At the moment i am actually sitting in the home of the local baptist preacher, i am using his computer to email you guys, and also using his washer and dryer to do my laundry, he is a great guy his name is Hershel and he treats us missionaries like we are his kids. In fact my first night here in Lyndonville he told me that while i am here i am his nephew, and anytime i need anything i am to come talk to him and he will take care of it. he then said that includes anyone that needs beaten up for being rude to us. Yup he is cool.
Well ill just give you a play by play of the week. How does that sound? ok good.
Monday morning (wow that was a week ago) i woke up at 230 and showered and got ready, finished packing, cleaned my room and then left the stinky old MTC behind. Then we traveled from provo to slc to the airport. I then got to talk to you guys on the phone which was great, i loved that. Then we got on a plane and flew to detroit, because of the time change our layover was only a half an hour, so just barely enough time to walk from one side of the airport clear to the other to find our bloody terminal, but dont worry we made it. We then got on the plane and it was the smallest little plane i have ever been on, the passengers consisted of 9 elders 1 sister and like 4 other people. That flight was only about an hour or so. When we got to the manchester airport pres wilkey was there waiting to greet us, i was leading the pack so i got the first hug from him. His shiny bald head looked very nice and friendly shining in the sunlight(the only sunlight i have seen since then). He gave me a big old hug and then looked at me like he had known me my whole life and said "welcome Elder Zilles we love you", and then he said "you know how to work dont you?" i then said" yes i sure do and im here to do work". He then hugged everyone else, we got our bags and drove to the mission office where we met the office staff, and then headed to the mission home and met sister wilkey. She is great, she joined the church when she was 20 years old. Mom she reminds me a lot of you, nicest person you could ever meet. We then ate dinner and got assigned to our rooms. We all had our first interview with P.W. and then we played a mission trivia game with everyone. then went to bed.
Tuesday, we woke up at the missionary time of 630 and went and exercised, then elder staugher and i made eggs for everyone we showered and headed to the manchester chapel for out transfer meeting. All the new missionaries sat on the front two rows and everyone else behind us. I sat down and thats when it went down hill. I sat in a peice of gum. Yup on the first day i sat in a piece of gum. So if you have any hints on how to get gum out of pants that would be nice. then trainers were announced, they took our pictures and we headed to our respective areas. Its about a 2 hour drive from manchester to lyndonville, once we got here i unpacked for a while and then we went to work, everything elder chen had planned fell through. either no one was home, they stood us up, or who knows what else. but we had doors slammed in our faces, fingers flipped at us in unkind ways, and lots of other crap. But o well life goes on. Just so i could see that there was actually nice people here Elder Chen took me to meet Hershel and thats when he told me all that stuff. then we went home, had daily planning and went back to bed.
Now my memories from the rest of the week are kind of blurred, they call it the zombie first week, so its a blur to me but ill try to remember everything.
Wednesday we had district meeting in Montpelier which is about an hour away, that went pretty well, nothing to special happened. Once we got home we went back to work. we went and met a guy named keith who elder chen and his past companion had tracted into. Keith is an alcoholic, but he wants to change his life. While we were teaching him he was telling us how stressed he was with everything. I felt the impression that we needed to give him a blessing. so i asked him if we could, i got the opportunity to give the blessing and the spirit was very very strong. we then invited him to come to church sunday, and he said he would. Then i did the ultimate crazyness thing, i asked Keith if he would be baptized........ and he said "yes i will" and we set a date, keith is scheduled to be baptized on March 4th which is his birthday. We then went to the church, because we conduct a scripture study class for whoever wants to come every wednesday. When we got there a young man named logan came up to us and asked if he could be baptized. Logan has been in and out of foster care his whole life, he is now 12. He was recently adopted by his host family, the Danoskovicks, they are from england, very nice people. Logan took the discussions in the past, but something that i dont know about happened and they had to stop, so we are reteaching him and he is going to be baptized on February 15. Pretty sweet we set to bap dates in one night.
Thursday i honestly do not remember what happened during the day, we drove around alot and knoocked alot of doors with very little success. But then thursday night we had dinner with the Jablonski family. Brother J. is the ward mission leader, he is 23 years old and is a convert of 2 years. His wife was born a member but kind of fell away, they got prego and had a baby and decided to get things in gear, they got married Brother J got baptized and then Ellie was born. she is a cute little red head very funny. They remind me of Sis and Landon a whole lot, so thats probably why i like them so much already.
Friday we Drove out to the West Burk area and had little success, but we did get yelled at by two grumpy old men two houses in a row. We met a very nice less active named Ranae, her husband is on dialasis and they had just gotten home from that so it wasnt a good time, but we are going to have dinner with them sometime soon. They lived in the prettiest place i have yet to see in vermont. They have 100 acres, a nice house and a very nice old barn. It really did look like a christmas card, i told Ranae i would buy it from her in a few years.
Then we headed back to lyndonville and stopped by a man named Allen. A few weeks ago the missionaries tracted into him and he told them they were welcome to come back anytime they wanted. So we came back, he let us in and was super nice. he was recently divorced and really feels like his life is in a rutt. He told us that earlier that day he prayed for god to help him change his life, and then just minutes later we showed up on his door step. He is coming to scripture study on wednesday and we plan to set a bap date with him this week.
Not much happened on saturday, But saturday night we had dinner with another young family from the ward named the Flittons he is from west valley utah, and she is from here. they were very nice.
Sunday. We had a meeting at nine and church started at ten, Keith never showed up to church so that was a bummer. Elder chen had to teach sunday school, and i have to teach it in two weeks. our ward is super small, but it is considered a ward. Our bishop is a nice guy i think, but he is not dad by any means, i miss seeing daad up on the stand on sundays. After church we had a linger longer and we sat around and ate food and talked. then we were supposed to teach a lesson to an investigator named tina but she cancelled. so we started knocking some doors. We got a call from sister ruel who is a recent convert and he mom was sick and asked if we would give her a blessing, so we went and did that. we then tried to find keith but he was not home all day so we are going to try him again today at about 6.
And that my friends is the summary of the zombie first week. WE have a training in manchester tomorrow so se are leaving tonight.
I recieved all the packages in the mtc, including the cook book and scarf. Funny thing is, it has been about 40 degrees here in vermont, i guess every year sometime in january they get what they call the january thaw for about a week, and then it turns off cold again. its supposed to snow this week.
Sounds like the train wreck was a bad deal. Good to hear that the hurren kids are doing well. and i think a blog is a great idea. How is mason lemmon doing? is he out for good?
Well i sure love you guys a whole lot. Thank you for taking care of my jos girl for me. I miss you guys and her very much but i know this is whre i am supposed to be and through prayer the lord helps me see that on a daily basis.
Love you soo much. talk you in a week.
Elder Zilles
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