November 20, 2013
Hi Everyone!
So It’s kind of good and bad news. I’m staying here which means I
get to be here for Aliyah’s baptism…but Elder Thueson is leaving,. My new
companion is Elder Proctor.
This week has been pretty good. We spent a lot of time in the
mornings helping our bishop in building his new house. He has been working on
it for months and now that winter is coming fast we figured we will do our best
to help speed up the process. It really doesn’t help that its dark by 6:30! So
we figured we would help so he isn’t stuck by himself working 10 hour days in
below freezing and in the dark!
We were talking with Aliyah and Lexi and they had
expressed that they were not ready to be baptized. So Elder Thueson and I went
over and had a talk with them and their parents about it. Afterwards Aliyah (the
older one) was more than ready to continue on.
It is really cool how much of a change we have seen in her. When we
first started teaching she didn’t say anything, didn’t look interested, and had
her hair over her eyes. Now whenever we meet her hair is pulled back, she is
smiling, and more than willing to participate. So she will be getting baptized
this Saturday! We will keep working with Lexi. She is just being difficult we
think, being a 13 year old girl. We are sure that soon after Aliyah is baptized
she will follow.
We met with the Blankenships again this week, and they are still slowly
progressing. We also went to their
oldest daughter’s basketball game, and she seemed to be happy about that. We
plan on being a little bit more bold with them, hoping they will spark them. We
are going to watch the long Joseph Smith movie and then “Safety for the Soul”
by Elder Holland, so we will see how that goes.
The ward is full of easy going people who complain about the one
member couple we have here from another state who are all pretty uptight - like
beyond. She is in her 40's, and thinks she is still a missionary. She enjoys
correcting us whenever the chance arrives. She likes to call out investigators
in gospel principles (members too) and tries to look through our computer
history at the library. They are an odd family anyway. Their older son loves to
grow plants. And our ward mission leader was telling us about how the oldest
son who is 15 will sit there and spit loogies on his hand and use it like soap?
The oldest daughter (at least 12) in sacrament meeting will regular eat her
boogers. It’s hard to express in an e-mail but that family has caused a lot of
problems...
Anyways things are still gong alright. Just stressing out about this transfer!
Love you!
Elder Latimer
November 25, 2013
Hi Everyone!
This Thanksgiving We actually got it approved by President Pitt to
go with our ward mission leader to Roanoke, VA with his family and friends for
Thanksgiving. I may see Elder Thueson there because he is serving in the YSA
Ward. I’m hoping we can work out getting there at 8 am as opposed to 11am
because at 8 am the YSA are playing in a Turkey Bowl, and they want us to join,
but since we are getting a ride with Bro. Gentry, we probably won’t make it
sadly.
Things with my new companion are good. He is a nice kid. We are just always doing
something, which I guess is good.
We did have Aliyah’s baptism yesterday! It was awesome, there was
an amazing turnout, mostly her family and some members as well. We had set up 3
rows of 6 chairs, and ended up having to set up 6 rows of 7 chairs! Afterward
we went to lunch with them, and she seemed pretty happy! Poor Lexi [her sister]
seemed left out. Her parents kept saying "Lexi your next!" Talk about
pressure. Hopefully, it’ll be good for her.
We did have a pretty cool experience this week. We got a call from
Bro. Gentry (ward mission leader), and he said his daughter, Sherad, is
good friends with Hannah Blankenship, who is the older daughter of the
family we are teaching. He told us she (Hannah) had a heart attack that morning.
So after the baptism we went to check on her. We talked for a while, and she
agreed to receive a blessing. Anyway we found out yesterday that as she went
back to the doc to check her heart, they said she is perfectly healthy again. They
don't expect her to get another heart attach anytime soon. Pretty much until
she is old, but that was such a cool experience and hopefully boosts the family
to continue to learn!
And for Christmas I was thinking about one of those nice Carhart
jackets to keep warm. This winter seems like it’ll get pretty cold, and it’ll
be nice for back home and in Boise! They are the ones that are around $110-$120
though. There is a store here that seems to get pretty good deals, compared to
other stores. If anything, money would work perfect and I could just go and get
it and make sure it is the right size! I would also say a GPS but I probably
won’t need that soon, because we will be getting iPads :)
That's awesome to hear about the Dawgs, and good to know we have a
plan for QB in the future. I’m hoping the hawks can keep it together as well. A
member told me that Oregon lost too? I HOPE SO! Also both KC and Denver lost
again? I hope that's true!
I’ll be sure to take more pictures with people!
Love you!
Elder Latimer
December 2, 2013
Hi Everyone!
Thanksgiving was good, and sadly, I didn’t get in any football. We
got down to Roanoke too late. Roanoke is probably about an hour from me. But we had a good time with the Gentry
family! They are a wild bunch who love their politics. It turned into a debate
at the table with raised voices (not in anger just so they could be heard over
others), and it was all directed at Bro. Martin (who is sister Gentry’s father)
because he voted for Obama and stands by it still. So that was fun. One thing I’ve noticed in
this part of the country is family is everything to them. Although it seems the
culture of family up north differs a little bit, I’ve noticed that down south
the families are all like best friends to each other – more than I have seen in
any family until I came here. But they aren’t as supportive of personal
endeavors. For example, if someone wants
to do something and their family doesn’t want them to they always try to
persuade them otherwise, and don’t like it if they don’t listen. As opposed to
up North where families maybe aren’t as much like "best friends," but
are much more supportive in personal things.
We had 3 dinners that day, so we were plenty full and didn’t do
anything besides socialize and eat! It was like another P-day! I’m hoping I can
get some football in on my mission at some point though.
We are hoping Lexi [the sister of an investigator who was recently
baptized] follows soon. We aren’t sure what her hang up is. I guess she is just
the typical 13 year old girl and wants to be stubborn. It doesn’t have to do
with friends because in public she always finds us and runs up to us and introduces
us to her friends. So we are not sure what her hold up is. Also we had a great
lesson with Matt Blankenship, the father of the family we are teaching. We
asked him about reading the Book of Mormon, and he said he reads every day at
work, but he works with a lot of members of the Riverview Baptist church
(notorious for preaching anti-Mormon sermons and providing anti-Mormon classes). They had told him how there cannot be
anything added to the Bible, the classic complaint preachers like to instill in
the minds of their drones, and about how no more prophets are on the earth. He
asked if there is a chapter in the Book of Mormon that talks about it. We
showed him 2 Nephi 29 and discussed it and then watched "My words never
cease" by Elder Holland, which is obviously a great person to have explain
it to him, Afterward he smiled and asked what the talk was called. We told him, and he wrote it down in his
phone so he can show the guys at work the talk! He agreed with it, and our
church’s stance on it. He thinks it only makes sense to have a prophet. He is
very prepared, and he wants us to come next week and to teach him how to receive
his own revelation about the Church! I think if we can get the father, the
family will follow.
The other day we tracted into a lady who had baby sat for an LDS
family for 6 years in Richmond, VA. She told us how she learned a lot about the
church. She then told us she had something for us to look at. When she came
back, she handed us a book with pictures of her and her family when they went
to the DC temple on Christmas. She talked about how much she loved it,
especially the Christus statue. Then before we could start asking questions,
she asked us where our church is, what time it starts, and she told us how she
wants to go! So we plan to meet with her again this week! She is pretty sweet.
It is really hard to find people this time of year for a few
reasons. One is because of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they are out of town
on the holidays or have family over. It gets dark early, so around 5:30 or 6
everyone is kind of done for the night. The main reason no one is home is
because well... its deer season now, so literally over 50% of the people here
are gone in the woods!
One day it had rained 2 1/2 inches and then snowed that night and
got into the lower teens. We decided to go visit some members that day who
lived up the mountain on a road called Doe Creek. Anyway I was driving up there,
and it wasn’t bad, then we slipped every now and then in our 2 wheel drive car.
Then we started to slip pretty regularly.
We got to a point in the road that everyone around here knows. It’s a big C-curve that banks to a huge
ditch. Miraculously, we made it past that and about 20 more yards up the road when
we lost all traction and began to slide backwards. We caught traction on the
side of the road where it wasn’t paved, and as we began to try and turn the car
around by backing it up the front end kept sliding towards the middle of the
road. Luckily people saw us and waited to see if we needed help something most
people back home probably wouldn't have done. We began to slowly creep down the
hillside and slid 5 feet or so at a time before regaining enough traction to
stop. After 20 minutes we got almost to the side of the road to where one tire
was on the unpaved road with traction about a foot and a half away from the
ditch. The guys came over and helped us hook up a tow rope to the car and
because they wouldn’t be able to get to where we were with their car. We had to pull by hand with 4 of us although
the road was icy enough that we were able to slide the car off the road onto
the grass where it wasn’t icy. You couldn’t walk on the road without sliding a
good 10 feet down - no exaggeration. It
was the same as walking on an ice rink, but sloped down.
As we sat there trying to decide how to get down, a Nissan with a
professor from Indiana saw our car and made the mistake of slowing down. He lost control and slipped off the C-curve
into the ditch where his car was on its side.
He and his 3 year old were fine. That poor guy was so out of his element
you should have seen his reaction and face. He was the kind of guy you see in
Seattle, scared with the skinny jeans, a weird French or Irish looking hat and
a pair of toms. He was surrounded by all
these rednecks with their lifted trucks and guns in the middle of nowhere,
stuck in a ditch in a holler.
It was actually pretty entertaining to listen to him talk. You could tell he had no idea what to do. He
asked if he could drive his car out of it to which a redneck with a .45 on his
hip said "You aint from round here are ya? How do you expect to get outta
there, you ain’t even got a wheel on the ground!" We then saw an old lady
driving down the hill in her suburban. She was going to show us all up as she
was almost past the curve where she lost traction, and instead of pumping the
brakes she held them and slid at about 20 mph into the ditch on her side as
well. (As you can tell it was a pretty deep ditch.) At one point we had about 8
or 9 cars/trucks up there trying to figure out what to do. So we called our
Ward mission leader, Bro. Gentry, and asked for his help. He owns a brand new dooley
turbo diesel Cummins. When we told him where we were he asked, "where on
Doe Creek?" and we said "ON Doe Creek." He then asked if we were
past Celestial Heights (which, by the way is a street where all Mormons live
and that was named by them -- I thought that’s cool) . We told him we were and his response was
"are you joking? I though y’all were smarter than that." He came up
to help pull some people out. It was so slippery and icy even on his truck he
had to chain his from tires! Anyway, he pulled the two people out and drove the
professor the rest the way up to his family for Thanksgiving and we drove back
down, half on the road and half on the dirt to keep traction. So that was an
interesting experience and makes me grateful for 4-wheel drive vehicles.
That is awesome Jake is getting ready to send his papers in, you
should tell him to make a new e-mail to e-mail me because his BYU-I one is
retarded.
And I did get my package! THANK YOU! As you know I’m not a big
sweets guy but I have almost eaten all the peppermint bark. And when would the
money be put on for the jacket so I know when to get it? I can’t think of
anything else for you to send me. I think I’m doing fine now.
And I’m glad the Dawgs won! That has been stressing me out all
week! Now I can e-mail Rhiannon about it and give her a hard time. Some members
were telling me about the Bama/Auburn game! I can’t believe I missed something
like that! One second left, tie game, Bama kicks a 57 yard field goal misses
short, but it is caught and returned 109 yards for a touchdown to beat Bama! Only
in college football!!! I also heard Oregon has lost a few times as well. It’s
been a good year! I heard the Hawks are planning on beating the sound record again
because the Chiefs had beat them a few weeks ago so it should be something
awesome to see!
Love y’all!
Elder Latimer
