Arizona Week 8 - Change of Pace

Hello Everyone,

Things are finally starting to settle down after transfers. My companion and I are getting used to the way the other works and are getting the meshing of teaching styles down now. The apartment is really fun with 4 Elders, but we get work done so don't worry. We learned on Friday that the number of missionaries in this Stake was not just a result of more missionaries coming, but was at the request of the leaders of the Stake to have this many. We've been bringing this up in Ward Council now. We tell them that they asked for us to be here, so they need to decide on how they will use us. We are trying to make a transition in our ward. Instead of us planning for people to visit and dragging members out with us, we want the members to take us to the people they would like to visit. We are here to assist them, not the other way around. The Ward Council is on board with this idea and is going to put effort in to accomplish it. We plan to see great success from this.

This week I received a letter in the mail from Sister Munger's CTR 5 class. They all drew me pictures and had Sister Munger write what they wanted to say to me on the picture. I would say my favorite one was a drawing that had a little girl and a cloud and some crazy yellow lines in the background. The caption read, "This is me..and some lightning. Have a good week." That little picture ensured that I had a good week. It was fun to hear about the kids excitement about learning the gospel. Sister Munger said they really liked the story of Abinadi, so I did my best to repay them with my own drawing of Abinadi.

My companion has been asked by the mission president's wife to make some videos for the mission's blog including some missionaries performing some gospel rap that he wrote and our zone leaders doing the first vision in sign language. I don't know how nice she wants these to be but Elder Clark and I both have the mentality of doing something to the full capacity. So that's what we're going to do. 

Funny story: we drove down to the mission office to meet with Sister Sweeney about these videos and asked if we could get some extra miles for making the trip. She said that we could, of course, and we asked about getting reimbursed miles for driving down for transfers (we were told to drive down for transfers but they ended up not doing anything with our car). She asked if we were supposed to have gotten a new car. We weren't sure but assumed we weren't going to. She then asked if we wanted a new car. Duh! We want a new car. So she's thinking about taking ours (because she doesn't want one of the new ones) and giving us one of the brand new cars. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, things are going really well and I'm excited about the changes that are happening. The work is moving forward and I invite you all to join in. I love you all and I will talk to you again next week.

Elder Kirk