Sleepless in Seattle. I mean Johnson City 5/7/2018

  Alright to start, before too many of you guys get to thinking I'm being far to harsh and rude to Elder Chan, just know that I literally do EVERYTHING I CAN to be nice and helpful, and I really am going out of my way to be helpful, and teach, and serve. It's just that after so long, and seeing minimal results, it begins to test one's patience. And as crazy as it may sound, I am not exaggerating or making stuff up, I'm simply telling it how it is. And I guess the only people that will understand my current situation, are the people who have served as a missionary with someone who does not share the language or the desire to work... Despite those differences, I am trying, and it's clear I ain't doing it perfectly, but that's bc I AM A HUMAN. 

     Anyways, this week was longggg. We had our interviews last Monday, and I learned that I will be leaving JC at the end of this transfer. I'll have been here for 6 months. And within the next transfer, I will be hitting my year mark, and we'll be getting a new mission President. Seems crazy I got here before Christmas, and I won't be in a new area until June 1st. That's a LONG time ladies and gentlemen. A long time. I think that this transfer will be hardest for the Primary children of the Binghamton Ward, as I'm the only missionary who has ever brought them treats every single week except Fast Sunday. But hopefully they remember the missionary who brought treats, and when they're 18/19 years old, they want to serve a mission because they remember the "cool hair missionary" whose bag was full of candy. Anyways, the rest of the interview was unexciting, President knows it's been rough, but he assured me that Elder Chan is learning more than I realize. I pray that's the case. Because some days it feels like I've been a lousy teacher. I shared an analogy with President that he loved in the interview. I talked about how back home I used to sell bikes, and some days, people would come in and I would help them decide on a bike, and they'd tell me their budget was something around $9,000. Because I sold bikes that cost this much, I had to be familiar with them. So often times, you could look at my Jeep on the weekend, and see a $14,000 EVIL Calling on my bike rack, or a $9,000 Intense Tracer, or a $8,000 Santa Cruz Hightower. I'd ridden all these bikes, and I knew how awesome they were. But when the weekend was over, I had to return the bike to the shop. And I'd go back to my Felt that I bought for the same price as the handlebars on the EVIL. But because I'd ridden these high end high dollar bikes, I knew what they were like, and could sell them. But at the end of the day, I only got to taste what they were like, they didn't stay in my garage, I didn't own them. I compared this to what it's like to be a missionary sometimes. We've all had spiritual experiences, and we all have come, or will come to know the Church is true. But nobody (as far as I know) is constantly overflowing with the Spirit and never has doubts. Again, that's part of being human. But some days, as you're knocking doors, it feels like you're selling a bike you don't own, just one that you've tried. You know it's great, but that's because you've ridden it before, maybe once, maybe a few times, but it's not the bike in your garage. This is why we're encouraged, as Members of the Church, to study often. Because not everyone has the ability to drop $14,000 on a bike, but we've gotta work with our 2006 Felt F65 and make it the best we can, and put ourself in a position where we can even test that $14,000 rig, because it'll remind us how great it can really be, but also what the strong points of our 2006 Felt are. (This is an analogy. Don't run to BE and ask to try the EVIL. Think about your testimony. We've all had very spiritual experiences. But we don't get those all the time. We've gotta exercise our faith inbetween these experiences, and "flaunt what we got." Bear strong testimony of what we KNOW we know, and study what we're unsure of.)

     On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference. If I'm counting correctly, this was my 9th Zone Conference. With each one that goes by, they get both better, and worse. You learn more and are able to share more, as you have more experience under your belt. But I don't care who you are, a 7 hour meeting is a long meeting. And it's rough. Even Elder Gary E Stevenson expressed his mild annoyance by meetings when he, on a Saturday, asked what day it was. Because "every day feels like a Sunday with all these meetings." But Zone Conference was great, and I was able to turn in my driving test, which I was required to take because I allegedly got too many "Check your speed" warnings from TiWi. This can be traced back to a minor street race between us and Bishop Leiter, as we drove from his house in the boonies, to the church for the Priesthood session. We also had car inspections, and we passed, thanks to $12 of MSF, a good vacuuming, and 5 Black Ice air fresheners. 

     The rest of the week was uneventful. Some tracting, which is synonymous with finding out how many ways people can say "no thanks I'm Christian." I tell ya, these New Yorkers have to think of something different, because that makes about as much sense as someone knocking on your door and telling you they're sharing food with people, and you responding with "no thanks, I'm hungry." But somewhere out there, there's a rose among these thorns... (As I typed that, I remembered a scout camp in Moab, where Bishop Dave Smith, or "Gibby", started a tradition of everyone sharing a rose and a thorn from their day, and a time they saw the hand of God. I think I'm going to start adding a rose, thorn, and hand of God experience in my journal. Shoutout to Bishop Smith there.) Anyways, on Thursday I exchanged with Elder Saylor, as District Leader, I'm in charge of coordinating exchanges, so I texted the Bingo Elders that morning and said "someone pack your stuff, we exchanging." When you only have 2 Elders to exchange with, they're a little easier to coordinate. So, while on exchange, we were in the apartment, going through some area book stuff, and we looked outside and it appeared that God was once again flooding the earth. It was raining incredibly hard. This was odd because earlier that day it was about 93 degrees. And, as we didn't have the car, we were intrigued to see how long this lasted, since we had to walk to a dinner appointment. Luckily it stopped, because we would have drowned. But we quickly learned something. Rain in NY is not like rain in Utah. In Utah, when it rains, it's generally refreshing and cool. In NY, it remains 93 degrees, and when the rain stops, the humidity increases to about 5.6 million %. So we walked outside and immediately started sweating. This is great fun. It was so hot and humid that we wore sandals, like the tropical missionaries of the world. (We did however, wear socks, so we had infinitely more style.) Anyways, we had a great dinner with the Dixons, and ate about 2 million wings, which we regretted later that night at basketball. We also experimented with some Pre-Workout that Justin VanAusdall gave me. I tell ya, that stuff should be outlawed. It makes you sweat, itch, tingle, twitch, and all manner of things, EXCEPT play basketball well. But oh boy does it make it more exciting. I managed to sprain my ankle pretty bad while guarding a podiatrist (ironic...) I've never seen it in myself, but I guess I appear intimidating on the basketball court. I think it's just because I played Football for like 10 years, and really my only basketball experience is leading the Kaysville Haight Creek Stake in technical fouls, because I don't know the rules of basketball. But as I jumped to block Brother Schow, a Podiatrist from Canada, I forgot I was back pedaling, so when I landed, my right ankle rolled faster than my Mom's eyes whenever she heard my Jeep bumping good music. Brother Schow, mid shot, said "holy crap I'm scared", so my laughing broke my focus, and I suffered. I'll probably amputate the foot tonight, and we'll schedule appointments in our usual basketball slot this week.

     Other than those few things, this week has been uneventful. Next week will be exciting, as I've got a birthday, finally 19 years old. Millie, the recent convert, told us she wanted to take us out to dinner for my birthday, which is awesome. But she also guessed I was turning 24, which was even more awesome. Because I feel like I'm maybe pushin 17, but if people think I'm 24, I'm gonna be getting into clubs and renting cars no problem when I get home. (joke)

     OH WAIT. THE ONE ACTUALLY INTERESTING THING THIS WEEK. For some reason, I've had trouble falling asleep, like I don't fall asleep until like 2 am, Elder Chan has the opposite problem, where he can't wake up. But the poor kid is always tired. Anyways, yesterday, we were in the apartment for dinner, so I was at my desk, reading the ensign while eating Frosted Flakes, and Elder Chan left to go to the bathroom. After almost 40 minutes, and the time for us to leave was approaching, I began to worry. Like, I ain't about to barge into the bathroom, but I wasn't sure he was alive or not, ya never know with this kid. But my questions were answered when he walked into the study room, and said "Elder. I fall asleep on the toilet. Like half hour. Sleep. On the toilet." I about died laughing. I knew he was tired, but heck, I've never been that tired. What a legend. After he woke up from his rest in the restroom, we went tracting. We drove into a neighborhood, and I said "we're going to take 5 more turns, then park, and that's where we'll tract." We ended up in a nicer part of town, so we got out, and started knocking. At the last door on the street, we were greeted kindly by a lady, she said "Ooh Mormons! I love you guys!" She came out, and we talked for like an hour, she asked a million questions, and we tried to answer. I found it kind of funny when I mentioned a Scripture Mastery verse from the Bible, 1 Peter 4:6, where it talks about the Gospel being preached to the dead. He response was "oh they've never taught us that?!" I just thought it was so interesting how all her knowledge and objections, came from things people told her, primarily, her Priest (or Pastor, whatever it is they have.) Like, I'll never understand how people kind of just follow blindly, and don't ever look into what's being taught. Reminds of the California Senator who was talking about guns, and he mentioned a gun with a "30 caliber magazine clip, that can disperse 30 bullets in half a second." If you know anything about guns, you know that none of those words even make sense. But people just listened and were all "ooh yes that is very dangerous, you know sooooo much about these things." Like, you've got google, you've got the bible, you have agency, READ THE BIBLEEEEE. Anyways, we had a great talk, we gave her a BoM, some videos to watch, and our number. She gave us each a Rosary Bead thing, a list of prayers, and story to research, and we agreed to do our homework, and meet again. It was so nice to finally meet someone, particularly a Catholic someone, who was actually willing to listen, and discuss the differences, rather than shoot us down before we even open our mouth's. So that was great. Now I've got my very own Rosary (idk if that's the noun for it, but the thing of beads you use to determine which scripted prayer to say, and how many times.) It's awesome to meet people of other faiths, who are willing to talk. Because it's very rare out here. 

     Alright, if you made it all the way through this email, you're a true homie. To my family, ILL SEE YOU NEXT WEEK #BLESSED. To everyone else, I still love you, and thanks for all the support. I'm entering what we call the "forgotten" stage of the mission, where nobody talks to you or writes, except people who share your last name or lived in the same house, and that became very apparent today. Happens to every missionary. But I'm sure I'll start hearing from many of you when I get to my 18 month mark, that's usually the pattern. LOVE YOU GUYS.