Two new areas in one week!

November 2, 15

Hey amigos! This has been quite the week out here in the WVM. To start off, we had transfers on Wednesday so we had to get up early to drive down to Vancouver. The transfer meeting was way good though, President and sister Taylor both talked a lot about vision and trusting in the lord to take care of things that are out of our control. So after transfer meeting we drove down to Portland and I met my new comp. Elder Barton is way sick, he's been out one more transfer than I have and is not reserved or shy about anything.

When I got to the apartment in Portland I learned that we couldn't upgrade apartments even though we were moving in two more elders. So my comp and I slept in a bunk bed we assembled in the middle of the living room floor. We also had weekly correlation meeting that first day in Portland where I learned that not only were there four English Elders in the ward, but there were also four Spanish Elders as well. Lol I don't know why we have so many Elders cause none of us have any progressing investigators. There's a lot of potential in the ward though. 

There is one car for all four Elders, so we had to do some car sharing which was new to me but I actually liked it cause it make you use your car day wisely and appreciate the car more. However there are some down sides too, like when we had to walk for two hours in to pouring rain to get back to the apartment. Yeah, it has rained literally every single day for like a week and a half ha.

Well the work was going well and we were starting to find some potential investigators until Halloween came. Ha oh man Halloween was a crazy day. It wasn't crazy in the sense the people looked weird on the street; cause in Portland every day is Halloween. It was crazy cause at 7:00 am I got a call from one of the assistants to the president telling me to pack my stuff and that they'd be at our apartment in two hours. Ha so I packed my stuff and they made a tri-pan out of the three Elders remaining in the Apartment and took me to The Rocky Butte ward. Apparently my new comp's old comp had to go home asap. So I spent Halloween day in a tri-pan with my new comp (Elder Holt) and the guy that had to go home. At 6 that night we went to the mission home to drop off the missionary, but his parents weren't there yet and it was going to take them like 3 more hours to drive there from Idaho. So the three of us spent Halloween night handing out candy to trick or treaters with the mission President and his wife. At around 9:30 his family arrived and took him home, so we were able to leave Vancouver at like 10, at which time we got really lost. In a nutshell, it was the most up and down day I've had in a long time.

This new set-up I'm in though is way sick. I LOVE the apartment and the Elders in it. I'm in the Gresham zone now, but we live with the Portland Zone leaders and it's a blast. They're obedient and righteous, but they're also just hilarious guys who know how to have fun. Elder Holt is way sick too. 15 months out he got hit on a bike and had to go home for 8 months for shoulder surgery. This is his first transfer back, so we're both really excited to work hard. He played football for desert hills and this quote describes his personality perfectly "Am I as funny as I think I am? Cause I think I'm pretty dang funny!" Ha he's great and I think we'll do some great work! 

Have a great week!

~Elder Thomas