Out Preaching in Ohio

Wazzup? Just another email. Not too much to report this week... BIG NEWS!!!! BREONAA IS ON DATE TO BE BAPTIZED ON THE 27TH!!!! Sad news: transfers are the day before the 27th. 🥲 So I may not be in Dayton for her Baptism 😢 As for other news and funny things: •Went on yet another exchange (2 nights this time) with the Swahili Elders! Their Swahili is getting better and I was able to be there for a Swahili contact (just talking to some Swahili people in their home). NEWS FLASH. I DON'T SPEAK SWAHILI (I have learned a little bit though). So I was just lost the whole time (other than the customary "Jambo" greeting) and started watching some good 'ol Monster House with the little Swahili kids. When we first stopped by and knocked on the door tho, a 10ish year old kid opened it and Elder Whiffen, trying to find out if their parents are home, accidentally said "are my parents home?" Instead of "are your parents home?" •We taught our friend Monica and got...

Short answer: No.  But I did spend way too much time with them on "day exchanges" aka, my companions didn't want me so they threw me with the language missionaries for the day so they can do "Zone Leader Stuff." Kinda a major RIP for me, but we tough it out. When I'm with Swahili, I just kinda go around with them to African stores and communities where no one really speaks English, so I was pretty much useless for most of the time. I was able to teach some lessons with them for our friends, (pretty much all by myself because they're both new missionaries and have been studying their new language for a lot of their time and haven't had a ton of teaching experience). Anyways, we had some awesome service this week at a food pantry here in downtown. They are super cool and bought lunch for us on Tuesday! We finally met Helen's husband! Helen is the lady we baptized in late December last year and her husband finally recovered from his stroke enough to...

Don't worry about the email title, it'll make sense in a minute. Anyways, this week was a real interesting one.  On Monday, I got hardcore carried by my teammate in some Scramble-style Disc Golf (reppin 15 under par 😎). We also were able to teach our friends Olivia and Brian about the Law of Chastity and they said they are interested in getting married, which is awesome! On Tuesday we had our new Mission President announced (I'm pretty sure the Church News has already released this by now) and His name is President Rasmussen of Draper, Utah. He seems like a real wholesome and nice guy which are two pretty good attributes in a leader.  We walked by some cool old car museums (I don't know what kinds, I'm not a car guy... And I forgot to take a picture). We also taught the Plan of Salvation to a few of our friends which is pretty cool. Thursday was Zone Conference where I got to see some of my mission friends (i.e. Elder Cook, Eldé Sainsbury, cool people like that).  ...

I know the title of this Email is about the New Year, but I'm just gonna talk about the last week (as always). On Christmas Day we had dinner with the Senior Couple in our Ward - the Hansen's (Probably distant cousins) - and their kids and grandkids. The only notable part other than some delicious food is that one of their granddaughters (probably like 5 or 6) absolutely slingshotted a little fake, plastic camara right at Elder Simpson's face and made the most direct contact on possibly the most accurate throw ever thrown (would make Patrick Mahomes jealous). Elder Simpson is a-ok but it was super funny in the moment.  We also had two exchanges this week. One was with the Miamisburg Elders and one with the Middletown Elders! Nothing crazy happened there, I just had to go into leader mode and help some newer missionaries adjust to missionary life and teach them how to learn and teach the doctrine (even though I'm pretty sure I barely know how to do that myself).  We had ...

Merry Christmas y'all! This last week has been a banger of a week so I'll try and keep this short and not take up too much of your Christmas! Top 3 awesome things: ● We put our friend Helen on date to be Baptized on the 30th!! She is a super sweet old lady who is super funny and will be a great and much needed addition to the Ward family here in Dayton! ●The 3 Dayton Zones in my mission all met together for a Pancake Breakfast which included a Pancake eating competition (Elder Peterson clutched up and got all 10 Pancakes before the 3 minute timer was up), a White Elephant gift exchange (I got a ton of random sodas and couldn't steal this cool bull tamer rug 😠), a talent show (pretty weird, ngl), and a ton of games like signs and 9 square! I got to see a ton of my mission friends like Elder Cook and Elder Sainsbury (the GOAT 🐐)! ●We saw a kid (couldn't be older than 6) dressed up as Batman at a gas station with his mom. We were dying laughing because we always talk abo...

What's going on everyone? This week we had transfers and I sadly had to say goodbye to Lakeside Park and Kentucky too and head back to the Ohio.  Before I left Lakeside Park, I was able to say goodbye and talk one last time with both Carol and Don as well as Willie and Tamia. Those guys always made me laugh and were just a light to be around! Most of my last days in Lakeside Park were spent cleaning up the apartment and making sure it was all good for the next Elders (because Elder Avery and I were getting doubled out -- aka we were both getting moved to different areas). So on Friday, we went to the Mission Office in Western Hills and I was able to meet up with my new comps (yes. plural) the Dayton ZL's! So Elder Simpson and Elder Barker (with very little help from me) were able to get everything coordinated so that everyone in our new zone would be accounted for and have a way to get to their new areas, which means we were driving around the zone for most of the day making su...

Howdy Friends! This week has been one of the weeks I've ever had.  For the Highlights: •We had service at the food pantry again and we spent the first day sorting Onions and potatoes and then on Thursday it was packed and we were helping people get their food orders out to their car! •We had the most success while knocking doors??? It's usually not a very effective way of finding people who are interested in learning more about the Gospel, but we ran into quite a few people who were interested while just knocking on doors. 🚪 •Our new Ward Mission Leader invited us over for some authentic Kentucky Fried Chicken, some creamy mashed taters, homemade cake and some Graeters ice cream! Twas delicious •We stopped by a lot of members of the Ward and we were building that ward trust 💪😤 •Carol got us the soda and candy she promised us last week and we talked for a while •We pulled up alongside some 20-something year old dudes who were head-banging in the car next to us. So naturally w...

This is gonna be a shorter email (hopefully) because I'm not feeling great today. This week has been tough. We were able to do service at the same food pantry on Tuesday and Thursday which is always fun. We also had our exchanges with the other Lakeside Park Elders on Thursday and we had a great time because we all know the area and were just able to be with different companions for a bit. We also had a ward Christmas party here, and that was super fun to go to and get to know the members a little bit better! For the not so fun stuff, I got robbed. On Wednesday morning we went out to our car to get ready to go to our District Council and found out that someone had gotten into our car over the night and searched for stuff to steal, deciding the only thing they wanted was my rain jacket in the backseat (the one time I forgot to take it inside 😡). Later the same day we had to go file a report to the police and as we were driving to the station, we witnessed a car crash (pretty bad, b...

This week things started to ramp up a little bit (In a good way) On last Monday we went to the Cincinnati Zoo (again) and they had their lights up for the holidays so it was a festive District activity. I also bought some brand new church shoes for 10$ and I felt like a real life hustler (Gary Vee has nothing on me). On Tuesday we finally got regular service scheduled at a food pantry called "Be Concerned." Service was great and I look forward to going back tomorrow. I also think that their name is a little too passive aggressive (and is honestly just a command) for being a food pantry that helps the less fortunate people *survive*. Wednesday we had our Zone Conference and Pie Social, it was amazing. More on ZC later (missionaries, you better read that part). Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving! We spent pretty much all of our Thanksgiving with members! In the morning we went to the Marshes and made (and ate) tamales and peach empanadas! I felt like a real chef (or probably...