Transferred to Shallowford, got to shake Elder Oaks' hand

So my new companion is Elder Thorn, is a one eyed wonder that everybody loves. He had cancer and lost one of his eyes at one point so he has a fake glass eye in his left eye. He is cool and from Utah. 

My new area is Shallowford it is in the Marietta Stake which I served in when I was in Hickory Flat. It is crazy when I left this zone there was 19 missionaries and no sisters. Now there is around 40 missionaries in this zone. I am on bike here or foot whichever we feel like doing

A guy died in the ward and the Provo MTC president must have known him because the Prove MTC president was here in my ward in Georgia and I got to shake his hand. President McNally I think was his name. So if Cory shakes the MTC presidents hand then it is like he will have shaken my hand through him. 

My first day in Shallowford we walked a bunch because Elder Thorns knees have been hurting when he bikes. We visited a former who was working on his car. I am pretty sure after one conversation that he might be a former because he has slight memory problems. Then we visited Bill another Former who said we could come back in a week. 

Visited a less active family the Gutheries with a team up and the Mom was super nice and the son was there and asked questions about the plan of salvation. The son raises snakes and sells them which is cool. T

Elder Thorn hit his 18 month mark so we went over to a members home the Coopers and he burned some slacks there.

 

We had our ward Halloween party and I basically just wore Elder Thorns eye patch as my costume. It is a lot harder to grab things with only one eye. My depth perception was off.

 

Well I got to shake an apostles hand this week. Elder Oaks came and visited our mission and the Atlanta Mission and shook all 500 missionaries hands. He said his hand was numb afterwords. It was cool and he jumped around in what he taught us. He taught about the sacrament and its importance. He also said that its not as important as what he said as what you feel from the meeting by the spirit. What made this even more cool is I got to see some of my friends who got switched to the other mission like Elder Free and Elder Moore. A

 

Elder Thorn crashed on his bike and then right after that we were knocking a door and he twisted his ankle or hit it on the step or something. He is okay just a little sore and his knees hurt at the end of each day.

 

We also taught a family that is pretty cool the Conells. They were LA but are coming back. They are just working on Word of Wisdom. There son was funny pretending to be a horse as we were there. Which reminded me of myself when I would pretend to be animals.

The Sugar Hill's Zone before the transfer.

We were protected!

So this week was good because of General Conference. I liked all the talks as always. Elder Thomas had his Dad show up to General Conference. His Dad lives in this mission and was less active. Elder Thomas was living with his Mom in Utah since it was a divorce situation. So he hadn't talked to his Dad for like a couple of yrs and then he came on his mission to where his Dad lives and actually served in his ward and would have Dinner with his Dad every week. 

We took a member to go visit Brother Carty and they enjoyed each other and talked for like an hour and a 1/2 non stop which is good since hopefully they are good friends now. We visited some churches this week. The church that spoke Spanish was actually the nicest church. They gave us their info and seemed excited about coming, even though they couldn't understand us well when we were trying to tell them about the disaster preparedness summit. Our Team up who was driving us around that night for talking to churches actually turned into the wrong lane on a busy road. No one was coming; we were protected that no one was coming, the lord watches out for his missionaries. The guy behind us started honking like crazy to let him know and of course Elder Yellowplume and my companion were like ehhh wrong lane. 

So this week was good because of General Conference. I liked all the talks as always. Elder Thomas had his Dad show up to General Conference. His Dad lives in this mission and was less active. Elder Thomas was living with his Mom in Utah since it was a divorce situation. So he hadn't talked to his Dad for like a couple of yrs and then he came on his mission to where his Dad lives and actually served in his ward and would have Dinner with his Dad every week. 

We took a member to go visit Brother Carty and they enjoyed each other and talked for like an hour and a 1/2 non stop which is good since hopefully they are good friends now. We visited some churches this week. The church that spoke spanish was actually the nicest church. They gave us their info and seemed excited about coming to the Disaster Preparedness Summit, even though they couldn't understand us well. Our Team up who was driving us around that night for talking to churches actually turned into the wrong lane on a busy road. No one was coming; we were protected that no one was coming, the lord watches out for his missionaries. The guy behind us started honking like crazy to let him know and of course Elder Yellowplume and me were like ehhh wrong lane. 

So Brother Chastain up in Dahlonega one of my old areas has still not actually got baptized but he met with the Stake President this last week and some other missionaries told me that word of Wisdom in no longer an issue with him, and that after meeting with the Stake President he wanted to get baptized as soon as possible so hopefully this Wednesday. 

So that Black family the Perrys who have 8 kids and the husband is always away driving a truck. Well we went with the Home Teacher Brother coleman to go visit there family since his companion doesn't go with him. Sister Perry is expecting again. She will have 9 kids and is only in her early 30s. The home teacher  tried to act happy when she told him but you could tell he was like another kid in his mind.

Had Lunch with the Hindu family and the Husband was able to be there since he works for the government. We handed them over to the Suwanee missionaries since they live in their area. The Hindu food is always really good but really spicy. 

Also we were having dinner at a members house and a hot air balloon landing in the street a couple streets down and was having problems getting back in the air which was interesting. 

We also visited with Brother Hyers and talked about the priesthood with them. He is a member who has parkinson's that lives right behind our apartment. 

Played B-ball and poison and bump and around the world this last P-day. So just a lot of B-ball which is always fun. 

Hope you have a wonderful week. Elder Chad Vernon