Shipped Off to Amish Country, Zone Activity, Patuxent Ward, A Trio of Companions, and the Cooke's Last Why I Believe - 06/20/2016

What is up everyone! I hope you are all doing well on this fantastic Monday afternoon. This week has been pretty hectic with all the things that were going on. 

Monday we had the opportunity to go to the Marriott's house for our zone activity. We got to got together and played lots of sports like volleyball, Frisbee, and catch with a baseball. It was pretty great. Later that night I found out that I would be getting transferred to the Patuxent Ward, which is located in southern Maryland and I also found out that I was going to be in a trio. Once I found that out, I started to pack. 

Tuesday Elder Crandall and I spent the entire day visiting different family's in the ward. I am really grateful for the time I have been able to spend in the Kentland's Ward. Some for the names of the family's we visited were the Carvers, the Martinis, the homestead, and for dinner we went with the Clark's to Cafe Rio. While we were at dinner a few other members of the ward were there. After dinner we went and visited Marie to say goodbye to her and then we ended the night at the Blewett family which was a really bitter sweet moment. 

Wednesday we woke up early and finished our packing. We drove to the church to drop off some last things to Sister Blewett and then we headed to the church for our transfers. I received Elder Schank as one of my new companions and Elder Schank got called to be a trainer for Elder Brimhall. Both of them are really cool guys and I am very excited to be with them. At first I was really not in the best of moods when I found that I was going to be white washing in the outskirts of the mission in a trio, but I now feel like that is where I am suppose to be because of s few reasons. After we we got all packed up into the senior couple's van we made our way down to our area which is about 2 hours away from the temple. That first day in the area we were able to meet with the ward mission leader and with an awesome family for dinner. The ward mission leader is an awesome guy! He seems to be very dedicated to the ward mission. One of the great things he does is he assigns family's to feed the missionaries. That way we are able to meet the whole ward.

Thursday we stared our days off with some studies as always. And since Elder Brimhall is a new missionary we get an extra hour personal study which is great. So far the feel to a trio had been kinda strange. This is the only one I have been in and it is quite a bit different, just because you have to balance things out between all three companions ships. For example teaching a lesson with two people feels different then teaching with three people. Training a new missionary in a trio also feels a lot different then just the normal 2 person companionship. After our study's we drove 45 min to get to our 12 week meeting for Brimhall and our zone district meeting. Meetings were pretty good. All we did was play games, which is fun for a few minutes, but then you start to feel like you are just wasting time. It was good though. The zone I am in now is very young, so I don't know too many people and he games helped me get to know them a little better. By her time we got back to was time for us to go to Dinner with another awesome family. We stood around there house for a little extra time so we could meet their son who is thinking about serving mission. It was a very fun evening with the Ray family.

Friday we spent a lot of time trying to set up appointments for the up coming week. We also tried getting s hold of our investigators, but unfortunately they didn't pick up. After we had finished planing we tried knocking on some of our investigators doors, but nobody was home. We then proceeded to dinner and after dinner we dropped in on members in the surrounding area. 

Saturday we spent most of our time checking on people who the sisters had been trying to work, but we had no luck. We had dinner with another awesome family for the ward then we headed an hour up the road to our stake center for the Saturday session of stake conference. Stake Conference was pretty great! President and Sister Cooke both gave the same talks they gave in the Stake Conference that I went to two weeks ago and even though it was the same, Sister Cooke's talk hit me. She talked about how if we are struggling, to take the focus off of ourselves and help that person is having a harder time than you. I have been put in my area to help my companions reach their potential and to obviously preach the gospel the Patuxent Ward. 

Sunday we had the Sunday session of Stake Conference which was also really good! We were not able to meet very many members of the ward unfortunately because of how many people were in attendance. After church we drove to our house, ate and then we drove up to a members house to take us to Why I Believe. The keynote speakers was the Cooke family because this is their last Why I Believe. The fireside was awesome and it makes me really sad that they are leaving here very shortly. Sorry for the super long email!

Hope you all have an awesome day! Byeeeee. Oh yeah there is also Amish that live down here.