Weekly Update - 2 Nov 2009‏

We are in November now, wow! It's pretty funny to be getting e-mails that mention my return home happening in three months, but then the sentence right after that comment is one telling me that they're not supposed to talk about that in the e-mail. It's happened with a few people today, which doesn't bother me. I understand that there's no point in giving up short of the finish line. I would feel guilty and I'm not sure how I would be able to look people in the eye and honestly tell them that I gave it my best for two years. The feeling that I want most is satisfaction, fatigue, purity, and an increased desire to follow God, all mixed together when I finish my mission. Giving up with three months to go would prevent that feeling from becoming a reality.

Taylor did write me last week, which ends the drought, and I'm glad to hear that he is doing well. He's a stud and I'm excited to see him, Jason and Tyson soon. I've missed joking around with them, playing practical jokes on each other, and heckling each other periodically.

We started our transfer meetings this past week and we've finished up the new assignments for the Elders. We will be starting the sisters tomorrow or Wednesday depending on Pres. Blackburn's schedule. I will be working with a new Assistant to the President (AP) starting next transfer (11 Nov) and his name is Elder Hopoate. He lived most of his life in Tonga and moved to Provo, UT shortly before finishing high school. He's about 6'0" 255 lbs. and a he's a really likeable guy. He's been serving for 1 year and 5 months (17 months total) and I'm looking forward to working with him. It will be a change to work with someone who's not Elder Gentry since the two of us have been around each other as companions or AP's for five of the last six transfers, but I have no doubts that Elder Hopoate and I will have a good time.

I will still be serving with Elder Welling next transfer, which I'm grateful for. We get along well and our humor styles are similar. I'm still trying to convince him that Michigan is better than Ohio State, but he's stubborn in adopting that mindset for himself. Working with a missionary who has been out for barely six months has helped me realize the difference in perspective with younger missionaries and older ones. He's still in the time frame where there is "no light at the end of the tunnel" and he's finding himself enthusiastically trudging along the path of missionary service. The missionaries who tend to struggle the most are the ones who are within the 6-12 month time frame (length of time serving their mission) and I'm not sure of the exact reason why that is, but that's consistently the case in this mission. Elder Welling has a good attitude about nearly everything, so I'm not concerned about him.

We celebrated Halloween night by arriving at the mission home at 6pm, eating dinner, then having a rivoting MP/AP meeting to further the transfer process for two hours. We planned for the next day from 9-9:30pm, then took some pictures of us dressed up...well, kinda. It was a very low-key evening. We were mistaken for being trick-or-treaters at a couple of doors while we were wrapping-up our proselyting time, which gave us a good laugh.

We participated in a temple service project last Friday from 7am - 1pm where we took out existing locker frames and brought in new ones for most of the time. It's amazing how neat and tidy the Church likes to keep the temples. The carpet that we tore up didn't really look like anything was wrong with it, but they still wanted it replaced. Towards the end of our work, one of the temple suprevisors for construction took eight of us up to the assembly hall on the third floor of the temple and then onto the roof. We could see just about any part of L.A. that we wanted. It was a great sight!

Thank you for the e-mails and for the continued support. I'm honored to have the family members that I do. Have a great week!

Elder Gold