Picture Time

Brother Wheeler giving me a haircut.

We did some service with cement and got it all over my hand.



Just another day on the job!

We helped hydroseed a yard.  I liked working the hose.  Maybe I'll become a fireman.

Been a great week this week. We taught 14 lessons this week. We've put more into this week than we have in a long time, and it payed off. I haven't had 14 lessons in months. The most we ever had in Caldwell was 9, so it's been since Christmas that I've had that many. It's great.

 

We have a baptism coming up. We met the girl (Dana) yesterday and she wants to be baptized. She's already read most of the BoM, and is starting the gospel principles manual, been coming to church for a few weeks already, just started meeting with us yesterday. The date is set for August 4th! Hopefully I stay in this area. Transfers are next week (calls on Friday) and we're pretty sure one of us is leaving. We've been together 2 transfers now (counting Caldwell) and we don't think we're staying another. Be interesting to see what happens.

 

So about that call from the dentist office... I just forgot my insurance card. My wisdom tooth started hurting, I couldn't even chew with that side of my mouth. It hurt to eat, sometimes it hurt to talk, and it was miserable for a while. The pain came and went, it happened once before in Caldwell, but after a bit it went away. Now it's back about a month later. Had a dentist check it out and they want to pull it, says it could be getting infected. There's no bone in the way, so they say it should be an easy pull. that's going down tomorrow at 3:30 (my time) so keep me in your prayers. Hope all goes well

 

Dad was right about that camera that one of the missionaries who went home gave me to use. It's a piece of junk. It works, you can see the screen, but that's the only thing better about it. I've just been using my broken camera then putting my memory card into the other one to look at them.  It's been working out ok, I've gotten pretty good at pointing and shooting, but it would be nice to see what it is I'm shooting = P

 

Birthday on Thursday! I'm excited.... kinda. Turning 20, I'm getting old. 10 months out and 20 years old... I'm getting up there.

 

That's pretty much been our week, hard work, play, and all that good stuff. Nothing too excited again. hope all is well with y'all.

 

Love,

Elder Blomquist

5 days till my 10 month mark and 10 till my 20th birthday. my how the time flies.

 

So I realized last letter that I left a lot of stuff out about what I did during the week. Good thing I keep a journal (slacked a bit at writing every day, but I usually write the day after and make it sound like the yesterday). We do all these fun things, then when I sit at the computer to write them, my mind goes blank.

 

Been a slower week for our whole district with 4th of July. We had a zone meeting, went home and hung out with the family we live with, and then did some service at our dinner. We did some hydroseed. put this compost mix in a big container of water, spread the seeds in the yard, then turned on the hose and sprayed the compost mix all over the yard. Turned the whole yard green. Was fun though, felt like a fireman spraying the water. supposedly it's supposed to help the grass grow better/faster, not really sure, but it was fun. Afterwards we had dinner (hot dogs and hamburgers) then played some games. There's so many cool people in Nampa.

 

The work could be a little better though. Elder Bell is getting trunky, he's almost done working. He's willing to work, but I have to do everything. He's been in Nampa 6 weeks longer than me, so I've been trying to rely on his knowledge of the area and what they've done in the past, but he doesn't help with that. If I wanna get out and work when we don't have a scheduled appointment, I have to decide where we go, what we do, and all that. A lot of times, I don't do that. I've never been the pushy, leader type guy. I want to get out and do stuff, but if he doesn't care, it's not gonna work. More so lately I've been cracking the whip and saying "alright, we're going" and take charge and do it all, but I don't like doing that at all. It wasn't a very good night the last time I tried that. ugh... Only 2 more weeks of the transfer,and I don't think I'm staying with Bell for another. Hopefully I'll get a good companion who'll work hard, is obedient, and chill. There's a lot of fun in Nampa (cool members), but it needs to be worked. If I got a companion who's cool and a hard worker, It's gonna be a good transfer.

 

I love playing my guitar. I figured out how to read music and play the notes, so I've been playing the hymns and reading the tabs. I want some piano books now! Now that I can read the music for the guitar the possibilities are endless. I'm so excited about it and can't wait to really start digging deep into. That's one of the things on my "want list", music.

 

That's pretty much it (or at least all I can remember). You'll have to wait till I get home and read my journals (if I let you ; ] ) to get the day by day stuff.

 

 

take care!

Elder Blomquist

17 days till my birthday. crazy huh? Gonna be 20. 2 whole decades... 10 months out and 20 years old. time continues to fly.

 

So I don't know if you're considering a birthday present (believe me, I'm perfectly ok if you're not), but if you are, I have some requests. Like usual though, they all might be expensive, but like I said, I could care less if I got anything. Some things I would like are cleats, GPS, and I forget the last one. I'll tell ya if I remember.

 

Been a decent week. We've found quite a few new investigators. Most of them were from formers, people missionaries had been teaching before but for one reason or another stopped, but there is one we found on our own.

 

Her name is Lynda. Her husband is LDS and is in a mental institution in Buhle (close to Twin Falls, so about 100 miles aways or so). She doesn't think he has very long left to live, and she wants to be with him forever, so she asked us to start teaching her. It's been pretty neat, we met for the 1st time on Thursday, then she set up a return appointment for Friday. On Friday she sets up the time for Sunday. She just wants to move quick with this. There are some W.o.W. issues we need to help her get over, and we want to make sure she actually believes it and has a testimony, but she says she wants to be baptized and we're gonna do all we can to get her there. I've never seen someone so anxious and eager to learn. We met with her 3 times last week and each lesson went 2 hours. Meeting with her again on Thursday.

 

I've gotten into rugby. There's an elder from Zimbabwe here, and he taught us all rugby. It's way different than any of the sports I've done before, but after playing it today (we prolly played rugby for 3-4 hours today) I'm starting to get the hang of it and it's been really fun. Of course we have to play 2 hand touch, but it's still fun. Took me about 2-3 weeks to get the hang of it, but it's been fun now that I do.

 

Nampa's been tight, new favorite area. The family we live with is cool (we live in an apartment above the garage), the members are cool (the few that I've met), and it's been awesome. Not at all what I expected from Nampa. I expected more of an older town with the old run-down look to it. Not our area. We don't actually cover too much housing, it's mostly commercial stuff, so I bet we could tract it all out. But it's tight, I love it.

 

Things are going good. I think they're better now than they've ever been before. Starting week 4 of the transfer, and it's just flying by. Really doesn't feel like I've been here that long. But things are good and I'm loving it.

 

well, that's about our week here. Hope everything is going well back home.

 

Love,

Elder Blomquist

Can't believe June is almost over. Time is just moving too fast. Seems like just yesterday (June 4th) when my eyes were swelling up and transfers were rolling around, and we just started week 3 of the transfer. Time is just moving WAY too fast.


Had a baptism on Saturday. Missionaries have been meeting with Kim Nielsen for a while, and the baptism was Saturday. The service was interesting though, the font filler forgot to fill the font, so the service took 2 hours and was a little on the cold side. She was so ready to get baptized though. She had Elder Bell baptize her, but she asked me to confirm her. It was an awesome experience. I've never seen anyone so ready to come into the fold before. Working on her kids now (she has some kids in their 20's living with her), but I don't think they'll take very long. That whole family is just amazing.


That's pretty much all we've done all week. Looking back, we haven't done much, but we're trying and have made some good contacts lately. Everyone we talked to the week before that said come back this week told us the same thing this week.


Our district is pretty cool. Elder Flake (who was around us in Caldwell the whole 6 months I was there) is my district leader, and he's way tight. So is his comp and I like the zone leaders. Not a big fan of the sisters in our district, but it's not bad, everyone is pretty cool. Elder Bell and I are most def the district clowns. It's so much fun.


Zone Conference is tomorrow. We're getting new phones. They're upgrading us from pieces of junk to pieces of junk with a touch screen. They don't actually seem all that bad, but they're nothing nice either. But it's still an upgrade from what we have now. A previous missionary who was here shot it with an airsoft gun, so the screen is cracked, but it's still usable.


Dang, I really don't know what else. We've not done anything interesting lately. Oh well. I got 45 minutes left on the computer, so if I remember anything I'll just add it.


Hope everything is going well at home. Take care everyone!


Love,
Elder Blomquist

Transfered to Nampa

6-11-12

I got transferred! I'm in Nampa now. Funny thing is it's only about 5-10 miles away from Caldwell. Know what else is funny? I'm serving with Elder Bell again. I'm stoked about that! I did NOT get along with Van Zalinge very well. It was a hard 6 weeks with him. I was ready to leave Caldwell. Nampa was the one place I didn't want to go though. Well, guess I didn't want to go to Oregon either, but I remember saying "I hope I don't go to Nampa". Oh well. I'm just happy to be away from Elder Van Zalinge and excited to be with Elder Bell again. We're gonna have lots of fun.

Nampa seems pretty tight though. It's about 80,000 people, so I'm moving to the city. Elder Bell hit someone last transfer, so I'm the driver. New city and I'm driving it. Been so long since I've driven a car. Drove to Meridian today for p-day, and it's been a while. Didn't hit anyone (or even come close to for that matter), it's just been a while. So use to either biking or sitting shotgun. Just a little different.

So I haven't heard from anyone for a while. Haven't gotten a letter for a couple weeks now. What's up? Life too crazy busy for me? Ha-ha

Been a fun last week... With everything that happened with my eyes, I've been sick almost all week. Swollen eyes Monday, then Tuesday-Friday I was feeling sick. Friday I was able to get out and work a little, but I still felt pretty bad. Better now, so I'm happy about that. It was def not fun being sick. Gets to the point where you're just so used to feeling bad that you really can't remember what it felt like to be healthy, that's kinda what it was. For 3 weeks prior I had had allergies, the itchy watery eyes, runny nose, that kinda stuff, but then swollen eyes and all that, so it's been a while since I've felt good. But I am glad to say I'm feeling good now and things are starting to get back to normal. Luckily we got everything figured out with the medications. Pretty sure you might've talked to president about it already, but missionary medical covers the eye drops, but Aetna didn't cover the pills. But it's better than it was. Had a $25 dollar co pay on the drops (shoulda been 10, but it is what it is), then $60 for the pills. So all in all I paid $85 for all the medications. That's WAY better than the $176 it was before.

So before I forget, our address is 1200 Autumn Wind Dr. Nampa, ID 83687. Pretty easy to remember.

Well, take care everyone. I'm doing well here. Gonna need to adjust to Nampa now, but that'll be easy. I feel like I'm gonna be here for a while. Might be another 6 month area, who knows, I just feel like I’m gonna be a while here.

Love,

Elder Blomquist

I got transferred! I'm in Nampa now. Funny thing is, it's only about 5-10 miles away from Caldwell. Know what else is funny? I'm serving with Elder Bell again. I'm stoked about that! I did NOT get along with Van Zalinge very well. It was a hard 6 weeks with him. I was ready to leave Caldwell. Nampa was the one place I didn't want to go though. Well, guess I didn't want to go to Oregon either, but I remember saying "I hope I don't go to Nampa". Oh well. I'm just happy to be away from Elder Van Zalinge and excited to be with Elder Bell again. We're gonna have lots of fun.

 

Nampa seems pretty tight though. It's about 80,000 people, so I'm moving to the city. Elder Bell hit someone last transfer, so I'm the driver. New city, and I'm driving it. Been so long since I've driven a car. Drove to Meridian today for p-day, and it's been a while. Didn't hit anyone (or even come close to for that matter), it's just been a while. So use to either biking or sitting shotgun. Just a little different.

 

So I haven't heard from anyone for a while. Haven't gotten a letter for a couple weeks now. What's up? life too crazy busy for me? haha

 

Been a fun last week... With everything that happened with my eyes, I've been sick almost all week. Swollen eyes Monday, then Tuesday-Friday I was feeling sick. Friday I was able to get out and work a little, but I still felt pretty bad. Better now, so I'm happy about that. It was def not fun being sick. Gets to the point where you're just so used to feeling bad that you really can't remember what it felt like to be healthy, that's kinda what it was. For 3 weeks prior I had had allergies, the itchy watery eyes, runny nose, that kinda stuff, but then swollen eyes and all that, so it's been a while since I've felt good. But I am glad to say I'm feeling good now and things are starting to get back to normal. Luckily we got everything figured out with the medications. Pretty sure you might've talked to president about it already, but missionary medical covers the eye drops, but Aetna didn't cover the pills. But it's better than it was. Had a $25 dollar copay on the drops (should  have been 10, but it is what it is), then $60 for the pills. So all in all I payed $85 for all the medications. That's WAY better than the $176 it was before.

 

So before I forget, our address is 1200 Autumn Wind Dr. Nampa, ID 83687. Pretty easy to remember.

 

Well, take care everyone. I'm doing well here. Gonna need to adjust to Nampa now, but that'll be easy. I feel like I'm gonna be here for a while. Might be another 6 month area, who knows, I just feel like I'm gonna be a while here.

 

Love,

Elder Blomquist