Monday, September 22, 2014

Meetings, Contacts, and Training

 September 22, 2014

I don't have much time to write because I wrote a ton to the President this week but I'll give you all the important stuff so don't cry.

So the transfer was interesting. I think I already wrote that I'm opening an area and training a new Zone Leader?

The week was packed full of meetings and getting to know the people and the area. We barely worked this week because we went back to Recife to have a leadership meeting with President. That means we had to leave here at night on Wednesday and come back Thursday night. Traveling drains us. First of all,,, we didn't know where the bus station was so we basically ran like a 5k to get there asking all the people for directions on the way. If we had missed the bus at 6, we would've had to catch a bus at 2 in the morning and stand up for about 4 hours. I wasn't about to miss the bus. We got there and went.
The meeting with President was sweet. Usually these meetings are for us to make a lot of changes in the mission, to fix something that isn't quite working out, but this time President just talked about, "how to be a Zone Leader."  It was funny because he asked us if we had received a training about this before. Everyone said no, including me and Elder W. Ferreira who have been Zone Leaders for about a year already. It's funny how things work out on the mission. We came out of the meeting enlightened and ready to go. President Bigelow is very inspired and has a scripture for every question we ask. I'ts pretty funny actually.

My companion is Elder Oliveira from Rio de Janeiro. He has a SUPER thick accent. The only thing I can compare it to in English for y'all to understand what I'm talking about is a really strong New York accent. It's cool. He asks me a lot of questions and respects my opinion a lot. It's cool. I feel like I'm training again. Maybe the Lord is giving me another chance to train, repent of all the things I didn't do with Elder Amaral when I was training him haha. President said that he wants me to make him the best Zone Leader that I can make him so he can be a great leader with I leave. He said he prayed a lot about the decision to put us in this area to open it up and help this ward split.

The week was full of fruitless contacts.

We ate with the Bishop this week and brainstormed some ideas to help the ward grow. We also went to a few ward council meetings to establish our ground and what we're trying to do here. Everyone was a little surprised when I said I only had 5 weeks left. They said, "Well let's take advantage of him before he leaves so we can do big things!"..... I gave a talk on Sunday about obedience and it was pretty good, but the chapel here is a house and there were a lot of people packed into one room and it was getting pretty rowdy. But I made the best of it. Bishop just called a ward mission leader to help us and 2 missionary couples to help out the converts. It will be good.

Well family,,, It's been real. I'm still working so don't worry about me getting all weird and trunky. EVERYTHING WILL BE OK. My testimony is still growing more and more every day and my mission has become something very precious to me. Christ lives and this is His church!

Love you all!
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

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