Elder Davis in Ohio

Hey, everyone. The quote this week is from Will Smith's Agent J, another character played by Will Arnett, and an unnamed MIB employee from Men in Black III. J comes into the Men in Black after a shift in reality due to a time-traveling alien causes Agent K to die early, and he suddenly has a new partner, but he's not aware of any of that. The letter for the agent in the quote may not be quite right. It's also not my best work, but it'll have to do. Elder Heil and I haven't been together quite as much this week because we've been doing a ton of training visits: one with Newark, one with Coshocton, and one with Mt. Vernon, and we'll have more this week. It also feels like I've been experiencing a bit of a "time jump." The weeks are going by a lot faster, it seems. Time has been rushing by. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the isolation or the monotony, but it's difficult to go back in my mind and think of the things that ...

[For reasons that will become apparent further into this post, I took the liberty of changing Elder Davis' email title, this week] Hey, everyone. This quote is from Andy Dufresne in  The Shawshank Redemption . I forget the name of the actor who played him. Someone in my district quoted it during zone conference, and it seemed applicable.  Missionary life has involved some pretty drastic changes the last few weeks, and we were told in zone conference that some of those changes will be with us for a long time. In the future, hopefully when Ohio's stay-at-home order is lifted, we'll again be able to start visiting people we're teaching in person, as well as members, if they agree to it. But we were also told that knocking on doors and contacting people on the street is something that's probably going to be a long way off and that this period is going to change missionary work forever. Personally, to be completely honest, I'm fine with that. I thin...

Hello, everyone. I'll start by saying it's important to take your medication for any mental illness you deal with, especially during circumstances like this. Because of the change in circumstances, our schedule became less consistent, and so I forgot to take some of my medication when I would normally take it. My wonderful mother wisely asked whether I was taking it consistently and helped me realize that I had missed a lot of doses. I'm feeling much better now than I was before. The quote is from the adult Scott Smalls, the narrator of the movie (I don't remember the actor's name). He's talking about Benny's love for baseball and the circumstances in which he would play it. Our mission president's wife recently told us to be out twice a day and walk for 2 miles both times. We're trying to do that, though it takes a lot of time out of our day. In any case, I bring my camera along, so I've taken a lot of photos of the different pla...

Hello, everyone. This week's quote comes from Harold Finch, a character in the TV show Person of Interest. The past few weeks have been... different, to say the least. I felt like I was pushing myself at a relatively fast pace since Delaware. Now it seems like everything has slowed way down, and it's difficult for us sometimes to find things to do and to remain engaged. One of the things we're doing now is participating in an online institute class taught by one of the members of the stake. We do that every Tuesday and Thursday morning. The church is also adding some applications on our phones: Some are educational, and we can use them to learn different skills. Others are more gospel message and gospel media oriented. In any case, it's been very easy for me to get unfocused and unmotivated. It doesn't seem like there are a lot of things we can do right now. I feel like most missionaries feel that way. I think the type of work we can do right now is just so f...