Swollen Eye

So President Cannon authorized me to email right now. I'm doing better now. Swelling is gone and most of the allergy symptoms are gone. The allergy shot I took killed my immune system, so I've been feeling pretty sick lately. Other than that I've been doing great. Last week was a great week and the start of this week has been rough, but I think it's gunna be another good one for the time we got left. Pretty sure I'm getting transferred on Monday, but we'll see.

Don't know if you can see, but the right eye is swollen shut.

 

President Cannon also said to give you his number in case you had any questions.  He said to call him for anything. Any questions you have, call him and we'll be able to sort everything out. He's a pretty funny guy. He called this morning and the first thing he said was "Elder Blomquist, are you alive?"

I'm alive, but I'm not kickin yet.

take care everyone!

love,

Elder Blomquist

Allergic to Hay

so today's been a hard day...

I think I'm allergic to hay. On Saturday we threw some hay, and I got all these rashes on my arm. Then this morning we were working in a barn and around hay and my eyes swelled up. Got so bad that I couldn't open my eyes. My eyes were swollen shut. Our ward mission leader took us to the doctor and they gave me a steroid shot in the butt (hurt a little bit) and some medications. I'm doing alright now, I'm able to keep my eyes open, but I have to stay in for a few days and still hurt a little bit. Keep me in your prayers tonight.

This morning our ward mission leader set us up with a non member who braids horse hair. He had to put his horse down and let us take some of it. We got with this guy this morning and braided it into bookmarks. Unfortunately I was swollen at that point and couldn't do mine, WML did that for me, but it's still pretty cool. Got a horse hair bookmark.

We've had a pretty good week. Made some solid contacts and had some good lessons. One of our investigators is going home to Thailand in a week, and I've been teaching her since she started investigating the church (sometime in February) and she gave us a flower that she made out of a paper towel and a nice little note. It was a nice surprise.

Really not much more I can say. My eyes are mostly what I'm trying to deal with right now. They're still swollen and it was pretty funny to see the looks I got in the doctors office. I've been wearing my sunglasses everywhere, even inside, and I wasn't wearing em then. Got some pretty good looks. Be house ridden for a couple days, but I'll be fine.

Take care everyone!

love,

Elder Blomquist

A Nothing Week

Another week come and gone... this has been a crap week though. We’ve only taught 5 lessons, only 1 to an investigator. There is no work here right now. We are only meeting with one of our investigators regularly, none are coming to church, and none are keeping commitments. There is no work in our area right now.

On top of that, still getting used to Elder Cronin. We had a talk yesterday about some of the problems we have w/ each other, so things should start getting better. Same way with Elder Bell. Didn’t like him at first, but then things got better after we talked and I really liked him. Things should get better now. We’ll see. He's a great worker and a good missionary, just some things we needed to work out and I think things are gonna get better now.

So like I said, last week was hard. We had a lot of appointments set, but over the course of Wednesday-Sunday we had 7 in a row cancel. 

It’s still a lot of fun though. We’re having lots of fun here. Little too much sometime I think, lol. 

That’s my week. Nothing... got a few letters from people at home, so will write back soon (yes, I actually will).

Take care everyone,

Elder Blomquist

Out 5 Months on Feb 14, 2012

Been an ok week this week. My ear hasn’t been really giving me any trouble cept a little bit yesterday, but it still rings and is unpleasant. Got a doc appointment tomorrow and we'll hopefully find out what it is. Kinda tired of this constant ringing.

Struggling a bit with my new companion. Elder Cronin’s a good guy and a pretty hard worker, but there are things that I don’t like. We play card games every night after we're done planning and all that, but he always cheats and coming from my gaming background, that annoys me. I think he's also pretty inconsiderate. Today we're playing golf for p-day and he set it all up. I don’t really mind playing golf, but he set it up w/o asking me about what I wanted to do. It just seems a lot of the time he just wants to do things his way and for his own benefit. He’s probably my least favorite companion so far.

Cool experience though. Well, a couple of them, but we had Elder Ballard come and talk with the mission! He’s here reorganizing a stake and he took some time to talk with the missionaries. He really stressed the importance of companions and being the best teachers there are. He’s pretty funny too. I think in such a small low-key gathering he can afford to let some humor out. That makes 3 apostles I’ve seen/heard in person. Elder Gavarett of the Seventy is gonna be coming to our stake at the end of the month to reorganize our stake and he's having a new member meeting with us and the people we're working with. That should be cool too.

Had the opportunity to give another blessing this week too. I’m pretty amazed with some of the less actives in this area. There’s one guy who's a pretty rough guy. Been to prison at least once, tough looking, and pretty rough in his speech, but he said he's been having a rough time and hasn’t felt the Spirit for at least 3 weeks and wants it back. He has a strong testimony and when you see a rough and tough guy like him cry, it's something else. There was another less active we met who's a convert, and we always like to ask about their conversion story and how and why they embraced the gospel. Well she was telling us her story and she started crying too and said she couldn’t deny the church. These people do have testimonies, maybe small ones, but they are there and it makes me wonder why they don’t come to church.

It was fun staying in a ward for more than 6 weeks. On Sunday when we greeted it was fun to see all the people I knew. Spent 6 weeks getting to know these people and I get to stay and spend more time with them. I’ve had a lot of fun with this ward. we changed up our wards again, but I got to keep the ward I had most fun in. we rode our bikes to Notus 10 miles away, did skits in mutual and ward functions, got shocked by an electric fence at a dinner appointment, and I think I’ve been more open with people and I’ve gotten to know them better and they've gotten to know me better. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve built a lot of member trust in the ward. Hasn’t paid off yet, but we're still working it.

5 months tomorrow! Crazy how fast it's gone. I'll hit my 6 month mark here and burn my tie. There's 2 other people from my MTC district serving here in Caldwell, and 1 in Nampa which is about 10 or so miles away, so we're probably gonna have 4 of us burning our tie here at the same tie. Gonna be fun when that happens. Time is moving by. Sometimes it seems slow cuz of our lack of work, but looking back it all goes by fast.

  

That’s pretty much the week. Nothing much is happening. We’ve only taught 6 lessons last week and not looking very likely we'll teach much more this week either. Kinda sucks when the work is slow, but it also cuts our work out for us. Lots of contacting and trying to keep busy. Now if we can just turn that into being productive, that'll be better.

Take care everyone!

Love,

Elder Blomquist

Companions

Elders Farris, Blomquist, Bell, and Bowers

The Things Missionary Mom's Don't Want to Hear About

Transfers just happened. I’m finally staying!! Both a good and bad thing. Not too much work here and def not my favorite place, but I’ve had fun. Lots of fun w/ one of our wards and the elders who I serve with are all cool. Did get a new companion, Elder Cronin. He’s from Mississippi. 4 transfers, 3 areas, 4 companions. crazy numbers. We’ve got 2 southerners and 2 Californians living together now.

Before I go any further, Mom, you might want to find something soft to put in your hands. I can see you facepalming after reading some of the things I have to say.

Gonna hit my 6 month mark this transfer. Pretty cool, we've got 2 other Elders in the zone who came out of the MTC with me, so all 3 of us are gonna burn a tie together. Crazy to think I’ve been out that long. So little, yet so long at the same time.

Got something soft yet?

You think Elders are mature and grown up right? Well, not in Caldwell! We’re probably one of the biggest bunch of idiots ever here. Lately we've been farting on a lighter, and guess what? I have the best 2 so far :] . Got it on video too. Just a random aspect of missionary life I thought you might enjoy.

Not really been getting any better. Been another hard week. My ear still rings, and lately I’ve been having a lot of sinus pain. I’ve still been able to be out doing work, but it hurts. Saw doc again and he said there's nothing that we can do yet, we just need to wait. It’s not been fun. He gave me some medicine and I’ve taken it all now, so if the problems still persist he wants to do a hearing test and maybe x-ray my sinuses too. I hope everything clears up though. I don’t want to go through another week of this.

We had a zone meeting on Friday too. Kinda like a big district meeting. Had a breakfast the zone leaders made us, had some trainings, transfer predictions, and zone awards. Mine was "most likely to circumcise a baby with a dull rock". Makes no sense right? Elder Bowers, my district leader, made that one for me. He’s always calling me a Jew when we play games and I win, so he thought it a fitting one.

What else this week? We haven’t done much. Between the pain and transfers coming up, not much was done. Oh, but we have gotten into something else too.        Still got your cushion?      It's called planking. I don’t know if you already know what it is, but it's pretty dumb. All you do is lie across something and go stiff and take a picture of it. The family we live with has some alpacas, so we're trying to convince them to let us plank an alpaca, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen. They did say there’s' a big mountain of poop we could plank, so I might try that.

I don’t like getting new companions... just when I start getting used to one they leave and I have to start all over again. It’s gonna be another good transfer though. Hard again, but good. We switched up the wards again here. We were covering 2 buildings and it was a nightmare getting back and forth to meetings on Sundays, and the way it was split just wasn’t good for the work, so we moved it again. Now we only cover 1 building and things will be easier. Mine is a car area, which I’m not too thrilled about, but I think the work can move forward better now. I hope I know the area well enough. I know one ward alright, but the one we just got to know only a few people in and know nothing about the geography.

That’s pretty much what's been happening with me. Only a few more days till I hit my 5 month mark! So close yet so far. Take care everyone!

Love,

Elder Blomquist

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