Howdy y'all!

 

I received my new companion Tuesday and I was about as excited as receiving a package from friends or family. His name is Elder Hong (half Chinese) from Blackfoot, Idaho so he knows how to work hard. This week he has already proven to be quite the inspired leader and we have had an abundant amount of success.

 

One reason I thought I would be transferred is because the zone had one single baptismal date. This week we have 15 throughout the stake that are mostly solid. So already we are getting back on track.

 

Monday night went well, Elder Davis and I taught our last lesson together to a young man named Anthony who would like to be baptized but his mom is currently putting the ax on that decision. We made a few visits to Summer Fox and family and Bishop Thomas before wrapping up the evening. 

Tuesday was transfer meeting and I think President was doing his best to avoid the fact that it was his last one. It lasted a couple of hours with some instruction from President and many departing missionaries as well as several companionship's getting changed up in the mission. I was excited to see who would be trusted in leadership when the new President gets installed in a few weeks. Should be interesting.

Elder Hong and I then got back to Allen, got some In-n'-out, helped out a few of the new missionaries then went out knocking. We were feeling one particular complex and a certain building so we went to work. We passed by one door and a few minutes later Elder Hong said "we need to knock 821." So we went back down but I left out the detail of telling Elder Hong that behind door #821 resided a Do Not Contact family. We knocked anyway and got in and spoke with the father who wants to get back into the church but is struggling because his wife was somewhat offended over something a while ago.

Another miracle was getting into the home again of the couple Elder Hall and I found during the ice storm. It had been about 3 months and she had her baby in May (the 17th to be exact, cousin Brad.)

 

Wednesday we met with Michael who is determined to quite smoking and be baptized this coming Saturday. We redid our calendar with him and made sure he understood just how quickly the baptism was coming. We had a few more unique moments, for example, when I asked how his reading in the Book of Mormon was coming along he responded in a similar way from last week "Terrible! I only am able to get in 20 minutes a day. I don't want to put it down."

Elder Hong continued his wave of inspiration by choosing a street to knock that I didn't recognize at first which was odd because the 5th ward is tiny and I have been here forever. I finally figured out why my memory was clouded because we had already knocked that street 5 months prior. Oddly enough, we started knocking it again and getting the same results. Nothing! Until...(once again I didn't inform Elder Hong that we were about to knock on a door of a part member family that I have been trying to get into for several months) we knocked and got in for an hour. It was another strange coincidence where they just happened to be home in the afternoon.

 

Thursday was toe chopping day. I had my ingrown toe nail removed which threw my grove off for a few hours. We did have a lesson right after the 'nail surgery' which we went to and had a great meeting. It was the lady we taught on Monday morning last week who wants to be baptized but her current living situation doesn't allow it.

Another big highlight was eating lunch with Elder Hall, his family and Summer Fox. It was an awesome reunion. His stake president released him over the phone so he was back to normal (however not adjusted) and when we parted ways we both laughed and said "see you in a couple months."

 

Friday we had a zone council with the new and improved Allen zone. It was powerful I believe because each Elder was assigned a Christlike attribute to train on and it was very well thought out. I got sick of the standard 'stand up in front train' format so we got in a circle and had a pow wow to make it more friendly and open. That day we also set another baptismal date with a lady named Katrine from Nigeria. Should be good.

 

Saturday we set a date with a young single adult named Tony who had been attending church in Plano for a couple months. Get this, it was Elder Hong's last area so he had already taught him before. We got the referral and it was funny how it all worked out.

 

Sunday was an incredible day. We had all our people who committed to church, come. Vivian who wants to be baptized came to church with a broken knee cap. Anthony snuck out of his home so he could attend the branch. Tony was picked up by a cute YSA girl (no more comment will be made) and Mike came with his granddaughter Alexis who ran to her teacher and gave her a giant hug during sacrament. Dina also taught gospel principles and nailed right on the head what our investigators needed.

 

Sure do Love y'all

Elder Metcalf