Week 64 - "It says, 'Take a vacation... from my problems.'"

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 out, and they get back in the game--last person standing wins), and then played a basketball game called "Tips" (two teams, one shoots one at a time from the 3-point line, and when they miss a shot, bouncing it off the hoop or backboard, the other team, inside the 3-point line, tries to jump and layup the ball into the hoop, but you have to be in the air while you catch the ball and then shoot. Each basket either team makes is one point to them, and if the outside team shoots an air ball, that's one point to the inside team. If the inner team gets 5 points, the teams swap positions, and the first team to 21 wins).

After a couple hours of that we came back to the apartment, got ready for the day, and then went to a member's home because he was having some nonmember friends over and were able to fellowship them a little as we ate some really good food. The member, Brother Hoyt, seems like a really cool dude. He's one of those bald guys with a big beard and mustache, and he's super nice, but he used to work in law enforcement, especially in crime investigation. Now he works doing insider threat assessment at a bank (basically they monitor employees, and when they start behaving in certain erratic ways, they get flagged, and they start looking into them and see if they're doing something nefarious). He had a whole safe of guns that he showed us, including a Glock, a .40 cal Desert Eagle and a couple rotating guns (revolvers, etc.), and a few rifles. When he was talking about his past in law enforcement he also showed us some pressure points that he's used on people before: He said if you firmly backhand someone sort of just under the ear where the head and neck meet, they tend to go all funny and imbalanced and stuff, and then he took a pen and pinched Elder Kamerath's earlobe between the pen and his thumb, and just got him out of his chair and guided him along. He said he's gotten people who were adamant that they weren't going anywhere to move that way, and he's gotten guys to crawl through car windows by doing that to them. Elder Kamerath did it to me, and it's definitely pretty motivating. It was an interesting visit--that family seems like a cool one to hang out with. Brother Hoyt just seemed like a solid, genuine guy. The Marysville elders were able to get some potentials out of it as well.

Later we visited some dudes that are high on-and-off when the missionaries visit, but they've been taking the lessons and have been responding to them, so they keep meeting with them. That was an interesting visit as well, but I think there are people out there who don't look like "conventional investigators" of the church who are ready to be taught the gospel as well, we just need to be ready to teach to their needs and in ways that they will understand. We need to become master teachers as missionaries.

Then on the way back to the zone leaders' apartment we got a call, and they had to deal with an issue with some other elders--one of them was going home. On the way out and back to Delaware that night I commented to Elder Henshaw that I really appreciated training visits (exchanges) when we go to another area, because they give you a chance to be concerned about other missionaries' problems and not your own. They say a change is as good as a rest. That's true in the mission field, too. You don't usually get a lot of time to rest. I keep saying I'm going to sleep for a week when I get home. I'm low-level tired most of the time. I'm a little worried I'm going to get manic when I start feeling fully rested, since I've been making it work this way for over a year. I hope when I return I'm able to hit the ground running and not slow down. It's far more enriching and fulfilling to be active, proactive and productive than it is to vegetate. I'll probably always have some level of regret for the times in my life (before the mission) that I sat around and did nothing, but I don't think I'll ever regret the times that I was making something, and especially making something of myself, especially during the mission.

So anyhow, transfer news. Something really different is happening: Not only are Elder Henshaw and I getting doubled out, and not only are we being replaced in Delaware by a sister companionship, and NOT ONLY are we being doubled in (meaning we're not splitting up, which I'm grateful for), but we're reopening an area, and a branch, no less, in Cambridge, OH. The fact that we're staying together this transfer probably means that Elder Henshaw and I will stay together for his last transfer and I will send him home, but you never know--we could get another curveball like the one we got this transfer.

What else happened this week? Oh, yeah, Kenny accepted the preparatory invitation for baptism. So that was pretty awesome. We didn't put him on date, but he seemed determined to do it. Hopefully that doesn't change. He hasn't been keeping his commitments well, and based on some things David told us about him, the sisters may need to drop him in future.

We also had a cool experience with a part-member family. The parents aren't members, and they've been having trouble communicating with one of their kids and getting her to behave and so forth, and they asked for help from us, so we're referring them to our bishop and family services, so hopefully that will result in good things in the future. They support their kids being a part of the church but say they're not necessarily interested in it themselves. Hopefully what they'll come to understand is that unity in the home helps a lot with their children's behavior and growth.

I'm really not sure what else there is to talk about. Those are the only real events that really stick out in my mind. I need to be better about keeping a daily journal, just with at least one or two major events from the day. Then I can have something more than our area book schedule to draw from when I write these emails. I guess the only other thing was that yesterday, today and tomorrow we have gone and will go around to some people and say goodbye. I've enjoyed Delaware and thought I would be spending more time here. I'll miss it, especially the people we've worked with.

This email feels pretty short, which is surprising considering it covered a week and a half. Oh, well. I'm sure I'll have plenty to talk about over the next four days, when you'll hear from me next.

Elder Davis

Oh, P.S., we're going to be in a video chat meeting with Elder Ballard at the end of this month, and we submitted questions for it to have him answer. It's going to be sweet.

My completed study journal.

This was at a restaurant called Son of Thurman's we visited earlier today. They have dollar bills all over the walls. Whoever did this is my hero.

There's a weird meditating cat thing in front of the door at the apartment across from us, and every morning when we go out, Elder Henshaw pays his respects to it with a bow. We thought we'd take some photos to commemorate that.