27 May 2013

I thought I could cut my hair pretty well. It's not that hard, right? In the clipper box I was looking for a 1/2" size but only found 3/8ths. There's barely a difference there, right?

Wrong. I'm bald! I've never had such short hair!

Me confidently cutting it:

And realizing that I had no hair:

[I am having trouble saving these pictures as jpgs. . . they only give me the option of html text from his email and they don't show up on the blog when I copy and paste his letter from my email.  Any suggestions?

The really ironic thing about this is that I (his mom) always cut his hair.  When he was in high school, one time I grabbed the buzzer without realizing that it didn't have the attachment and I went to work on the top of his head.  He never forgave me for that very short strip of hair that had to grow out.  So, it makes me smile a bit to know that he did it to himself.]

What makes matters worse is that we have interviews on Wednesday and I'm bald.

...

We are officially moved into our new apartment. They stopped by this week and told us that we're moving this morning so we have spent the last few days taking some of our lunch hour moving some things and a 2 hour blitz this morning with 6 missionaries carrying heavy things and beds over. Our NEW ADDRESS is 1287 N Alma School Rd #149, Chandler, AZ, 85224. We are in the same complex just on the other side in a two bedroom for when new missionaries come in.

I never thought I would say this...but I love beans.

The highlight of this week was the leadership meeting on Wednesday. Brother Watson (global director of proselyting) and President Donaldson (Mission President of the District 2 DVD, comp of Watson) came by to give our mission a training.

A major theme was how to maintain success in the first months of having a new mission president. He spoke on how stats almost always drop when a new mission president comes in and to avoid that we need to "stick to what we know and do what the new guy says." They stressed that a lot, especially since the Tempe mission is the highest baptizing in the south west. We'll see what happens when our mission gets cut into all the surrounding missions.

But that's not all they talked about. One of the districts in the Mesa zone is getting a shiny new toy, called an iPad. They're piloting "Electronic Area Books" in our mission in one of our zones. Instead of a giant binder with tons of papers, each companionship there will get an iPad for one purpose and with one app: Area Book. I don't know all the details, I only know that Chandler was supposed to pilot them originally then we got dropped :( Pretty exciting eh? Apparently only 2% of the worlds missionaries (65,000) update their area books every night.) I believe it.

But that's not all! We learned some cool things about our mission. Originally we were told our mission wouldn't gain any zones - only lose. Well, turns out we're picking up 2 zones from the Phoenix mission - downtown phoenix - and 36 new missionaries from there. Crazy! Apparently it's super Hispanic. Woo!

And he mentioned a cool number. Ready? By July of 2013, sister missionaries will make up 21% of the missionary force. Yeah, that's a big number... but by July of next year it will be 50%.

 

Crazy!

But it gets better! They also announced a global broadcast that the church will be doing on June 23rd. The First Presidency, the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, the Quorums of 70, and new mission presidents will be attending and it will be opened for the whole world to see. They said that the first presidency used the word, "historic," which they never use. They said it will change the course of missionary work forever and it will be all about member missionary work. They said that President Monson will be always remembered as the missionary work prophet and the announcement in October and this should cement that. Apparently Elder Nelson commented that the gathering of Israel will be even more miraculous than Moses bringing the children of Israel through the wilderness. Oh, and "this [a broadcast like this] has never been done in the history of the church before."

It was an 8 hour meeting and I left wanting more.

But moving on...

For planning morning on Friday I brought a bunch of chilis (Chil de Arboles)  to the church. The whole zone plans together and almost everyone ate one. I remember when that was me...

I saw another Delorean this week. And a Maserati.

We've been struggling to make miles work. We have 600 per month but at the start, the other Elders at 800 and drove as such. Then we got cut to 650 then cut to 600. We use our car to drive to meetings, church, and dinners and we still use more than we can everyday. I've made some phone calls, worked my connections, and hopefully we'll get some more haha. It's an 18 mile round trip to church and to meetings during the week and we only have enough for 15 per day.

This past week we went over to one of our trailer parks, Sunshine Valley, to visit some people. It was Saturday morning. As soon as we got inside we looked around and the Jehovah's Witnesses were everywhere! Dozens of them! They avoided us like the plague which was ok because I didn't bring my bible.

This past week the mission got a shipment of 2013 Chevy Cruzes. We're crossing our fingers that we get one since our car is a 2010 Corolla. The 2013 Corollas have touch screens for media interface but no GPS. The missionaries in the mountains get Jeep Grand Cherokees.

Gmail locked me out of my account for refreshing it too much (like it did the night I waited for my BYU admission letter) and the draft missed two paragraphs but we're out of time so this will have to do.

Thanks for the letters Mom, Eric, Dad, Will, and Katie! 

I'll try to write everyone back but we're moving things around our new apartment and lots to do!

With love

EJ