Surprise

The week of one very unexpected surprise.

 

Friday afternoon Elder Thomas and I were informed that we would be getting...A visa waiter!  Elder Witherell from Rangely, Colorado has joined our companionship to make a wonderful trio.  Hey has quite the story and has plenty of experience.  He was in the MTC for 12 weeks due to a knee surgery on his meniscus.  He has since recovered, and in fact we took a good 1 1/2 mile hike this morning up Camelback mountain.  It was a pretty short hike, but very steep.  At the top we were greeted by a few overly enthusiastic girls from Mesa.  They saw our tags and wanted to take a picture with "The Elders".  We (Elder Witherell, Elder Thomas and I) had a wonderful time hiking up and enjoyed the view.  I took pictures this time, I just don't have them yet.

 

Well back to Elder Witherell.  He is one amazing missionary, and a convert to the church.  It is really cool to see where our efforts can be in a few years.  I'm sure the missionaries who taught him never imagined that he would be serving a mission and helping so many people.  We've been so blessed with his maturity and understanding of the other side of missionary work.  His input on how we can better teach is very valuable.  That has been a really cool experience to work with him.  His family is very supportive which is so wonderful.  I can't imagine having to go on a mission and not have family support.

 

In other news we have a baptism this weekend.  She is a lady in her late 20's and very cool.  Her grandparents are the greeters at our ward building.  We've really enjoyed getting to know her and teach her.  when we taught her that smoking is one the things we've been asked not to do, she immediately quit. She had the support of her grandparents who both over came smoking before they were baptized.

 

I have seen so many miracles this past week as we are really trying to double our faith.  It might be a little bit of an advantage now that we have another missionary.  That's like having 50% increase in faith!  Now we just need another Elder and we'll be good.

 

It is really a strange experience now that I'm older than two missionaries combined.  That has never happened to me before.  I've become the 'old' missionary and there's nothing I can do about it.  I've been trying to focus on just being a good example of how to follow the direction of the mission president and stay focused.

 

We had a really cool experience this past Sunday over the weekend.  We were out and about contacting some names on an ward list.  The temperature was sitting just about 3 under or over 100 degrees.  We drove into an apartment complex and saw a big moving van.  As we have learned moving vans generally mean great opportunities to serve.  We approached the lone mover and asked if we could help.  He responded that it wasn't necessary.  Through further observation and questioning we discovered that the older couple were members of the church, lived on the second floor, and had been moving since 7:00 am (it was about 4pm at the time).  Without any further permission we walked up to the boxes he was trying to control down the ramp and picked them up, taking them to the elevator.  We worked for about an hour and it was so cool to see that we were in the right place at the right time. The Lord knew that one of our brothers was too shy to ask for help, and he sent 2 strong and one really strong (Elder Witherell) young men to finish the job.  I really enjoyed that.

 

The only other funny thing that happened this week is a little 10 year old who asked as we walked out someone's house if we had performed an exorcism?  It gave all of us a pretty good chuckle.  We were eating dinner at a young couples house made from an elk that was salvaged from a car accident they had.  Very good meat.  They also happened to be really big Top Gear fans.  Their bunnies were named Stig (all white) and Hammond ( I assume very small).

 

That about sums up the wonderful week we had.

 

I love you all and when it rains, always be grateful.  If you pour a water bottle out here in Arizona you can be charged with eroding the land and changing the landscape.

 

Love,

Elder Will Davidson