A Better Week

Dear family and friends, 

 

        This week went by better than last week. For starters we actually had investigators at church yesterday! Elder Hebert and I jumped up and down for joy singing Hallelujah! Okay we didn't really do that but you get the point. We've had a few more appointments which is so nice to have for a change. 

 

          Yesterday Elder Hebert, Brother Stewart (our ward mission leader) and I taught the third hour lesson. We've been preparing for it all month long and during coordination we even practiced all the role-play we wanted to do. Brother Stewart's wife didn't approve and after further thought and deliberation we cut it out of our lesson. At first the audience didn't participate but after I called our Relief Society president out people seemed to be more responsive. We all thought it went well after we did it. We even set up the ward mission plan in front of everyone. 

 

         One of our ward missionaries "made a confession" and told us that he felt bad about not doing his job so we put him to work immediately. We started by giving him our dinner calendar. By the end of church he had the whole month filled out. I was a happy missionary. The stake president signed up to eat with us for the end of the month! 

 

         So this is the last week of the transfer which means that next week's e-mail will come on Tuesday rather than Monday. Holy cow! Time flies fast if you know what I mean.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

Turtles, Wiccans and Dust Storms

Dear family and friends,

 

      This past week went slightly better than the previous one before it and this upcoming week looks promising. This past Thursday night we went on splits and we decided to make visits to our former investigators since we're trying new ideas on how to find people. Well we found a nice Wiccan girl and we found a family where the son said he literally wanted us to baptize him and that he'd recently spoke to his mother that morning about baptism. I thought it was awesome and we set up two return appointments with these individuals. The Wiccan girl isn't interested in "converting" but at least she wants to know more about our beliefs. I don't know how to deal with people like this because on the one hand you don't know if the Spirit will be working on them and they'll change, on the other hand they say they're not interested and as a missionary you always want to live your purpose at all times and find people who are interested. I talked it over with Elder Hebert and he thought it'd be better to work with her at the current level that she's at and give the Spirit a chance to work on her first. Besides we don't have anything better to do anyway since the number of our investigators dropped since the beginning of this transfer so what do we have to lose? We received a referral from the bishop of one of our wards for a lady who's undergoing about as many trials as Job did. I feel really bad for her but if these trials humble her and if they increase her receptivity to the gospel then at least they'll serve a purpose which in the long run will work to her advantage. We gave her a priesthood blessing and invited her to take the lessons. She accepted and we're meeting with her this Tuesday. 

 

        Two days prior to splits we met with this member named Brother Hoban, who struck me as a very interesting individual. He likes reptiles, as you can see from the pictures. He keeps horned toads, mosquito fish and he breeds turtles for the purpose of selling them. He even keeps an incubator. He showed us the turtle eggs and then explained that after the turtles hatch they have something like an ambilical cord that's attached to them and that they continue to derive nutrients from this cord for several weeks. The "ambilical cord" eventually shrinks and their bodies absorb it. Brother Hoban places the turtles in several different tanks of water after that based on how old the turtles are. He showed the mother turtle that laid all the eggs. According to Brother Hoban mama turtle "went to town" as he put it when she laid her eggs because she laid about 40 eggs within a period of several weeks. He then sells the turtles for about $20. That's not how he makes his living but it sure sounds like an interesting hobby.

 

        There was an habub (the Arabic word for dust storm) on Saturday as Elder Hebert and I rode our bikes on our way to a dinner appointment. The habub flew in our direction at a rapid pace but fortunately we were close to our dinner appointment by the time it blew over. We waited it out and ate chicken fettucine alfredo and the dust storm blew off after we ate. Dust storms always affect the weather long after they're blown. The temperature drops but they spike the humidity. After that dust storm the humidity in the air rose to about 30%, if not higher. It also rains both before and after a dust storm plus rapid moving winds always accompany habubs. So Elder Hebert and I rode in rainy, humid, windy weather on Saturday evening and we decided to ride as fast as we possibly could and when we arrived home we both felt like we jumped in a swimming pool. We were exhausted and I felt like I sweated off several gallons that day.

 

Well that's about it. Hopefully by the next e-mail we'll have several investigators with baptismal dates.

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Boothe

How Brother Hoban's horned toads deal with their prey

Multiple horned toads

Brother Hoban's 1 year old turtles

Some older turtles inside a tank full of water

This is what a habub looks like. They move really fast.

 Taken 10 minutes later inside a member's house

Sweating Buckets

Dear family and friends,

 

            When you don't have a whole lot going on in your area there's not a whole lot to say. On Tuesday the rumors that the church burned down because of arson were confirmed by the investigators (not mine since I really don't have many) and the cops and there's a $10,000 reward that goes to anyone that catches the person who did it. 

 

             The weather sure has been interesting lately. Since Elder Hebert and I were about 89 miles at the start of this week over what we should have been we decided to ride bikes all day for a couple of days and save up miles. I could have sworn I sweated off 5 pounds. I like feeling like I'm losing weight even though I don't like the feeling of being drenched in sweat. Of course these were during the hotter days of the week. Once the week progressed we were blessed with several days of rain. On Saturday it was pouring cats and dogs in the afternoon! We did not ride bikes in that weather. See that's the weird part about Arizona: You celebrate when you see a cloudy day and you groan when it's sunny. This is the exact opposite of how I would have reacted if I were in Modesto, or in Utah. The temperature's dropped but it made up with an increase in humidity. Some people complain but personally I would prefer upper 80's - mid 90's with extra humidity over 110 degrees with no humidity. That's just me though. Elder Hebert's from North Carolina and he does not like humidity so he would prefer high degrees of dry heat. Needless to say cars are awesome because they shield you from the elements. On Sunday there were a couple of dust storms that occurred in the area where I live. As we rode back from church we rode straight toward the dust storm. I thought it was pretty cool.

 

              Speaking of church Elder Hebert and I taught the EQ lesson. It was on sharing the gospel effectively of course. We got a fairly average amount of participation. They're quite a non-responsive group. On the 5th Sunday of this month we (Elder Hebert and I) along with our ward mission leader, Brother Stewart, are teaching the combined Priesthood/Relief Society lesson on whatever we want. We're trying to make this GOOD! 

 

          At least we're getting a bunch of refferals though. One of them came from one of our bishops. However, most of these people are never home. So that means we have to try again. We still need prayers for our area to improve.

 

Love,

Elder Boothe

Root Beer and Interviews

Dear family and friends,

 

           This week went by pretty slow. President Taylor pushed up interviews three weeks in advance and gave us only one day's notice. Interviews were awesome though! In honor of pioneer day coming up this month Sister Taylor had us watch 17 Miracles. MAN THAT MOVIE IS AWESOME!I love the music in it and it's also very well done. The stories of the pioneers is very inspirational to me. Their stories of courage and sacrifice bring a humbling and awe-inspiring perspective and they don't get old. I was balling at certain parts in the movie, especially when Levi Savage came home at the end and saw his kid after like 5 years I think it was. I wasn't the only one tearing up either. 17 Miracles came out last summer while I was in North Glendale, or so I've been told. I definitely have to own that movie when a certain time comes around... 

 

              We actually worked for most of the Fourth of July which surprised me because last time we had to be in all day the 4th of July. We got home by 6 pm and since we didn't have a dinner appointment the Archuleta's bought 3 Little Caesar's pizzas along with Root Beer and we celebrated. 

 

              Both of our wards meet in different buildings so getting rides is a little bit of a hassle. Elder Grasley, our district leader, came up with a few ideas to help us find people more effectively. They're pretty good ideas and we've been working on them. I could sure use some prayers right now. 

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe

Transfers, Burned Church, New Comp

Dear family and friends,

       Right after I finished my last e-mail I received transfer news: ELDER WOOD GOT TRANSFERRED! After one transfer (6 weeks) of staying in this area I get to take it over! I didn't see that coming but I figured Elder Wood wouldn't be my last companion. He and I didn't really get along which was a bummer. My new companion is Elder Hebert. His name is pronounced "a-bear" (a as in plate). The way he explains it to people is "there's a bear over there". So far I'm one of the few people who can actually pronounce it right. Elder Hebert is from Highpoint North Carolina and he's been out for almost a year now. The funny thing is that I remember seeing him when he was a brand new missionary. I was in my third area, North Glendale, when he came in. Elder Hebert is the oldest of three boys (and his first name is Ryan which I thought was pretty cool) and he likes music. He can play the piano, the guitar and the cello. We listen to his iPod either in the car or on his iPod base which I think is uber-sweet! I'm impressed with his taste of music! We both like the same kinds of music so I think life is going to be awesome! This is Elder Hebert's fourth area already and I'm his fifth companion, he's my eighth. I was so glad to learn that he wasn't from Utah. Half of my companions came from Utah. I also realized that half of my companions have been with me for 1 transfer or less. I get the feeling that Elder Hebert's going to be my last companion.

           It's official. Our area's dead. We have no investigators. Right now we're spending all our time finding. We both have been through a brain-storming session on how to get investigators. To make matters worse the previous missionaries did a pathetic job of keeping records. They drop investigators without telling us why. We tried stopping by a former investigator last night and the person didn't live at the listed address. Instead it was a member of the church who told us that the dropped investigator legitimately had mental issues. That would've been good to know. The member told us that the bishop's specifically said that nobody should visit this person. Hooray for unkept records!

           Our ward mission leader gave us a call Friday morning asking us if we'd heard the news. We don't watch the news so naturally we don't know what's going on. He told the news: OUR CHURCH BUILDING BURNED DOWN!  

                Literally! The fire started in the chapel and two of the three bishop's offices in that building burned down. There were cops everywhere fencing everything around and there were news stations and reporters there. The roof collapsed and the insides were destroyed. There were investigators there (the first time I heard the word investigator and it didn't mean a person that the missionaries were teaching) and guys from the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms) squad were there too! There's speculation that it was a hate crime or that it was arsonry. However the investigation just started and the stake presidency asked us not to speculate. We're earning a lot of sympathy points from the neighbors around the community which is good. Our two wards yesterday met at two different buildings at the same time so me and Elder Hebert had to split off. We only did sacrament meeting in both wards. It felt strange. The burned building was mentioned in most of the testimonies borne. That building was dedicated by Spencer W. Kimball back in 1965. We received our new meeting times and both of our wards are meeting at different buildings at different times. We'll be at church from 11:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Basically all day at church plus since we get dinners with members you can guarantee that little work will be done on Sunday.

Well that's life from my end. I love you all very much and I am grateful for your love and support!

Love,

Elder Boothe

I tried to get a picture of the rubble. The cops fenced the building off and put tape around. They were very serious about not moving underneath that tape.

 The church building burned down. The roof collapsed and the inside's completely destroyed.

 Here's a picture of our zone. Again I am amazed at how thin I look. It's quite scary!

 Me and Elder Bartlett, the missionary I told everyone about in my last e-mail. I forgot to send this last week.

Me, Elder Bartlett and Elder Burrows all goofing around in their apartment.

Me and my MTC comp, Elder Pearson were both at transfer meeting. I recently acquired a pair of shades from one of my zone leaders who went home. Every time I look at a picture I'm shocked at how thin I look.

Isn't Elder Pearson so awesome?

Me and my new companion: Elder Hebert.