First Week in the Field

Monday, May 13, 2013

     Whoa! Talk about shattering every preconception I have ever had about missionary work. But more about that later.
     Since my last letter, I shipped out last Monday (May 6th) at 6am. My Zone leaders and companion all helped me with my luggage and saw me off, which was nice of them. I wish them all the best in Tempe, AZ and Edmonton, CAN.

     We flew from Salt Lake to Denver (which makes no sense in my brain to go East in order to go West) and then to Santa Barbara airport where President and Sister Castro met us with the Senior Elders companionship and the assistants. When we went outside, there was a really unique smell in the air (I think it was lilac and the ocean) and when I asked one of the assistants, he sniffed and said, "that's just Cali for ya." Great, I'm stuck with a bunch of camodians.  :)

     We then drove for about an hour and a half to Ventura, where we split into elders and sisters and traded off having dinner and doing interviews with the President. I got to have Panda Express twice in one day - it was awesome! After that, we had a short devotional and then split into temporary companionships and slept over at members' homes. My companion was Elder Trujillo (an Ecuadorian Canadian) and we stayed with the Cox's, and I'm pretty sure that we are related somehow.

     The next morning we headed out and went to transfer meeting were I met my trainer Elder Broby from Gilbert, AZ. He's okay. I replaced his best friend of a companion so things were a little awkward at first, but I guess we're doing better. We don't have too much in common except the Gospel and an allergy to melons, but that's all you really need, right? We then drove to my first area called Tehachapi, a little area outside of Bakersfield in the mountains that reminds me of home, just with more sand.
     I swear, there is so much sand in this state! I thought that it would be mostly confined to the coast, but I was soon proved wrong.

     And that's where I stand. Most of the area is gated communities where we can't tract, so the work out here is mostly service and reactivation. Which is still enough to keep us busy, but is a little galling to someone fresh out of the MTC who wants to be out baptizing nations. I guess the Lord just wants me to be patient and learn the logistics of record keeping first before he has me running around.

     Hope everyone is doing good, and I'll leave you with one of the scriptures that the mission is memorizing: John 9:4 ("I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work").

Love you all!

     **Additional information from my Mother's Day call:  since the missionaries don't tract, they do a lot of service.  Elder Cox had the privilege of moving a grand piano one day last week!  They put it on a dolly and loaded it up into the moving van.  That was the easy part.  When he and his companion got to the new house for the piano, they unloaded it from the van, pushed/pulled it down a dirt path, went over a retaining wall, up 6 stairs, up a 4" lip of a sliding glass door, and placed it where it belonged in the home.  I asked him if the piano made it okay, and he told me "yes".  Allowing young men to move a grand piano takes a lot of faith!

     Elder Cox also said he's in a driving mission right now.  And because they have so many mountainous dirt roads to traverse, they have a 4x4 truck.  He doesn't know if he'll stay in Tehachapi for his 12 week training or if he'll get transferred on June 18th.  Wherever he is on June 18th will determine which mission he'll be in on July 1st - remain in the Ventura mission or be in the newly created Bakersfield mission.  Exciting times of growth!