Monday, July 22, 2013

July 22, 2013 Pocatello

Hey Mom and Dad!

 Ok, so on Tuesday I arrived in Pocatello with about 40 other new missionaries.  12 of them were visa waiters to either Brazil or Argentina. Crazy! And next transfer the mission is going to get about 40 more.  My mission president is President Brinkerhoff.  He and his wife are really really cool and super nice.  My new companion's name is Elder Vigil (pernounced v-hill).  He is from Kansas and is a really good trainer.  He's super outgoing which is good because I was pretty nervous just talking to people for the first couple days.  I'm working on that though.  We are assigned two Pocatello Young Single Adult wards.  It's so sweet.  We were white washed into this new area that was litterally created last Tuesday because of how many new missionaries came to Pocatello.  We opened the Area Book and there were no baptisms, progressing investigators, or even any potential investigators!  We had nothing, so we just headed out to our area to knock some doors to hopefully meet a few people.  Right now we don't have a house either so we are living in the basement of the APs house which is super nice except we are about 2 and a half miles from one ward and about 4 miles from the other and there's about 3 miles between those wards.  Oh and we don't have a car.  It's way fun though.  The first night we walked for a solid 4 hours.  We have been getting some serious miles in since then as well.  Last week since we didn't really have any food. Just a ton of cereal.  Between the two of us we have eaten 7 boxes of cereal in 5 days.  That much fiber in your system is not good.  Yesterday we had to make an emergency stop for Elder Vigil to use the bathroom at a members apartment.  If it's bad in Idaho, I don't know what it'll be like in Brazil. 

We have taught 3 lessons so far.  They have all been to members and less actives.  We have been working hard with the ward mission leaders and have been texting people like crazy trying to get appointments with them and their less active/non-member friends.  We already have 10 appointments set up for this week and we will set up lots more for sure.  Pocatello has a lot of less active work to be done.  In our steak there is about 3000 members and less than a 1000 are active.  There's usually about a 50% chance that any person you meet is member.  A couple days ago, Elder Vigil and I were meeting with Reese, the ward mission leader.  There were a couple people in his apartment watching tv while he was giving us names of less actives to visit.  He was just going down his list and got to a girl's name and he was like, "Kristen Hueser? Hueser? I don't know how to say her name but she's a good one to visit. She's pretty less active."  A girl on the couch says, "Um, Hey. That's me. I'm right here..."  I had my back turned to her and was laughing so so hard.  It was incredibly awkward and Reese couldn't say anything. 

We taught a less active member on Sunday.  He's had a hard life so far and is really just trying to get everything together.  His whole family was there and they are all strong members.  We taught about the atonement and his family all shared testimonies about the effect it had on their lives.  He said he would come to church next week.  Elder Vigil and I are the speaker for sacrement so hopefully it's a good experience and we can find some fellowshipppers. 

My address is the mission offices.

1246 Yellowstone Ave. F3
Pocatello, ID 83201

Letters would probably be just as good as dear elders and if you could send a side bag that'd be great because President Brinkerhoff is trying to phase those in asap.

I love you and I glad everyone is having such a fun summer.

Elder Marsh

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