Week 41 - "The only ones who know about that are the three of us--soon to be the two of us!" "And I'm one of those two, right?"

Hello, everyone!

So I'm here in my new area, in Chillicothe (CHIL-i-KOTH-ee). Transfers day was pretty good. We all met at the building in Dublin (where I had church when I was living in Worthington), and I was privileged to take part in the trainer-trainee announcement process. So the way transfers work here is that the mission is divided into two groups of zones: The north and the south. If you're transferring in the north zones and your companion is also in the north zone, you basically meet up early in the morning at a central location with all the other missionaries and then take off to your new area. If you're getting transferred and heading from a northern to a southern zone, you meet at that central location in the north, catch a caravan of cars that takes you down south with the other missionaries who are going south, then meet your companion closer to the early afternoon in the southern zones and head to your area. That's what happened to me when I went to work in Riverside. From that location in the south, if you're from the south getting transferred north, you take that same caravan, this time bringing missionaries back north in the early afternoon, and arrive in the north in the evening, from which you then go to the central location in the north, meet your new companion and head back to your area. 

Because of this whole process, it's easiest to assign new missionaries to their trainers at the central location in the south. When I met in the south to transfer out of the zone to Chillicothe, I met my soon-to-be new companion, Elder Smith, but he was asked to play prelude music and the mission song at the meeting where the trainers and trainees would be announced, so we got to sit in on the whole thing. It's fun to sit there and get hyped up with the other missionaries about the new missionaries and the missionaries they're getting trained by. I remember when I was part of that process feeling really great when Elder Thomas' name and the Worthington area were announced and a bunch of people expressed excitement, so I tried to help create that atmosphere and sort of cheered on the missionaries I knew and the areas I knew. Elder Lambert, my MTC companion, is training a new missionary this transfer! He's taking him up to Cleveland, which has been his area for the past four transfers. If he ends up staying there for the next two transfers, Elder Lambert will have served in the Cleveland 3rd Ward for a total of 9 months. I'm a little envious of that, considering I've now been doubled in to two different areas back-to-back, two transfers in a row.

That brings us to the subject line for this email. The quote is from Yzma and Kronk in The Emperor's New Groove. So after all the training announcements happened and the different companionships got together and started taking off, Elder Smith and I met our third companion, Elder Jones. Then President Stratford approached us and let us know that our trio was not one that was going to stay together the whole transfer. He said there was another missionary in the mission who had to go home for a surgery, and that was going to break up the trio when it happened. We got the impression that he was telling us that when the missionary returned one of us would be his companion, but we later learned that wasn't what he was saying: He was saying that when the missionary went home, his companion would need a new companion, and that would be one of us. I was sure that I was going to be the one to get sent away. It just made the most sense to me. This is Elder Jones' 3rd transfer, so he's out of training, and who better to help him continue to work in his area than one of the missionaries who has been in the mission the longest, one of the missionaries with the most experience? (This is Elder Smith's final transfer before he returns home.) If it wasn't me, for some reason it made the most sense to me that it would be Elder Smith. Anyhow, we got back to the area that afternoon. We were driven by an awesome member named Brother Heer (pronounced "hair"), and the car ride was great. Brother Heer designs greases, [from Mindy:  Greases have an oil base to which various thickening agents are added. Lubricants are used across a range of applications, from general-purpose industrial uses to special requirements and applications. There are greases designed for high temperatures and low temperatures, as well as for high-load applications.] which I didn't even know was a thing. So I talked to him about that while Elder Jones and Elder Smith talked in the backseat, and then he let me know he facilitates addiction recovery program meetings and told us that he'd be happy to do one here in Chillicothe if we found people to participate. That's something that I'm excited about, because it was something I wanted to help get started in Warren--I felt like it could help a lot of people and help them see the power in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And apparently there are a lot of problems with drugs here in Chillicothe. So I'm hoping we'll be able to introduce people to the help of the gospel that way.

Anyhow, we got back to our apartment and started planning what we would do for the rest of the day and evening. It occurred to us that the sisters who were entering the area this transfer were essentially opening their area, considering their area book would be completely empty, so over the next day and a bit we started transferring some records over to them and so forth. Elder Smith also let us know that he has a friend in the area that he met over XBox Live who he's talked about the gospel with a little bit, and he'd like to start teaching him, so we reached out to him and a number of other people. The next day was weekly planning, and it was a little nuts. There were a bunch of things we had to do throughout the day that broke the day up, so we actually didn't get to much weekly planning, and then we spent a lot of time trying to get records over to the sisters (which we have to do one by one) so they would actually have something to do that day, and then when the evening rolled around, we got a call from President Stratford. He was like, "I bet you weren't expecting this call so soon, huh?" We were like, "Yeah, we're surprised. What's going on?" He proceeded to tell us that Elder Jones was being transferred out of the area, to Medina, to be with the missionary who didn't have a companion. So President asked him to pack up that night and the next morning, and we were going to meet the assistants about an hour away on Saturday, at around 11, where they would pick him up and then transport him two hours away to Medina. So that's what we did. The trio was indeed short-lived. And that's the reason for the quote in the subject line. I'm not sure if it's ever taken me longer to get to that conclusion in an email.

It was really a bummer to see Elder Jones go, because in the two days he, Elder Smith and I had together, we were having fun. Elder Jones is a movie buff, and he loves James Bond movies the most, so we talked about Casino Royale and Skyfall, and then we talked together about some of my favorite movies. I also learned that Elder Smith is a gamer, so we've been able to talk about a lot of that kind of stuff together. It looked like it was going to be one of the funnest transfers I've ever had on my mission, but alas--it was not meant to be. That said, I think Elder Smith and I are still going to have a great time together. He and I seem very similar to me, and I think we'll work well together in this area. Even though I was only with him for two days, I'm still going to claim Elder Jones as one of my companions. I hope I'll get to work with him later on in the mission. He seems like a really solid missionary--he's learned well from his trainer, Elder Medlyn, and they were getting work DONE in Chillicothe when we arrived. They're teaching a ton of people who are super solid. I only hope we can keep what they've done going at a steady pace and not let them down. 

But essentially what this transfer means is that Elder Smith and I are completely new and fresh to this area, so I'm experiencing again much of what Elder McVey and I experienced getting into Riverside. Getting doubled in is pretty tough, especially for the people you're teaching, because they get sort of a rough transition to two new missionaries, and that can push them away sometimes. But I suppose those who are truly attached to the gospel, to the message, and not the missionaries who are carrying it, stick around. It's just a difficult transition.

When Elder Jones and Elder Smith and I were together we went to the church building for weekly planning, and apparently there's an interesting story behind this building as far as missionaries go. So near the building is an apartment complex, and the manager has kicked out heroin users before, and they've broken into the apartment managers office, and he's reported seeing them around our church building. He can kick them off his property, but sometimes they just end up at ours until everyone's gone from the apartment offices, and then they head back to those. He's also reported seeing them trying to break into the church building, and several missionaries working in Chillicothe have reported hearing music and other strange noises coming from the attic while they're been in the building. Whenever that's happened, the missionaries have felt really antsy and anxious about it and just felt like they needed to leave. Elder Jones and Elder Medlyn had it happen to them a time or two. Elder Jones said they heard country music coming from the vents. So while we were at the building for weekly planning, Elder Smith stopped us in the middle of planning and said he could hear music. So we checked the many different rooms on the ground floor, but didn't find anything. Then we went to the entrance to the attic, which is in a custodial closet. Elder Smith had picked up some toys from the nursery, and he added to that arsenal some bathroom cleaner from the custodial closet. Elder Jones picked up a "Caution: Slippery when wet" floor sign and held it up like a bat, and I grabbed a broom handle that was leaning in the corner, and then we swept the upstairs (pardon the pun). We didn't find anyone or anything, fortunately. I'm writing this at the church now, though, and we've heard a little sound or two like someone might be here. There's a maintenance guy changing the filters in the vents upstairs, so we're just hoping there's no one else.

Yesterday we had a cool experience: So when I was in Worthington with Elder Thomas he signed with a young deaf woman from the Marysville Ward. We were asked by someone from that ward to visit someone at the VA here in Chillicothe, and I recognized the name! It was the father of the young woman Elder Thomas signed with. We went and visited him and gave him a priesthood blessing and talked with him for a while. That was really good. I feel like we were able to help him out. He was having a hard time being away from his family, and there weren't a lot of people there that he wanted to spend time with, so I think he appreciated seeing a friendly face.

Yesterday we were also asked, with about an hour before church, to prepare to speak in Sacrament meeting, so I gave a little 10-minute talk on what we can do as members of the church to be missionaries to those who aren't yet ready for the message of the gospel, and Elder Smith gave a talk about the way youth in the church can be involved in missionary work. I slept through part of that, though: We had been up late Friday night watching President Nelson's birthday broadcast (which we were permitted to do by President Stratford), and in Ohio that was going on until nearly midnight, so we were pretty worn out. We've also been waiting for some mattress covers for our beds (the previous missionaries suspected they might have bedbugs, and found one), so to play it safe we've been sleeping on the floor. Sleep hasn't been great as a result. We're hoping to get the covers sometime later today and get a good night's rest.

Basically, it's been bonkers the last few days, but that's OK. We're having a bit of an interesting experience getting established in the area, but hopefully we'll be able to get our feet under us over the course of the next week and start getting some work done.

Keep in touch! Thanks for reading.

Elder Davis

Photo: Me, Elder Smith, and a member named Bill we visited on Sunday.