Email noventa y nueve

July 9, 2018 

Hey folks!

Well I’m already a week into my last transfer! Craziness. I’ve officially started the MyPlan program, an online course that missionaries take once a week during their final transfer. Fun stuff!

Enough of that, I don’t want to talk about going home stuff. Gross.

I want to start off by saying that my new companion, Elder Paopao, is awesome! He’s from Barstow, California, a town in the desert of Southern California just off I-15.  He is Samoan. He played football in high school and actually has a scholarship to play football for Snow College. He’s about my height and size. When he got here, he told me I need to help him get back into football shape, so we have been hitting the gym hard this week. Last transfer, President gave us approval to work out for an hour in the mornings

instead of 30 minutes only. We also have a really nice gym at our apartment complex clubhouse, so we have been going pretty ham in the mornings. Plus Elder Caringer is a workout junkie. He gets pretty nerdy about it, he brings this textbook full of workouts for each muscle group, it’s like having a personal trainer. This last Friday was leg day, and we are still sore lol! Everyone at church yesterday was wondering why all four of us were limping.

So let’s take it all back to Tuesday. After staying with the other Southaven Elders, Tuesday morning, Brother M from the Southaven Ward picked me up to take me to Bartlett. We got there and saw all the Missionaries getting transferred to and from the Arkansas side, as well as all the missionaries going home from the Tennessee. I got to say goodbye to Elder Toomer and Elder

Barron, who served together in my old area in Memphis this last transfer, as well as Elder Janes, who I served around in Russellville, and Elder Stiles-Culver, and a bunch of really good friends that I have made on the mission. As I gave Elder Toomer a hug, he said: “You’re next.”

We picked up Elder Paopao, and headed back to Southaven. The M’s took us out to eat at Cracker Barrell. Their grilled chicken BLT is amazing.

Then, we went straight to work, knocking some doors. We met a man named P, who let us inside. He said he really wants to change his life. We taught him a little about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, and invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He said: “why would I even question it not being the word of God?” He has such great faith! That was a little miracle we saw on our first day.

The Fourth of July was an interesting day. We tracted most of the day, and not a ton of people were very interested haha, it was simply their day to relax and party. We went to a Ward 4th of July party and left pretty quickly because it felt weird just being there.

T got baptized this Saturday! We weren’t sure if it was gonna happen or not in till Friday night, so we had to scramble to get a program together. Everything went smoothly. He asked Elder Caringer to baptize him, and I confirmed him yesterday. He was so golden from day one! It has truly been a pleasure to teach him and watch his conversion take place! Now we are back on the hunt for more people like him that are looking for the truth. Elder Paopao and I fasted that we will be able to baptize at least one more time this transfer. We are going to have to work our tails off to do it, but I have faith! Pray for us!

Love y’all!

Above is a note I wrote to T, I drew some cats on it because he loves cats haha