WEEK 36: One more time in BG

Hey y'all, hope everyone has been doing good, just wanted to shoot an email out to update everyone on what's been going on.

We got transfer calls this Tuesday and I'll be staying in Bowling Green for another transfer and receiving Elder Horsley and we will be the zone leaders. My greenie who just finished training, Elder Wales, will be going to a small town in Tennessee to train a new missionary, with the help of an older missionary.

I was kinda hoping for a change of scenery since this will be my 5th transfer here. But there is a lot of potential in this area so I can't really complain that much. We just put a guy named Alex on date for baptism on Monday. He is from Tanzania and speaks swahili and French and a tiny bit of English. But we have been making it work. He is so dope, he's way short and always smiling. He's helping me learn a bit of swahili. It's a hard language that's for sure. But we have lots of swahili people here so it's nice to know at least the basics. I guess bowling green is a designated safe city for refugees so that's why we have so many here.

Besides that everything is still going pretty good, every week we find more apartment complexes to tract, I swear there is a new complex built like every week. I'm excited to be a zone leader but a little nervous to. I only got to be a district leader for one transfer so I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm excited tho because now I get to go on exchanges with the aps and one of the aps Elder Bollinger trained me, so seeing him again is gonna be sweet! It's starting to cool off a bit here and the temps are mostly in the 70s and the humidity isn't to bad so fall is coming. I hate all the bugs here tho. The cicadas are so loud it's rediculous.

Also the new church history book that came out called Saints is way good. I read it all already and it was sick. It's all I did for like a week during our dinner and lunch breaks since the members don't feed us to often. That's about it for me tho. Love you guys and hope your all doing well!

WEEK 35: Bar burgers are the best

Not to much to talk about this week. No word on transfers yet. Not a whole lot has changed. We had a good exchange this week with the zone leaders. It really helped me to learn how I can be a better missionary.

We also had a member accidently take us to a bar for dinner. I had the best burger I've ever had in my life there. It was fantastic. Love y'all and hope ya have a good week.

WEEK 34: Responsibility

Hey family!

It's good to hear from you guys, yeah I'm still in Bowling Green probably till half way through September. This week has been pretty good, it's been a long week for sure and we've been biking a lot. It's been hot hot hot. We have some baptisms this weekend so I'm pumped about that. I have been doing a lot of swahili lessons lately, it's a really hard language to understand but I'm picking up words here and there. Just the basics for sure, maybe Bowling Green will get some swahili missionaries sometime soon.

Being district leader has been interesting, we have these calls that we have to be on Monday night's and this week me and Elder Wales totally forgot about it and so we made everyone wait for us before they started. When we were driving around we saw these two guys larping, they were fighting with big old foam swords, it was so funny! I almost crashed our car! We also have an senior missionary couple in our district.

The new announcement from President Nelson about the churches name is going to be interesting for us for sure, nobady here in the south knows our church full name, they all only know the nicknames. ( side note/funny story) we went to a Christian store today, and they literally sell anti Mormon literature in a Christian store😂😂 how Christian. Anyhow the little Africans we are teaching are getting baptised this saturday!! Crispin and Nadine are sick, they are so fun!!

They thought it was funny in our last lesson to smack lder Wales in the back of the head a bunch. It was way funny! Besides that yeah not much, I'm thinking this will be my last transfer here but we will see, I'm really excited about grandma going to the temple! I wish I could be there but I know it will be an awesome experience!! Love you guys and hope you have a good week!!

WEEK 33: Speedy delivery

Hey family!! It's good to hear from you guys! This week went by super quick. It just seems like the weeks are flying along. This week we had a zone conference where we got new tiwis in our cars. Tiwi is a computer device that in real time coaches us on how to drive. If we get to many warnings we get a violation which goes on our driving record. Also at zone conference we had David Archuleta talk with us and sing us some of his songs. Glorious was way cool in person. I think he's better live than like his recordings. He is one of the most humble guys I've ever met and he has a really cool back story. I'll attach pictures below. I hope to serve in one of the wards he's in that would be way cool.

Besides that not a whole lot has happened. We will have some more baptisms this next weekend so that's exciting. I've had to do a few swahili lessons lately and they are so hard, I can use Google translate to speak it but Idk what they are saying back😂. Translators are so helpful.

The red rocket, my new bike, is way fast! All the gears work it's so exciting, I haul but around this city. I've been here for quite a while now so it's starting to get a bit repetitive but feel like home. Today for p day we have been playing some friendly sting pong which has been way fun, and we are gonna go get some new couches from a senior missionary couple who is leaving. Thursday we are heading down to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with our recent convert Chris. Love that guy. The gospel is helping him get his life on track.

In my last interview with President he said he'd need me as a zone leader soon so we will see what happens. I think this might be my last one in this area. Me and Elder Wales are still working hard and finding lots of people to teach, they just don't always speak English which is hard. Besides that mom was pretty much right when she said it's probably like ground hog day. Once again everything sounds like it's going good back home! Happy birthday to Jake, 22 wow!! Time flies, 😂😂 he'll probably have like 4 kids by the time I get back. Well I love you guys! Bye bye

Week 32: Blessings of Baptism

Hey family! Hope you guys are doing good. Not much to report on this week except I had my first baptism I was able to do on Saturday for my man chris!! And me and Elder Wales will be staying together and I will be the district leader. Love you guys and hope you have a good week!

Week 31: Got milk?

Man this week was such a trip😂 I'll start off with all the bad news! Somebody got shot and killed just across the road from where we live, and then they also busted a meth lab in the same neighborhood. So the neighborhood has a 9 o clock curfew now and police patrols. Gotta love bowling green.

Besides that we had exchanges with the district leader and at the end of the exchange we all got tazed which was a new experience for me. And I can't say I'm a huge fan but it wasn't as bad as I thought. The exchange was good and we did some work. My dude Chris is getting baptised this Saturday and we are so pumped for him. He is such a cool guy! Also I had a wheelie contest with this teenager on his bike and totally wasted him so take that😂 I'm the wheelie king!! This week we also had a pioneer day celebration and ended up with like four extra gallons of milk in our fridge. Idk how we will drink it all just with the two of us but we will figure it out!

Training has been such a humbling experience. It's really taught me how much I need to improve, and also how much I need to rely on the savior. We just figure it out as we go. Some lady played the bag pipes at the pioneer day celebration we went to, and now my comp is like obsessed with bag pipes. Idk what his deal is😂😂. But to each his own I guess. We had a couple really really good lessons this week with some more Africans. They are the greatest people on earth I swear. So humble and receptive, and just so fun to be around. We stopped at Lee Pointe, where the majority of the refugees we work with live, and these kids ran up to use and put our bike helmets on so I had to grab a picture, they are just so cute. Literally makes my day every time I go there.

Elder Wales is still eating 6 eggs a day. We go through a 60 count in a week easy. I'm not sure how he's doing it. He's like determined to survive on as little as he can. So he only eats eggs and tuna. That's it. Somehow he's still healthy after 4 weeks of that so maybe he knows something I don't. But still🙈 4 weeks of the same food every day. I'd be dead.  But besides that all is well in vette city.  Miss you guys and hope your all doing well!

Week 30: Marching forward

Hey Family! Glad to hear your all alive and well! And I'm super pumped for Jake and Megan and there wedding plans. That's sounds so fun! The boating incident sounds scary but it happens. And that's cool about dad being super busy and all!. Defiantly miss you guys and the months seem to be rolling by.

Me and my greenie Elder Wales get along. We had a couple of long hard days tracting out in the heat this week when we didn't have the car. And that sucked😂 it's so hot. But that doesn't matter to much. We get to teach these two little African kids and they are the cutest ever. I'll get pictures and send them back next week. They are working towards baptism and it's so awesome. 

There is an EFY thing going on here at western Kentucky University so at church on Sunday we had like 40 counsellers there that were all returned missionaries. It was so sick and they helped put in gospel principals class a ton with Chris who will be getting baptised on the 28th. Lots of the long hard days are made up for when just one person will listen to our message. 

This p day(today) we decided we wanted to go hiking. I don't know what I expected since there is no mountains here. But Kentucky's version of hiking is like the Logan river trail. Nice wide graveled trail, not to much adventure or risk. But that's okay it's whatever😂. And yes I did beat my mile time. It is much easier to run at a lower elevation, so I'm coming in consistently at about a 5:40 mile which I feel like is pretty good. I just wish we had a gym to work out but I'm doing my best with push ups and stuff. 

Transfers are coming up soon and I'll find out if I'm staying put or what's going on so that's exciting! Anyhow love you guys and I hope y'all have a great week!