Elder Davis in Ohio

Hey, everyone. This week's quote is from Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) in  Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring . Using a line from a fantasy epic to describe the (pretty average) experience I'm having seems silly, but I think maintaining the perspective that I'm doing something important and significant helps me to keep going. It's nice to think of yourself as the main character in your own epic story. So Cambridge is way out here from the center of the mission and the mission home--it's nowhere near the furthest area in the mission from mission headquarters (that would be Ashtabula), but it does feel a little like we're out in the boonies. It's also much more hilly than any other place in Ohio I've served in, and I've heard it's the largest area in the mission, though there may be some dispute about that. We were given a Toyota Tacoma to travel around in, which is probably the most coveted c...

Hey, everyone! This week's quote is from Bob Wiley (played by Bill Murray) in  What About Bob?  We had a training visit with the zone leaders this week, and we went to Marysville for the day. It felt a little unconventional, because the day started off with us going and playing basketball at 7 in the morning with the ward mission leader, another member of the ward, and a person the missionaries were teaching. The Marysville sisters were there as well. We played basketball and then did a round of lightning and then  game missionaries here play called "chair soccer" (basically, you set up a chair per person all over the gym, and your chair is your goal that you're trying to defend while you also try to kick the soccer ball into other people's chairs. If you hit another person's chair they have to sit down, but they can pick up the ball if it comes their way, and if they can hit the chair of someone else who's still in the game, they get that person o...

Hello, everyone! This week's quote is from Kronk (voiced by Patrick Warburton) in  The Emperor's New Groove . There's a thing or two that has happened this week that has made me very conscious of the importance of the data privacy laws that we're asked to follow as missionaries, so there are some stories I may have to just tell you in person in about 43 weeks. One of them, though, pertains to the subject line, so I can outline that one in brief.  Suffice it to say that my weeks are back to being "interesting." We recently became aware that  someone we're working with has a drug problem, and the last time we met them, they were high on amphetamines. This person is living with someone else who was concerned for their well-being, and while we were in the house with the two of them, the one whom we're concerned about went to another part of the house to do something and wasn't coming back. In the meantime the person living with them di...

Hello, everyone! I'm so sorry last week's email didn't show up when it was supposed to and is only appearing now. I sent it near the end of my preparation day and was in a rush and got my mom's email address wrong, so it didn't end up in the right place. This week's quote is from Hogarth in  The Iron Giant . So we've recently been helping out at a food pantry that's run by Lutheran Social Services, and the guy who runs it is named Dean. He's a cool dude with a pretty difficult backstory and past. He told us some of the situations he grew up in the last time we were at the pantry, and it drove home to me just how good I've had it in my life. He's also a gamer, so the three of us get along pretty well. Helping out at the pantry also gives us plenty of time to talk, as well as time to talk to the people we're helping (which is encouraged), so we've been answering some questions Dean has had about what we do and stuff, and I...

Hello, everyone! So I looked back through my emails and found out I've been one behind for the past 5 weeks or so, so I'm sorry about that. I guess last week was week 60, which means this is week 61. The quote this week I landed on was from Disney's  Hercules . It's something Zeus says to Hercules. I had a couple different options for quotes, though. I was oscillating between about four: that one, "Oh, look! Now I've gone and got a sniffle!" (Indiana Jones from  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ), "Why so many questions?" (Saccharine from  The Adventures of Tin Tin ), and "From now on, I'm gonna try to be the same." "The same as what?" "The same as people who aren't different." (Howard Bannister and Judy from  What's Up, Doc? )  There's been a lot going through my head this week, and a lot of things have happened. I'll try to talk about all of it in one email. So the fir...