First of all, I noticed that it can be very windy here in Kansas. It probably has something to do with the fact that when there are no tress, you can see the curvature of the Earth. Well the temperature is dropping and I'm having to bust out my sweater vest but today it is 70ish degrees and the last time I busted out my sweater vest I had to take it off because it was too hot. So the weather here goes up and down dramatically because tomorrow it is supposed to be 40 degrees, and for those of you listening at home that's a pretty dramatic difference. There was a story I've heard twice now, where here in Parsons it was 80 degrees in the middle of February and then the very next day it snowed 3 feet... And I thought Utah was bad.
Well this week we had exchanges with our new district. I went over to Neosho Missouri with Elder Merryweather, who is also training and was Elder Cluff's last companion here in Parsons. He is a fun guy. We had a grand old time. We went tracting and found a dude who they already had a lesson with and apparently he is solid. So I take 50% credit because I talked to him about superheroes and other nerdy things. We also tracted into a 92 year old lady who was really nice and we talked about Jesus Christ a lot and that's pretty much it. So Elder Merryweather was saying a prayer and she started yelling out 'Thank you Jesus!' Multiple times during the prayer. It was quite comical for the simple fact that it took us so by surprise. Elder Merryweather told me that he had to work hard to keep from laughing out loud. Hopefully in the afterlife she will remember us and want to learn more. Halloween candy was 50% off at Walgreens, so I gave in and bought some, and then some more. Elder Merryweather and I (it was mostly me) ate the whole lot. Except for about 20 fun size packs of whoppers. So I decided that we would mess with Elder Carpenter (Elder Merryweather's companion). We took the whoppers and spread them out throughout the house. In pretty obvious places where he would for sure find them and hopefully he would wonder to himself, where did all these whoppers come from? Sure enough the next day we got a text from them asking if we knew anything about the abundance of whoppers lying around their house. It made my day.
Wednesday we had zone training meeting and interviews with the President Shumway. He slapped me around a bit and set me straight so that was fun, partially. And as I said earlier about there being lots of backpacks in the mission, Elder Packer said no, so now everybody has to switch to side bags fortunately for me I already have one. We also have to bike twice a week now so that's fun or should I say cool (because it gets really cold when we ride).
Our ward mission leader was out of a job since before I got here and he just barely landed one in Kansas City. So we helped him and his family move on Saturday. It is really sad because our branch is small enough as it is... and they fed us breakfast every Friday morning. So every Saturday morning at 7 we go to the animal shelter and clean out the pens that the dogs stay in at night. It can sometimes be very crappy, literally. I've never seen feces 3 feet high on the wall. So this last Saturday we did that service. Then we had breakfast and promptly went over to our ward mission leader's house to help pack. When we were done with that we helped the Bauman's who are moving into the house we just helped empty. Then we had lunch and came back to the house to help some more. We did a lot of cleaning of the walls to prep it for painting. Sometime later in November we are helping them move in. The whole day we were in our service clothes so that was something new. It was cool though because I got a Parsons Wrestling shirt from the thrift store that we volunteer at for free and I wore that all day and I felt cool. (it was pretty cold that day too)
So on Friday we looked in the area book and former investigator book so we could find people to teach because our teaching pool has been quite non-existent as of late. We picked out some names (it was mostly Elder Cluff because I kept reading the sometimes lengthy biographies of these people) and went to investigate. The first address didn't exist, so we went tracting nearby and the first house we came to was a lady who knew us from volunteering at the animal shelter. She believes in Greek mythology... no comment. But we did get a return appointment to teach her about family history. (It was yesterday and some of her kids were sick so it fell through unfortunately) We later found out the address we were looking for was recorded dyslexic-ly it was 1415 when the actual address was 1514 or something like that. Then the next address we went to didn't exist either, so we did some tracting. The first house was a lady who's dad was actually a member and she had witnessed some powerful priesthood blessings that brought him back to life. However she is a wiccan and believes in mother earth or something like that... no comment. However she said we could come back any time after we discussed the priesthood with her a little bit and she gave us a referral so that was really good. So the third address we went to, wait for it... didn't exist either. The house was apparently demolished. So the first door we went to... didn't answer or the next one or the next one or the next one or the next one. But the last one answered! She wasn't interested, but we did have a lovely conversation with her about Parsons. So I think that we can help those people and that Heavenly Father put them in our path. Or just used his power to demolish some houses so that we could find them, I dunno, you choose.
So I'm getting tested a lot but it's actually not that bad. Mostly just mental stuff. My testimony has grown a lot despite the lack of people to teach. Thank you so much for all of your emails. I love reading about all you wonderful people. It also makes me really happy and uplifts me with all your testimonies. Keep praying for me and I love all of you!
Love,
Elder Naegle
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