My Second Week in Tolleson‏

Dear family and friends,

 

      It feels like forever since I last e-mailed you. Well his week seemed to go by slowly. We had zone conference last Wednesday. You know you've been out on the mission for a long time when you know a bunch of different missionaries from each of the different zones. I miss South Phoenix a lot. Several of the missionaries there said they missed me and that the zone keeps forgetting that I got transferred. I loved zone conference and got a lot of neat insights from it. I received a large package from Grandma and Grandpa Boothe which I am very grateful for. I always love surprises like that. 

 

       The work here moves by slowly. We had two investigators with baptismal dates at the beginning of the week and now we don't. One of them flaked out on us right before church started and the other one came across some anti- material. However one of our bishops gave us a solid referral and we found a part-member family who lives by some active members so there are bright and promising aspects in the future. Surpisingly enough I'm not down or discouraged about all of this. I think the concept of the role agency plays in our work finally stuck with me this time around. We're still struggling to get people to church though which is frustrating.

 

        The weather here is GORGEOUS! It's been in the 80-90's recently. I'm just hoping that this weather lasts as long as it should. Elder Wood had two of his wisdom teeth removed on Thursday. He already had 2 out of 4 wisdom teeth removed before he came out but the doctor ok'd his other two. Well he learned that his 2 wisdom teeth were what caused his massive earache so he had them removed. Fortunately the doctor didn't put him under so Elder Wood could drive home just fine. Elder Wood slept for the rest of the day which means that I was stuck with nothing to do. We basically had three days last week where we didn't work very much (p-day, zone conference day plus Thursday). I know the Lord will bless us as we continue to do our best and as we continue to live our purpose we will find elect souls to teach and baptize.

 

        Still struggling with Elder Wood. Things are going a little better. Lots of prayers needed.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

 

(P.S. I hit 19 months on Sunday! I only have three transfers after this and we're starting week 3 of this transfer. I still feel like I've been out a while)

Transferred to a Graveyard

Dear family and friends,

 

         As of Wednesday I am now serving on the border between two cities known as Tolleson and Avondale. This area, like my third area, is a big geographical mess. I live in Tolleson but do most of my work in Avondale. The city of Phoenix is close to where I work but not close enough. I got transferred to a car area so now I have AC. YAY! However, I do hope that I don't gain weight now that I'm not on a bike as much. When I was in South Phoenix I heard from all the other missionaries that the scale we used wasn't accurate. I weighed myself on a different scale here and it said I weigh 183 pounds! BOOO! Guess I haven't lost as much weight as I thought I did. I live in consecrated housing which is nice. Get this: I live with the Archuleta's! Sadly enough they are not related to David. Yes that was the first question I asked them when I found out that was their name. Brother Archuleta's cool though! He does our laundry, if we don't do it and he's currently a stay-at-home dad since he lost his job. His wife works all-day as a nurse. He don't see her often. They have an older son living with them who reminds me of a quiet Kevin Escobar. For those of you who know Kevin Escobar use your imagination on what this guy is like. It will be a very accurate picture. 

 

         For the first time in my mission I'm the senior companion! My companion has only been out for 5 months. His name is Elder Wood. He's from Logan, Utah just like Elder Buttars, except Elder Wood does not know who Elder Buttars is. I am his second companion. He just got done "killing off" his trainer. I'm his second companion. We have very little in common. This could be a very long transfer. This area has a bunch of potential, especially since there's a lot of part-member families. Those have traditionally been a reliable source of baptisms for me. Hee Hee Hee! 

 

          The members here are PHENOMENAL! Yesterday this one sister gave us a giant cooler full of food. We have a very small space to put our food in the Archuleta fridge so space is an actual issue in this area. This sister  gave us enough food to last us the entire transfer! That's amazing! Plus when we had dinner with another member family they gave us a big portion of the left overs of the 5 Cosco pizzas that they fed us. HOLY COW! I never remember Cosco pizza tasting so good before. WOW! The stake president in the West Maricopa stake (I am in the West Maricopa zone) decided to buck the dinner policy so we eat in members homes almost every day. This provides lots of opportunities to build trust with members. It also means that I won't have to shop for food for a while. YAY! I now have to get used to having two wards to serve in again. Being in the South Mountain ward threw me out of the loop. Now I'm getting back to having 5 hours of church on Sunday again. 

 

            I'm glad to hear that all is well with you. 

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

 

P.S. One of the bishops told me that this area is a "missionary graveyard" meaning that this area is usually the last area for most missionaries before they go home. Oh joy. I wonder if I'll keep that trend going.

A New Adventure

Dear family and friends,

 

        My Mother's Day call rocked! I loved talking to Ryan, Garit, Dad, Becca and Lorena. It was a breath of fresh air. A lot of this e-mail may be stuff I told them in my call already so please bear with me if this is old news to you. 

 

        As many of you have heard I am being transferred after 6 1/2 months of being in this area. My companion, Elder Buttars, is training a new missionary so I gotta go. Yesterday we went to the trainer's meeting so I got to see all the missionaries who are going to be training for these next two transfers. Most of the missionaries in there were in their last two transfers, which is why President Taylor assigned them as trainers since the new training program is for two transfers. I'm not surprised that I'm getting transferred and neither was Elder Buttars. I've been in my area for a while now and I feel like I did the work that I came here to do. 7 baptisms in 6 1/2 months. No complaints here. After the meeting we were waiting for our ride, who was dropping off Elder Catlett off at the mission home. In order to save some time President Taylor gave us a ride to the mission home. It was cool riding with President Taylor! He asked me where I wanted to go and he teased me by saying he'd give me transfer news early. I knew he was joking but I wanted to see if he'd really do it. Well I guess I'll find out tomorrow. I'll be able to e-mail my new address to you all so you'll find out soon. 

 

         Right before I wrote this e-mail I helped my zone leader, Elder Pierson, move most of our zone into their new apartments. What happened is that whenever missionaries live in members homes the members sign a 2 year contract and when that 2 year contract is up the missionaries have to pack up and move somewhere else. Well President Taylor decided to rearrange almost the entire zone (we moved 4 companionships and there was another companionship that moved as well without our help) and told them to move on p-day. The zone leaders are in charge of helping missionaries move in to their new places but since one of our zone leaders went home because his 2 years were up guess who had to tag along with our one zone leader? Yours truly. Elder Buttars and I were not happy about helping most of our zone move on p-day but we were surprised at how quickly the moves were taken care of. We still have most of our p-day and one of the members that helped us move is buying us all food. Guess that's not so bad right?

 

          As I've already explained before we found a snake in our apartment. I remember taking a nap and seeing something wriggling around and thinking it was a giant worm. I told Elder Buttars to come see this huge worm and he identified it as a snake. I quickly pinned down the critter with a baseball bat and then Elder Buttars put a tupperware container over it. We eventually let it go. It still makes a cool story though. 

 

           Well that's all for now.

 

Love you guys a lot,

 

Elder Boothe

A Scorpion and an Awesome P-Day

Dear family and friends,

 

         I cannot wait for Mother's Day! I'm so excited to call you guys! Mother's Day is on Sunday and I'll probably be calling anywhere from 2:30 - 4:00 p.m. Elder Catlett, one of the missionaries I live with and one of my zone leaders, is going home at the end of transfers, which will be next week. He has eight more days of his mission left. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Elder Catlett's one of the coolest missionaries I've ever gotten to know. It'll be so sad for him to leave! 

 

        For the first time on my mission President Taylor had us come in after 6 on Cinco de Mayo. That's a smart idea considering that I'm living in an area with a large Hispanic population. One random Hispanic guy talked to us from his truck and even suggested getting off the street by evening because of all the "festive activities" that go on during Cinco de Mayo. Elder Buttars (a.k.a Elder Montequillas) and I decided to celebrate. Elder Buttars made nachos and I bought two Little Caesar's pizzas: One for me and one for everybody else. That night one of our zone leaders found a scorpion in their bathroom. Scorpions are pretty stupid so they put it in a bowl thinking that since the scorpion couldn't get out (scorpions can't crawl like spiders can) it would just commit suicide since scorpions do stuff like that. This scorpion turned out to be smarter than the average ones I've been hearing about because it just waited inside the bowl until Elder Catlett accidently knocked the bowl over setting the scorpion free. Elder Catlett stabbed it with a fork so it's dead but a freed scorpion had us freaked out. 

 

         So the talks Elder Buttars and I gave in sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago must have made a bigger impact than we thought because one of the members gave us a referral. This is a solid referral too bytheway who came to church, already had a Book of Mormon and is very excited to meet with us! You know that you're doing well when the members trust you. Elder Buttars and I were very happy at that prospect. Another way we've been gaining trust is by helping the ward visit "unidentify members". They're literally members on the records that the ward has no idea who they are or if they even live there. Every time we report back the auxiliaries just love us for it and we gain even more trust with the members. One of the people on that list set up a return appointment with us. She cancelled the appointment but she left us cookies on her doorstep along with a typed letter that said "I apologize profusely for cancelling". Kudos to her! She's the best appointment canceller I've come across on the mission. 

 

       The weather this week was pretty good, which impressed me. My Camelbak weighs a ton but it makes all the difference in the world when you don't have to worry about water or about overheating. I already look like a dark-skinned Lamanite and summer's barely starting. Since this is Elder Catlett's last p-day he's treating us out to this Mexican place called Rubio's and since our zone broke it's record for numbers of baptisms during April someone from the mission office is coming down with a caravan load of pies. Plus we're playing volleyball today instead of basketball. Did I mention that this p-day was going to be awesome? Well it is. 

 

          Anyway I look forward to Mother's Day!

 

          Love,

 

           Elder Boothe