Time Really is Just Flying By

10-11-11

 

So it's P-day. Hard to believe a month's gone by already. Time really is just flying by. A month isn't a long time, but it's going.

 

I love it here in Mountain Home. It's really small, wouldn't want to live here, but I love it here. We don't have very many people to teach though. Our day consists mostly of contacting less active and part member families. There are a few regular investigators we're teaching. There's one that claims to be a hippie. He calls God "the dude" and drinks beer during the lesson, but we're working with him. He's starting to get more comfortable calling Him God, and he's going to quit drinking, and he came to church on Sunday. He's a pretty cool guy.

 

There's a lady we teach that's pretty interesting. The lesson we had w/ her was the first lesson, and it was pretty interesting. She kept asking about the hierarchy of the church, and she was saying something about Adam and Eve being primates. We are teaching her very slowly to make sure she understands it all.

 

The wards up here are pretty small. There's not a lot of people here. But the members are awesome. Often times when it's around dinner time and we got to a members home for something they almost always ask if we've had dinner or an appointment. There was one family we went to one of my 1st days that put more food on when we said we didn't. The members up here are all really amazing people.

 

I know I'm forgetting something... there's so much that it's impossible to say it all. But at the same time, not much is happening. Like I said, we spend most of our days contacting people. We hardly ever get in a house though. Most of the time they're not there, or we caught them at a bad time. People are telling us to come back at a better time though, so that's a good thing. Oh, we did get a door slammed on us. We were out tracting and we knock on the door and an old grumpy looking guy walks out and very emphatically says "no" then walks back in and closes the door. We didn't even get to say anything. It was pretty funny.

 

Missionary work is a lot different than I thought it would be. I'm surprised at how much we're not teaching. In the MTC, all they taught was teaching, so it's kinda frustrating being out here and not teaching. They never taught us how to get member trust, contact, or anything like that so this is all another big culture shock for me. It has been a difficult week, I've definitely had to make some adjustments, but I still love it. Still nowhere else I'd rather be right now.

 

I'm so glad we bought me that jacket. It's been raining almost every day since we got here. It's cold, wet, rainy, and would've been miserable without it. It is really cold here, not as cold as it will get, but still cold nonetheless. They say it gets down to like 10-20 degrees or so in the winter, definitely not looking forward to that. But they say we don't get too much snow here. Like it'll snow one day, then 2 or so days later it will all be melted and that cycle just repeats every now and then. Dunno if I'm excited or upset by that. Never had a snow with winter before, but neither my companion nor I have ever driven in the snow and it's cold, so mixed feelings there.

 

Got to go to the temple today. We drove down to Twin Falls and went to a session there. I love the temple. Would've been better if we didn't have to get up around 4:30 to get there. I kinda fell asleep at various points, but it was still a wonderful experience.

 

Oh, one big thing I forgot to mention, I had a baptism!! There was a lady they were teaching before I got here, and it just happened that last Saturday was her baptism date, and I got to baptize her! I was really excited about that.

 

What else do I have to say? I wish you all were here so I could tell you everything in person. There's so much that it's impossible to write everything. I guess just wanted to say I'm doing alright. Having a bit of a rough time, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Hope everything is going well back home. I forgot my camera but I'll have pictures soon. Love you all.

 

love,

Elder Blomquist