2 - Second Week in the Field

Hey everybody!

This last week was pretty busy, and it felt like it went by pretty quick. I've met a lot of new people, and everyone of them asks me the same 6 questions:

1) Where are you from?

2) What part of Nebraska?
3) How long have you been out?
4) How you liking the field so far?
5) How many siblings do you have?
6) What'd you think of the BYU-Nebraska game last year?

In all honesty, I'm thinking of taking a bunch of the Mormon.org cards and just writing stuff about myself so I don't have to repeat myself 20 times a day.

Since I was thrown into being the designated driver as soon as I got here, I've started to get used to driving again. The worst part is that the mission car has this little box called "Tiwi" that chastises me every time I go 8 or more over the speed limit, which is ridiculous because everyone drives so slow. The roads are nothing to brag about either. Sometimes I think the country roads back home have better maintenance!

We've been pretty busy in terms of teaching, even though we had about 6 appointments fall through over the course of the week. It's really great because half the time I don't know what I'm going to say, but I start talking anyway because I hate awkward silences, and the things I say actually make sense. In all honesty, being this new and teaching lessons effectively is really an amazing faith building thing.

The highlight of the week was the baptism we had this last Saturday, which was my first one. It counts as our baptism, even though 95% of the lessons were taught by other missionaries. The date just happened to be a week after we moved into the area. Anyway, with the whitewash (both missionaries transferring out of an area at the same time), we kind of sort of forgot to arrange her interview, so we ended up doing it the night before. Although it is completely unreasonable to wait that long, things have a way of working themselves out. Also, my
companion and I were invited to join the confirmation circle the next day. It was an awesome experience.

Today we visited another event center. This one wasn't as elaborate as the one last week, but it was still pretty nice.  Other than that, we spent most of the day hanging out in the apartment. Well, that's all I have for now, see you all in a week!

Elder Orchard

1 - First Week in The Mission Field

Hello Everybody!

I've been in the mission field for about five days now, and it feels
like just yesterday I entered the MTC. It's been an eventful five
days, and it's given me a small taste of what the next (just under)
two years is going to be like.

Wednesday felt like, at the time, one of the longest days of my life
so far. We went straight to the mission office in Lindon and had about
an hour meeting where they showed us a driving safety video and
introduced us to the field and what not. After that, we met our
trainers. My trainers name is Elder Zimsky. He's from Richmond,
Virginia, and has been out for about six months. Right away we found
out that we had a meeting at one, so we hurried up and dropped our
stuff at our apartment and did some quick prep. We found out later
that it wasn't actually our meeting and that our area book had
information for a stake that we didn't even cover. So we spent most of
the day at the mission office trying to figure it out, but we made
barely any progress. Later on, we had a correlation meeting with the
ward mission leaders of one of the two stakes we cover (yes, that's
right, stakes), and we found out just how much we had to do.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday all went by pretty quickly. We taught a
good amount of lessons, as well as had dinner with some awesome member
families. We taught mostly less active members, and we did a lot of
contacting so we could introduce ourselves to the area. The thing is,
we whitewashed our area, and the areas got realigned, so both of us
were completely new and barely had any idea what was going on. Luckily
we were able to meet a lot of great people who were more the willing
to help us out when we needed it.

Sunday was awesome, to say the least. I almost fell asleep in
sacrament, but luckily no one noticed. There being 15 wards in our
area, we probably won't go to that one again, so it's probably fine if
they had. Anyway, we were able to talk to the president of one of the
stakes about who we were working with the most, and that was great
because it helped us really focus in on where we were needed the most.
Afterwards, we taught four lessons, one of them to a father and son
who are direct descendants of William Clayton, the guy who wrote
"Come, Come, Ye Saints" and other hymns and was one of the first
converts to the church. We also met with a guy named Don Becker who
sang all over the world in solos and with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
for 20 years.

That brings me to today. We went exploring to get to know our area
better, and we found a mini castle that they rent out for weddings and
receptions. The owner was nice enough to give us a short tour of the
place. All in all, my first P Day in the field was super relaxing, and
I can't wait to get back out there and do more work. Until next week!



Elder Orchard