Been another week. What do I say about this week? It's been fun, I'll say that.

Went on exchanges with Elder Downey. Actually, the exchange lasted about 3 days. He's a pretty good friend of mine, and we just stuck together for longer. Usually it's just a 24 deal, but we made it longer. He's made me into a pyro too. He's the 1 who showed me how to set my hand on fire, and we spent most of our nights together playing with fire. I wish I could send videos, but the emails wont let me. I juggled fireballs. We took some alcohol and doused tennis balls in it then lit em up and juggled them! It was a little harder in the dark, wish we would have turned on our stove light, but it still looks pretty cool. Then we figured out what else we could do. Took one of those tennis balls, lit it on fire, then threw it at Elder Downey and lit him on fire. We put some alcohol on an old shirt, then when the tennis ball hit it lit up. He started flailing around and screaming, and it was hilarious (it didn't hurt, we made sure we knew what we were doing before we actually did it). It made one heck of a video.

Based on what we did, we decided to have a contest to see who could do the best with fire. This week (starting today) we're seeing who can take the best picture with fire. It's gonna be pretty fun. So if you hear about something burning down in Payette, it's probably us.

Been a slower week lesson wise. We had a good week planned, we were looking at 20 lessons. But just like weeks before all of them cancelled (most at the door) and we only taught about 9 or so. But this area's seen a lot of improvement. When I first got here, I didn't know anyone. There was no records kept (and I've not been the best at keeping them up to date either, but working on it), I didn't know if we even had any investigators (we prolly had 3-5 people we were teaching when I got here), and it was a mess. But I've been working to turn things around. I feel bad cuz I feel like I could be doing more, but looking at everything I've done here I've done a lot. I think we're up to like, 14 or so people we're working with. Struggling to meet with them all every week, but there's been a lot of growth in this area. This'll probably be my last transfer here. But I'm glad for the opportunity I had to serve here. It was hard, but there's been a lot gained I think.

6 days till I hit my 19 month mark... I feel so old. There's not many missionaries left that are older than me. But it's an exciting time to be a missionary. There's so many changes happening throughout the world. We've got about 3 months till our mission splits, that'll be exciting. I'm hoping to stay in the Nampa mission, but will go where I'm asked.

So what y'all think of conference? Amazing as usual. I really liked Elder Holland's talk. Usually I'm not a big fan of him (it's a bandwagon thing. Most every missionary idolizes him cuz he's so bold and fired up and all that), but I thought his talk was amazing and something I needed to hear.

Week 3 of the transfer, going by fast.

Take care everyone!

Elder Blomquist

Suitcoat season is finally over!!! I can go around in my short sleeves now! I'm just a little excited about that one if ya can't tell.

This has been a very slow week. Don't know if that's cuz of spring break or not, but we're looking at a good week next week. Most of our people were out of town for the break or just cancelled their visit for one reason or another, nothing we're not used to. Next week we're hoping for 20 lessons. We've got a lot of set appointments. From about 4 on or so every weekday we're busy every hour. Weekends are typically slower for us, but weekdays are crazy busy.

Something I forgot from last week, I almost got a tree dropped on me. We were helping a member clear some elm trees, and while trying to move a particularly big one, I hear "LOOK OUT!! LOOK OUT!!" Look and there's a tree falling. Run out of the way just in time to not get hit, but it was a close call. Then a couple days later I get hit by a car. I'm just waiting to see what's gonna hit me next. Tree, car, what's next?
We were on a doorstep talking to a sister outside when the husband pulls up in the van. The whole yard could be the driveway pretty much, so he chooses to stop right behind me (2 feet or less). He's the jokester type, so I just ignore it, then he nudges me a couple times. So no need to worry, didn't have to go to the hospital or anything.

I really don't know what to say... I've never really been good at conversation. People are surprised when I tell them I haven't heard from y'all for about a month now. (This is so not true.  He gets a letter or e-mail every week.  I just think he wants more mail.)  How bout this, everyone sends me an email, then I reply to it. I can do that!

Anyway, take care everyone!

Elder Blomquist

Staying in Payette another transfer! I'm both excited and not about that. We've been picking this area up like no other, but I was kinda hoping to go zone leader or just for some change, but it's whatever. They're redoing my district too. Before it was the sisters in Nyssa and us, but now we have us, the elders in Weiser (my best friend out this way), and the elders in McCall. McCall is 2 hours away though, so I've got a pretty big district. But it's gonna be good. Gonna be weird not having sisters in my district. Been 10 months or so since I've had a full elder district. I can actually do exchanges now.

We've had a pretty good week. These past 2 weeks have been the best we've seen in this area. Things are just exploding here. Not sure what it is, we're really not doing anything different than we had been, but all the work we're putting in is starting to show some results. We've found a bunch of new people to start working with.

My camera broke. The button to take pictures doesn't always go through. I can still take pictures, but takes a while sometimes. I'll send pics when I can, but I don't know how many more I'll be able to take.

 

Remember back when I set my hand on fire? I actually found a lesson to teach with that. I relate it to the atonement, and how we sometimes hold on to these things that hurt us (the fire). We let it stay so long it hurts us (still got some scars on my hand from the 1st time, was probably a 2nd degree burn after all). But there is a cure, the atonement of Christ. After I burned myself I put on a LOT of aloe to help it. I relate that to the atonement and how after we get burned, we can apply the healing balm of the atonement and take our pain away. We'll still have our scars, they remind us of where we've been, but they don't hurt anymore. Through the atonement we can be healed. What do you think of that lesson? Yes, I actually do set my hand on fire again when I do it. This has become one of my favorite lessons to teach people.

Well, gotta run now. Hope to hear from y'all soon!

Elder Blomquist

This has been an interesting week, I'll say that. It's felt long, but it's gone by quick. It's actually been one of our better weeks, we taught 15 lessons this week. Most our work is dealing with less actives, but that's alright. We've found a couple new people to teach. One is a less active, and another we know nothing about. They're members, been here for 9 months, yet nobody in the ward know who they are. This area's been dead for a while, but we're slowly bringing it back up. We've been doing a lot of work, I'm always amazed at how many lessons we teach a week compared to how many people we have to teach.

Transfers are coming up. It's in a week. I've only got 4 transfers left. Crazy to think that I may only have 1-2 more areas and 1-2 more companions.. I think I'm gonna stay another with Elder Witbeck, but we'll see what happens.

Have some food stories. That's one of the only problems I have serving in Idaho, the food is all normal. So that means we have to go and make our stories happen. We had a member offer us a cow tongue. Another member we're close with works at a BBQ place, so she smoked it up for us. It was pretty good. It kinda tasted like a mix between beef and pork. Was better fresh though, it didn't reheat very well. Also tried cow liver. Same family that gave us the tongue gave us the liver. The liver wasn't that good though. So now I can say I've eaten most of a cow now actually. Had the oysters, the tongue, liver, and steaks. Can also add pickled pigs feet to the list.

Had our house inspections this week. We won a grand prize! It was pretty cool, only took 18 months. Not that I was trying before, but it's cool to get it once.

well, that's about it as far as this email goes.

Take care!

Elder Blomquist

 

 

 

18 month mark tradition - burn a pair of pants.

 

My usual P- Day Crew
(from left)   Elder Witbeck, Elder Blomquist, Elder Andelin (in the suit), and Elder Downey



 

Been another week. Elder Witbeck rolled his ankle last week on pday, so we spent a few days inside. It's not been too bad though, we found 3 new people to teach this week. This area needs that bad. But it feels like I've forgotten how to teach. We've spent most of our days contacting, so my door approaches have gotten better, but teaching is a new concept now = P . But it's all good, such is life. Some areas are good, some need to be worked till they are.

This week feels like it's gone by so fast, they all seem that way. Was realizing last night that \I've only got 4 transfers left... Where is all the time going? I've been getting trunky. It's a new kind of feeling. All throughout you get those trunky moments, but it's nothing like this. IT's that "ready to come home feeling". But more than just being ready to come home, it's that it's actually becoming a reality. When I was out 3-10 months it was just like, "yeah, that would be nice, but it's so far away". Now at 18 it's like, "dang, that's close". I'm still out and working and all that, but it's coming close.

So there's been a change in email policy for missionaries, now friends can email as well. We've been given more time to email as well. So anyone who write me can now do so by email and I can write back.  (Ricky's e-mail is richard.blomquist@myldsmail.net.)  It's actually pretty neat, since I've not been much to writing letters.

Let's see, what else? Guess I'm not much for writing emails either. I've been sitting over this one for almost 2 hours now = P

New missions coming soon! I hope I stay in the Nampa mission. (His mission area is splitting in two to create a new mission.) All my friends are there. It's exciting, as are the transfers in 2 weeks.

well, that's all for this week, gotta run now.

Take care!

Elder Blomquist

This has been a crap week. It's probably the most frustrating and disheartening week I've ever had. We had a lot of potential for this week, we worked hard the week before and set up a lot of visits with a lot of new people. Every single one of them cancelled. We had like 12 or so lessons set with people, and only 2 of them held their appointment. Every single one of them cancelled. This area is dead, there's no work going on here. We still have some names of people to go try, our wards (or 2 of them) have been pretty good about supplying us with names of go visit, but we're down to contacting and tracting. This area is dead and it's gonna take a lot of hard work to revive it. It's not gonna be fun, we're pretty tired of contacting and all these cancelled appointments, but I guess that's how it goes.
We also might be losing one of our investigators. The only 1 who has a baptism date, and she might be moving to Nampa unless she can find a place here in Payette.

But the one contact that did keep their appointment was good. It's a family of 4, and we were excited for that. There was a possibility of 2-4 new investigators depending on the ages of the kids. We're glad they held their appointment, as they said they were gonna feed us dinner too. We go and find out the parents are both already members, just less active, and the kids are 7 and 5. It was kind of a bummer that there was no new investigators outta that visit, but it was a good visit. They've both been less active for a while and want to start coming back to church. We need to start at square one, they don't really have a knowledge of the gospel, but we're the right ones to talk to about that. They're awesome people, I hope we can help them.

There's not much else to say about this week. Lots of cancelled visits, disappointments, and hardships. Every month I've identified an attribute I wanna work on and a scripture associated with it, March is "optimism" with a verse in Alma 4 "... nevertheless the spirit of the Lord did not fail him". I think it's fitting for what's going on here. I'm working to have the optimism to work through all the disappointments. This is my hardest area, it's def trying me. Hopefully I can keep up the strength, patience, and faith to keep working through the disappointments.

Take care!

Elder Blomquist