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