Last February in the mission field... where has all the time gone? This time last year I was only out 5 or so months, now it's 17... time is not on my side right now.

Been a good week for us. Our wards gave us a lot of names to go contact, and we've spent this week contacting them all. All of them set appointments for this week, but we're looking at like, 10+ new people to teach this week. Should be good. It's not been the most fun contacting them all, but that's the "work" in "missionary work", the finding.

Elder Witbeck's been a good comp so far. He's a follower for sure, he just goes along with the things I say to do. It's pretty annoying at times, I'm ready to be the follower again for once, but such is the way it goes. We get along pretty well, so I'm not complaining about it. He likes to play chess, and I've got a chess board, so that's been pretty fun. I'm better than him, but he'll catch me if I make mistakes.

I've got a question, This is something that's been troubling me a lot lately. I feel like I don't get along with our zone leaders. I just feel like the curve ball in the zone. They seem to have this vision about how the zone should be run, but my ideas are different. They're trying to tailor the district meetings to match that vision, but I don't completely agree with it. It just seems like everything they're trying to do I don't agree with and we butt heads. I don't want to just conform to them, doing that I would feel less effective since I don't believe in it, but I don't want to go against them since they are my zone leaders and the ones in charge of this area, it's a hard thing for me. Do y'all have any advice for me?

One example of things the zone leaders have done that I don't agree with. In the month of February they wanted our zone (8 companionships) to find 100 new investigators. It's possible, but as the month went on it wasn't looking like it was gonna happen. The last week of the month they called us and told us we needed to find 8 new investigators that week. They told us we should cut out less active work in order to have more time for finding. That's one thing I don't agree with. These less actives are just as important (more important depending on who you're talking to) as non members. I don't feel we should cut out that work in order to reach that number. Not that we had much work going on anyway, but I feel that's wrong to ask of someone. That's just one example of my differences with zone leaders. I want to repair our relationship, but I don't want to just conform to them. I've got some ideas, but any suggestions y'all have would be great.

There's a lot of good things happening though. I don't know if y'all know already or not, but they're splitting the Boise mission into 3! There's gonna be the Boise, Twin Falls, and Nampa missions being made outta this one. That's crazy! As far as we know, there's no other mission in the world being split into 3. 58 new missions worldwide, 17 of em in the states, and 2 of those are here. It goes into effect July 1st, so I'll have about 3 months or so with the new changes. Funny thing too is that one of the mission presidents is a President Cannon. about 1/3 of the mission will have 2 president cannons. But it's exciting to see the changes. They're looking at getting missionaries into 1-2 wards per companionship vs the 4+ that we have now. I'm really excited for it. That won't happen in my time, when the split comes we're gonna be split a little thin still I think, but it's exciting to see what's happening in this area.

I'm excited for this week. There's good things happening, both in the mission and our area. Let's keep up the good work!

Elder Blomquist

Transfers just happened. I'm staying in Payette with Elder Witbeck, an Elder from my last district in Nampa. I just can't get away from it! My whole new district was in my zone in Nampa, it's pretty crazy.

This has been an interesting week. Elder Downey, our 3rd wheel for the week was sick almost all week. We were house-ridden from Monday-Friday. I had cabin fever big time. The days went slow but the week went fast. But even so, it was a pretty good week. There was a family we met in Weiser, and they were pretty cool. They're pretty devout catholics, but we had a good lesson. Pretty much all we did was talk about them and their doctrines. I learned a lot about the catholics that I didn't know before, it was really interesting. Most of it didn't make sense. They believe in the bible as scripture, but they said they're not an "una scriptura" or something like that church. From what I understood of it, the Pope and bishops interpret the scriptures. The scriptures are the word of God, but the church leaders say what they mean. It makes me wonder what's the point of reading the scriptures at all then. The pope says what it means, so why do we need to read it and know? It just didn't make sense to me at all. But it was really interesting to see all the similarities a well as the differences.

I'm kinda glad to be away from Elder Martinez. I like him a lot, he's a really good guy, but it was hard to work with him. And over these last 2 weeks he's changed so much from when we started (especially this last week with Elder Downey). He reminds me a lot like Kevin, he'll take a joke and stretch it till it's not funny anymore. He just got annoying. He never really wanted to work in the first place, but it was even more difficult to work with him this past week. I never spent too much time with Elder Witbeck, but I heard he's socially awkward at times, but I like him. Should be a good transfer.

So you know the saying you play with fire you're gonna get burned? well, it's true. Set my hand on fire pretty hard core, think it's a 2nd degree burn I got. Took some hand sanitizer and coated our hands then took a lighter to it. I help mine way too long (about 10 secs or so) and burned my hand pretty good. But it made great pictures, I'll have those coming as soon as I get them. Took some pictures of my hand, will send those.



Think that's all I can think of for this week. Spent most of it inside, but that's alright. Excited for the new transfer, should be a time to really turn the area and myself around.

Take care everyone!

Elder Blomquist

This week is gonna be a crazy week. There's an Elder from a neighboring area who just got sent to Mexico today, so his comp is rolling with is for a week. We're covering 3 towns, Payette, Fruitland, and Weiser now. It's gonna be interesting juggling 2 areas, but I'm excited. Elder Downey (the 1 rolling with us) is a cool guy, we're gonna have so much fun.

My ear's been acting up again. It started 13 months ago, and is starting to bother me again. It feels clogged and kinda amplifies sound (specially base) and makes my head and stomach hurt a bit. I'm thinking about calling it in, but part of me doesn't want to do that. Last time there wasn't really anything they could do about it.

Next transfers gonna be an interesting one. It's gonna be 5 weeks instead of the normal 6. That means I'm gonna go home a week early. Transfer calls are on Saturday, so that'll be exciting to see. Transfers are always a time of high anxiety and excitement. Part of me wants to stay, this area still needs a lot of work, but this has also been my hardest area and I'm eager to leave these memories behind. But I'll do what I'm asked to do, that's just the way things go. I think God has a sense of humor, so if I did get transferred it'd probably be to a harder area or a harder companion = P .

I need to be going now. I'll have some pictures next week (forgot my computer plug thing). Hope to hear from y'all soon!

Elder Blomquist

February already... in about a week and a half I'll have 17 months out...

Saturday was pretty awesome. Elder Christofferson was pretty amazing. He's become one of my top 3. He emphasized the importance of the Book of Mormon in our work, and it really gave me some guidance and direction. I need to do a better job about using the Book of Mormon, now I just need to figure out how to do that.


The general authorities are all pretty funny. Elder Christofferson has a small print triple combination, and Elder Ballard has a standard size. Elder Ballard said "I'm amazed at Elder Christofferson's small book. I don't think it has everything in it mine does (holds up standard size book)". They bantered back and forth about that the rest of the meeting, it was pretty funny.

We've spent a lot of time this week with the active members. Trying to get to know the people so they can know us and trust us and we can move the work forward. We're making progress with our investigators I feel, but it's slow. There's a less active we've been teaching, and she just loves us. We've split a lot of wood for her (I love splitting wood) and talked about the church a lot, and she just loves us. She came to church yesterday too. She's got a problem with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, she says "we have one testament of Jesus Christ (New Testament) why do we need another one?" Has a few other problems too, mostly things that Christ said "don't do" that was ok at certain points (mostly Nephi killing Laban and polygamy). She says "Christ said no, so why was it ok?" I think she's coming around though. It's been rough at times, I've had to be pretty patient with her, but it's been working. She keeps telling us she's grateful we're so patient with her. I guess I'm doing something right = P

Elder Martinez and I are getting along. We get along, but I don't feel we work well together. We haven't really had many teaching opportunities, it's mostly to active members where I share the vision I have, but we get along alright. I'm ready for a change though. I've had companions who I get along with, but we don't work well together, companions we don't get along but work well together, just not a companion who we get along AND work well together, I'm ready for that. President in interviews told me "yes, you've had a lot of rough companionships, but you're a leader, and you're good at it." I was reading "Jesus the Christ" recently and it talked about the importance of a name and what it meant to the Hebrews. I thought back to my name (Richard) and what it means (powerful leader/ruler). Thanks for that one = P

Well, that's pretty much my week. It's week 5 of the transfer, only this one then next to go before the next transfer, time's just flying by. It always seems to go by so fast. Should have some pictures coming soon!

Take care!

Elder Blomquist