legs have really thickened up. it's a lot of uphill (our house is at the top of a hill, so we gotta go uphill to get home no matter which way we go to get there), lots of miles, and just difficult sometimes. But it's good. I’d still rather be biking than in a car.

Hope everything's still going well at home. I hit my 4 month mark on Saturday! Only 2 more till I burn a tie! That’ll be exciting. It’s going by so fast, yet it's only been 4 months. But I’ll be home before I know it. I’m so glad to be out here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.

Take care!

Love,

Elder Blomquist

P.S. I think I almost make my emails grammatically messy on purpose now just cuz it drives mom nuts... lol

Happy New - New Area

Happy New Year! Crazy to think its 2012 already. Time is just flying by. They always say it does, and it really does.

Caldwell is a pretty good area. Splitting it up, half our work was taken, but now only covering 2 wards we're really gonna have a chance to get to know the members and this area has some real potential. it's gonna take a lot of hard work to find it. We're basically starting from square one here, but once it's found this area is gonna be on fire. Dunno if it's gonna be while I’m here (expecting to get transferred again next transfer, seems to be the way things are going), but the potential is here and it's gonna be exciting to see it when it happens.

 I’m struggling though... I don’t really like any of the other missionaries serving in Caldwell. It’s not that I don’t like them, just their choices. It’s def not the most obedient area. I want to clean it up, but I don’t want to be the one missionary that everyone here hates. I know there's ways to do it, I just don’t know how. There a some things I can control, some things I can just sit out on and obey the rules and know that I’m at least doing what I’m supposed to and hope others follow my example, but there's other things where I’ve to pick the lesser of 2 evils and break at least 1 rule. My comp is the area leader, but I don’t know how much he's capable of leading the area. I’m the one doing the planning, I’m the one deciding where to go, and for all purposes, it seems like I’m the area leader. I want him to be doing it, not out of laziness on my part, but because I think he can do it. I know what I’m doing, but I’m not sure he does. I don’t know how to teach him though. If I don’t do it, it probably won’t get done, but I want him to be involved in it and lead it, but he doesn’t seem to want to do it. I want to help him and the area, but I don’t know how to do it in a way that d, but is effective at the same time.

I’m not complaining. It’s a good chance for me to learn. It’s already been a week and I’ve already learned things. It’s been hard, but it's been good. I’m already anticipating learning so much in the next 5 weeks. Gonna try to talk with president about it and figure something out that help everyone.

 This week we've just been visiting members and trying to get the work started. That’s something else that scares me about the area. We’re basically starting this area from scratch. There’s only 4 people we're teaching, so we're gonna be doing lots of finding. We met with both Bishops and went through the ward lists, so we've got a lot of less active/part member families we can visit. But I don’t know what to do... both of my previous areas have been good areas, and now I’m down to nothing and have to figure out what to do.

It’s a car share area. But I like biking better. Yes, I think I’ve been converted to bikes. I like biking better than a car, at least for missionary work. It’s a rough area for bikes though. It’s a pretty rural town, we have to ride about 5 miles or so to one of our areas, and there are quite a few rolling hills. I’m used to the cold now though. I think it's just been warmer here than in Paramount, but it's not bad. I still need to bundle up a bit, but I almost always end up taking my gloves and scarf-thing off while riding.

We’ve had our share of bike problems though. Got on 1 bike and it wouldn’t ride smooth (clunked when I peddled and almost wouldn’t ride at all) so I switched bikes which got both tires flat in one day. Luckily we met a member who's pretty good w/ bikes and he helped us get back on the road. Then the next day Elder Bell's tire flattened, and when we went to pump it up his back tire was loose and he snapped the piece that held it together, so the member we were with said we could use his bike for the time being. And it's been raining. We got out bikes on Thursday, and that's the day I had my bike problems. It rained little that day and we got a little wet, but the worst was the next day. We were riding to an appointment and the rain came out of nowhere and it was windy. There was a weather instrument in the member’s home we took refuge at and it said the wind was blowing 15 MPH. The bike lanes here are really not good. Tthis area wasn’t really meant for bikes (there's areas where there is probably only 6 inches between the cars and us at some points), so we decided it was safer to just catch a ride. The rain let up during our lesson, but as we were riding home the rain picked up again. So did the wind and it started icing too. Wind, rain, and ice... not fun to ride in. We were soaked. I’m so glad I was on bike before. My legs are used to biking, but Elder Bell struggles with biking a little bit. He’s been in a car for 10 months and this is his first bike area, it's been kinda tough. I want to stay on bikes - 1.because I like biking and 2. the other elders in this area haven’t been in bike areas and I don’t want to put them through what it is.

All in all, I’m doing ok though. It’s a struggle, but it's gonna be a good one. I’m work through it and do the best I possibly can. Hope everyone at home is doing well. It was great seeing everyone again.

Love,

Elder Blomquist