Taffy made from Bear Lake raspberries!

Hey everyone!


First off, things are definitely different having a P-Day aside from Saturday in the week. I remember that, at the beginning of my mission, up to the end of my 7th month, I had P-Days from all over the week. During that whole time, I had hoped for a P-Day on Saturday - I guessed that I was hoping for an entire day off, rather than having to go in to night zone for the evening on my P-Day (as the whole mission generally gets Saturday evenings off). However, I have learned from that experience that it is not quite what I had hoped it would be - the majority of people on the mission have P-Day that day - therefore, it is next to impossible to get laundry done in the morning due to all the machines being in use, and it is also difficult to get a shopping van at a convenient time. Therefore, I am content with having a weekday P-Day.

Anyway, as for the week itself, it has gone well. My mom likely already knows about an I assignment I have for the month; I had been asked to help at a senior care facility known as St. Joseph's Villa. Now, missionaries being asked to serve at senior care facilities is nothing new - I have reported having done this a few times before in these E-mails home. However, this situation is a bit different - I have been assigned to help out for the entire month, rather than a single weekend. So, I will be doing that until next transfers (which will be at the end of the month, in case I forget to warn you). I am also assigned to help by driving to and from the facility. So, I had gone there last Sunday, but I had arrived a bit late due to the lateness of others in showing up at the vans we were taking down there; as a result, I did not get the scheduled orientation to help me get started with my service. This meant that I was kind of thrown in to the party a bit unprepared; nevertheless, I feel I have done a good service, and I had done quite a bit of good there. I should also note that I'm pretty sure, as implied by the name, that the place is managed by, or at least closely associated with, the Catholic church; therefore, though it did have its own chapel in which we had our Sacrament meeting (as opposed to a re-purposed activity room as in other places), it was a Catholic chapel, which was interestingly similar but different from an LDS meetinghouse. The reason I say that my mom may already know about this is because the stake president over the branch whom we were helping out offered to take a picture of my companion and me and send them home to our mothers. All in all, it was a great experience to help out there, and I look forward to my future opportunities to do so!

The work at zone is still about the same. I am getting my companion Elder Wright trained to do the work which we do in zone, which training is nothing I am completely new to. He seems like a pretty hard worker - when he is taking a break from training, he does his own family history! The work itself has been a bit much for those of us doing mission support, as we are now down to the same two Elders - myself and Elder Harris. We are still waiting for the Elders we plan on training (so far, only Elder Rasmussen) to be given access to the tools needed to do the job. They have been a bit sluggish with doing that, which is part of the reason why Mission Support may or may not continue to go on. Our current plan is to not train anyone else on doing the work until we have a definitive conclusion as to what happens (they will likely not get access to the required tools anyway); if me and Elder Harris get transferred out of the zone before this happens, and Elder Rasmussen does not have the tools/training he would need to do the job, then I guess Mission Support is a goner for us. I personally would like to keep doing Mission Support, which I believe will happen; however, if it phases out as I described that it might, then that won't surprise me either. At least it seems that I will be able to stick to it until it's gone for good. However, I have also been assigned to help out with FamilySearch support more, and I have been taking calls for that again.

Now, I had recently learned that Harmon's the (more expensive) grocery store within walking distance of the mission, actually sells taffy made from Bear Lake raspberries! I had learned this when last week, I had gone down there to buy some things which I felt could not simply wait until P-Day. Of course, this cost a bit more money than a normal bag of taffy; nevertheless, I had picked up a package for myself and for the others in the zone. I have the bag with me at my work computer, and I am even snacking on them as I type this E-mail. It's a nice little connection to home, which I did not expect to find down here in the middle of the big city. Probably not a purchase I will make every day, though it is nice to have tried it out. (maybe I could afford it if I simply cut soda from the budget)

Well, this has been my week. I am not sure how many messages I will get form home due to the earliness of this P-Day; however, next week's P-Day should fall on Wednesday as expected - there are no holidays then that I am aware of! So, I will catch you all next week. Have a good one!