Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Now starring in Las Vegas: Elder Layton!


Transferred! Saturday I freaked out because I had to pack and visit everyone as soon as possible. Plus I had to leave a lot of food. They didn't call me until Saturday night around 9:00, which was ridiculous because that meant I had to pack everything and visit everyone and go to church all on Sunday. That made my life impossible. We couldn't quite visit everyone we wanted to because we simply didn't have the time. Plus I didn't have a car because its been in Reno getting fixed for the last several days, which is also ridiculous. It was a crazy couple days.

It was tough leaving Fallon. I love all of the people there. It was especially hard because the Ugaldes were in Utah, so I couldn't say goodbye to them. Fortunately I got a picture with them before they left just in case. I helped translate in church! That’s pretty tough. We have a couple people in the branch who can’t speak Spanish, so we translate for them over headphones. It’s hard to translate, but I think I did a pretty good job relatively speaking. I got all of the main points pretty well. Everyone was sad to see me go, but they are excited to get the guy who is replacing me too. He is Peruvian, so there are a few people that will really love him! Should be pretty cool. After church we went to see Carmen, the Peruvian lady who fed us once a week, one more time. She fed us a ton again. Soooo much food, hahaha. She was our prep for eating the Monster Burger. Then we ran to visit as many people as we could. The Zone leaders let us borrow their car until 6:45, so that helped a lot. We visited a couple of the families and then we went to visit a less active and part member family who happened to be having a bbq when we came by and made sure that we at least ate a little bit, so more food on an already full stomach. Then we went to Yalema's house to say goodbye to her and her family. I talked to her dad about her getting baptized. I just said that Yalema had told us she wanted to get baptized and asked him when we were going to do that. He kind of laughed, but then just said he wanted to make sure that she really knew what she was doing. We told him that there are only 2 more lessons and an interview and she will be ready, and he said ok. So, Yalema should be getting baptized next month. It took some work, but we made it. I don’t think her family will be very far behind. So that is good news. Now, after that we had to meet with the ZLs again to give them their car so they could drop us off at dinner and go to some appointments. Yes, dinner. Meal number 3 in a 5-hour span. Another large meal too. It was a big eating day to say the least. Thank goodness all of it was super good, otherwise I would have died, hahaha. After that the ZLs picked us up and we went home so I could pack, which I did until about 12:00. It was a long day.

Transfers in Fallon are something like this: You are told to be at the Taylor building Monday morning at 8:30 when the transfer van/caravan rolls in. At about 9:15 when the caravan actually gets there (it is ALWAYS late), you give hugs to everyone who came down from Reno that you haven't seen for a while. Then you chill for about 20 mins with everyone until you get everything loaded up and everyone out of the bathrooms. After that everyone hops in where they are supposed to and the caravan heads on out. There is the big transfer van and usually between 3-5 cars in the caravan. I was in one of the cars with some elders that I like, thank goodness. The van is not comfortable. The backseat of the Corrola is bad enough, but the van is worse. So, so far, I've never had to ride in the van. You then proceed to drive down to Hawthorne where you briefly stop to use the bathrooms. From there the next stop is Tonapah, then to Beatty, and finally to Vegas. Since we drive extra slow in the Caravan, we arrived at about 5:00. It’s a loooooong ride. Normally its only about 6 hours from what I hear. For the Caravan it’s a little over 7. Longer if you are doing the full Vegas to Reno. Crazy day. When you get to Vegas there are just tons of missionaries running around everywhere. It’s pretty nuts. The parking lot at the office is just insane for about an hour. It’s pretty fun. It was nice to see a couple of Elders that I hadn't seen in a while again. Then on Tuesday, we go back to the madness in the morning to see off all of the elders that are leaving to go north...for example the elder that I replaced here. It’s a good time.

Now I’m in Flamingo Ward – actually, flamingo West. There are 2 companionships in the Ward. We cover the west half of the ward. My new companion is Elder Miller, who is the district leader (DL). He is from Colorado. I hadn't met him before. There are a lot of people down here that I've never met before, hahaha. Vegas is pretty different from the North when it comes to missionaries’ opportunities to see each other. Elder Miller has been out 2-3 more transfers than me. Something like that. Cool guy. Great rep in the mission. I think it should be pretty fun.