Here comes the cold!

Hey everyone!

So this was a very interesting week!

Monday after we emailed we went to the mall so Elder Bassett and Elder Cook could get some things they needed. While we were there, we met Santa! He is a member in a ward down south and was in one of Elder Cook's old wards. We went into JC Penny and they had their clearance tie section so I was looking through that and I found a $30 tie that was marked down to four bucks! I was doubtful, however, and asked the lady at the check-out if she could check the price on the tie. As it turns out, the tie was actually $2.49! SWEET! After the mall we went to the stake center to play sports with the other elders in the zone. We started off playing basketball and then we played some dodgeball! Man, I have not thrown that much in a long time! We came back to Junction City for dinner with the Fr*** and we ended up teaching a short lesson out of Preach My Gospel! They were super pumped up to do missionary work after the stake conference we had this weekend and wanted to learn more about how to introduce the gospel to those they meet!

Tuesday was Veterans Day. I want to take a quick second to thank all those who have served our country! I am so proud to have the grandparents that I have who were both in the military and I thank them especially for their service. It was super cold all day and sunny, which made for an absolutely beautiful day! Unfortunately we did not have much go for us early in the day but we had the opportunity to help a less active member named Cami start her move to St. George, Utah. Her father came up from St. George to help her with the move and we connected pretty well. I ended up bragging to him about my awesome siblings as I helped him organize the truck! I also ended up taking a bed apart by myself! One hand holding the headboard and the other hand unscrewing screws out of the bed posts! It was a great workout to say the least haha! After dinner with the Hi*** we went and saw Dotti to see how she was doing. Knowing that she has had a rough couple of weeks, we shared with her a quote by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland about enduring to the end and she really enjoyed it!

Wednesday we got into service clothes to go over to Cami's at 10 to help her continue her move. We got there at 10 and they were basically already done so we went to the church and did Facebook for a little bit before lunch. We had a lesson with Charlotte scheduled for early in the afternoon but something came up and she couldn't meet with us. We decided to go share a Mormon message with Bob and Margret before we got ready to go to Camp Alpine for the rest of the day. Elder Tucker came and picked us up around 2:30 and took us up there. Upon arrival at Camp Alpine, Elder Cook and I decided we were going to go around with Elder Tolman and get some wood that they had cut up around the property. The first load was pretty easy; pretty level ground and the wood was relatively light. The second load, however, was tough! The load was next to the lake down a small hillside. With me being the biggest and having the shoes with better grip, I decided to go down and haul/throw the wood up. It was probably the toughest workout I have had on my mission haha! I was battling the mud and the incline as I was throwing up stumps of wood to Elder Cook and then he had to deal with hauling the wood through the mud. During this, I was trying to throw up another stump when I lost my balance. I fell forward but the incline threw me down the hill and onto the other stumps. Luckily, I was only battered and I didn't hit anything important on the wood! We wrapped up the second load and got it unloaded before doing a third load near the other elders. We split wood using the splitter and I got to split some wood with an axe before dinner, which consisted of Hawaiian haystacks! We got back into Junction City at the end of the evening and we tried to go see Dotti again but she was passed out! After all that work at Camp Alpine, I was sore and extremely tired and promptly fell asleep after planning!

Thursday was my first taste of the cold rainy weather of Oregon! We had weekly planning in the morning. As we were doing our weekly planning, the potential investigator that we had a lesson planned with for today canceled because her and her family were sick. We decided after lunch to go see Brother Thorenson and share a lesson with him. While we were there, we had ANOTHER lesson cancel on us. Bummer! So after Brother Thor***'s, us and the other Elders went up to Harrisburg to search out the less actives and also try to see some of the people that other missionaries had visited with in the past. The couple of people we tried to go see before helping out with Gle*** either had a bad address listed or just weren't home. We did our service at Gle*** before dinner.

Friday we had district meeting in the morning. We talked about how to get the members more involved in missionary work. After district meeting, we had a pizza party because our whole zone got the mileage reports turned in on time!

After we stuffed ourselves with pizza, we got dressed in service clothes to go clean a house. This house wasn't just any old house however. It was a hoarder house!! There were newspapers and other things EVERYWHERE at least 4 inches deep. It took a crew of about 13 elders 15 minutes before we could even see carpet. There were a lot of things that we saw that I am not going to include in the email because....it is disturbing. You really don't want to know!


Afterwards, we helped Elder Bassett do his last exchange with the 3rd ward Elders and headed back up to Junction City for a much needed shower! We had an excellent dinner at Abby's, a pizza chain that is pretty popular apparently in Oregon. With most of our lessons bailing and Friday night being the night when leadership positions are called, we decided to take an invitation to go play dodge ball at the River Road building to be able to get an inside scoop on who is leaving and who is staying. By the end of dodge ball, two of the district leaders were called to be zone leaders in Springfield and Klamath Falls (one being Elder Bassett!) Elder Cook and I did not receive a call from President Russell or the AP's so we had to wait until Saturday!

Saturday we headed down to Santa Clara to exchange Elder Watson back for Elder Bassett and to go to a baptism that the 6th ward Elders were having. After the the baptism, almost the whole zone was in the Young Women's room to see who was being transferred. The Junction City Elders were the last two sets of missionaries and with us knowing Elder Enman was staying and Elder Bassett was leaving, it came down to me and Elder Cook. I was then told I was going down to Central Point 2nd ward with Elder Galloway, who actually went to the same high school as Elder West! This is my first six-week hitch of my mission! After we found out where everyone was going, we went back to Junction City and got some stuff Elder Bassett and I needed for the weekend. We had a great lesson with Charlotte at 3 o'clock! We went over the chapters she read and shared a Mormon Message about praying to know what path we should take. I got to bear my testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the importance of prayer! We saw a couple families in the ward before dinner and then we were invited for a volleyball night at the church. Since we normally did basketball, we agreed and played some volleyball with some of the ward members to end the night.

Sunday all we pretty much did was pack. We had a couple families to go see and had an opportunity to give a blessing. Other than, I have nothing else to report!

I am in the transfer van right now. It is awesome having iPads on the mission because I get to read emails and letters in the van. I am grateful for this wonderful thing called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the Atonement and that we are being prepared everyday, if we do the right things, to live with our Heavenly Father.

I love all of you! Have a great week and I will talk to you next Monday!

Elder Tonini