First Oregon Letter

July 29, 2013

So this has been a pretty long week since last time I wrote.  I sang in church on Sunday at the MTC as a district we sang I am a child of God, it was still pretty good despite my voice sister Mecham was a wonderful pianist. Then Monday and Tuesday were packing days and final class days. Wednesday I woke up at 3:45 our alarms were suppose to go off at 3 but somehow all three decided not to work so we rushed to finish packing and cleaning within the space of an hour.  We made it though and were out waiting for the bus at 4:15, little did we know that we would be waiting there for another hour, as some missionaries at the main campus were late but we made it to the airport and on to the plane. We arrived in Portland at 9 am and met the mission president, his wife and the two AP's Elder Covey and Elder Buhler. There were a lot of hugs and then we loaded all 25 people into three vans complete with luggage. It was a tight squeeze and then they told us for the first day, we were going to go on an adventure and we were off. After driving for what seemed like forever from my cramped seat at the back of the van we pulled into the parking lot of the Portland temple. It was so pretty and we got there just in time because it was going to close for a couple weeks the next day. While we weren’t able to do a session we walked around and took many pictures. Inside the temple there is an atrium as a waiting area. It was really nice to go in there and just sit and feel the spirit.  After we went to the mission home for lunch and then on another two hour drive to another surprise place, which turned out to be the coast Cape Kiwanda. We had a little devotional type thing on the beach looking out at haystack rock it was an incredible spiritual experience President Samuelian really should be an inspirational speaker. Though I bet we looked pretty funny a whole group of people in suits and church clothes just sitting on the beach. Then we went to dinner at the church in Newberg another long drive with much needed napping time. Once there we were greeted by all the missionaries who were going to train us we ate dinner and then had interviews with the mission president.  I was the last one for the night so mine was really brief. Then I was taken to a members home for the night with another missionary who I didn't know. He accidently broke the bed he was sleeping in. The next morning we met at the church to be assigned our trainers it felt like Christmas with all the suspense, I was in after a big meeting on rules the time finally came for companions to be assigned. He started with the sisters and then the Elders and after about an hour of watching people get assigned my suspense grew until the last trainer was called up an elder Johnson he wasn't there the night before so I had yet to meet him, and then I heard my name called. I went up and they told me that elder Johnson and I were companions and that we were going to serve in the ward farthest away from the mission home, the biggest small town ever called Burns.  Later I found out it was an eight hour drive, after some adventure driving to Bend first with the zls we discovered that we weren’t going to make it to Burns until super late so we spent the night at the zls.  The next morning we were off for Burns and then an hour into our drive the zls called and they had left their keys in our truck. Burns is an all car area we have a nice big red truck, so we had to turn around and go back to bend, then we were on our way again.  I felt like we were never going to make it to Burns. I'm in charge of the phone I never thought I would be texting so much on my mission. Late Friday morning we made it into Burns, Elder Johnson is great he is from Pleasant Grove Ut he has about 3 months left on his mission.  We get along great oh and for those of you who would get this, my first meal outside the mission home area was Panda Express. We arrived and the goal for that day was to meet all the ward members. I shook so many hands, the ward mission leader is a cop and his brother is the bishop and his other brother is the first counselor. We then went to the Harrisons and taught their daughter Morgan about prophets and then we set up her baptism program, it was a really good lesson, jk she was all ready being baptized  on Sunday so Sunday came and after my being iniated in to the ward by saying every opening prayer for every meeting, we had her baptism and confirmation. They even had me stand in the picture despite my teaching her only a part of one lesson, and then I stood in at her confirmation and elder Johnson gave her the HG. after which we raided the former couple missionaries fridge for lunch and then tried to visit families all of which weren't home, needless to say I all ready have quite a few stories. We had dinner at the bishops house as well as desert, he owns DQ in burns so we had DQ Ice cream with homemade apple pie. We then had homemade ice cream at the Harrison’s. I came home sooo sick of Ice cream despite it being so good. To describe Burns I don’t really know if I can Google earth it or something and you'll understand what it’s like in Burns. Since I can't print things I would appreciate letters more than emails, that way I can read things more than once and can have more time to write about everything going on, by the way for those of you wanting to write me and that should be all of you the address you should send things to is the mission home. 

Oregon Salem Mission Office

700N Deborah road STE 260

Newberg OR 97132-2196

ps. the home strongly suggest you send things priority mail usps as they then forward it to my actual address that way I don't have to keep sending a new address and have things go to the wrong place