March 27, 2011

March 30, 2011 - Week 2 of Transfer 10

Hello family!

This week has been tiring yet great. I love Elder Atwood, I am so glad we are companions. We have basically tore everything down and rebuilt everything this past week. We started with the barn. It has been a temporary housing location for the mission for the past few years. So whenever a companionship is looking for a new place to live in the stakes they live at the "barn" for a few weeks till a new place is found. And because of that, the place was a disaster. We moved things around, threw out five huge garbage bags and a couple boxes of junk. It took some of our mornings before studies and free time at night but after sometime it now looks like the celestial room in the temple! That was step one. Cleanse the inner vessel before the outer vessel right!

After that step we took a look at our area books. They were a disaster and so we completely redid them. It took forever and was painful working on them but it is was worth it. We are starting to feel organized now and have a better idea of whats going on. It is hard to describe how disorganized everything was. There was no zone book, no records of the zone or anything! Elder Atwood went from being our district leader in draper temple zone to a zone leader in this zone and was here for one transfer with Elder Ame's (who's the new assistant). So he just rode it out with Elder Ame's but now we are stepping it up.

Do you remember telling me about Steven Harper from our stake who got called to our mission, well he is in our zone! That's three Canadians. He is being trained by Elder Helvig and doing good. We have alot to work on with our zone, things are pretty bad. The district leaders aren't stepping up and there are times where we end up having to do their calling. District Leaders show up to DLC (district leader council) without their numbers or anything to report! Its crazy but give it some time.

Things are starting to pick up in our area. We have had a few miracles happen this past week. We picked up a new investigator on Monday and should be picking up two more this Thursday. We are speaking in basically every ward, looking at two talks a week. This past Sunday we spoke in front of a general authority it was pretty scary. He was way nice though, Elder Mervyn B. Arnold from the first quorum of the seventy, he spoke at October conference. Gave the talk about the cows and the fence. He sat right behind us as we spoke... After the sacrament meeting we were meeting people in the congregation and he came up to us and threw his arm around us and said, "Elders I wish you could serve in my home ward", then shook our hands and took off.

On Sunday we had dinner with a family who invited there less active daughter and her boyfriend, who is not a member. During the message we shared their daughter was completely involved and sharing her testimony! Before we left we had a moment in the kitchen with her boyfriend and asked if would like to meet with us, he gave us a solid no but in a very nice way. We left the house but I forgot my camera there so we came back in an hour, after a few visits, to pick it up. We walked in the door and the boyfriend answered and said, "can we meet this Thursday?" Elder Atwood and I were completely confused because he just told us no, but we whipped out our planners and set up an appointment. After we left the family asked if he would like to meet with us and he said yes! It just proves the fact that when members invite missionary work goes forward. Two random people in suits with name tags means nothing but when a friend invites it means the world! So we will be meeting with him tomorrow!

That is basically our week... I forgot to mention Monday morning we got in an accident. We were coming back from the stake center at 7:15 am, after working out, and a lady rear ended us pretty good. The car is in the auto body shop and we are driving a truck for the time being. It turns out she is a active member in one of our stakes and we are teaching her brother in law, who is polygamist! So we had a good laugh but she felt terrible. We were OK other than some stiff necks the next day. Well that's that. The next couple of months should be great with Elder Atwood I am excited. Thanks for fasting for us on Sunday! We actually had some several great things happen that day. I am crazy excited for conference! I am going to the Priesthood session, I can't believe I will get to go 3 out of 4 times on my mission, I am truly grateful. I hope all goes well at home this next week, WATCH CONFERENCE, and keep going with the work outs. I am impressed!

Love your boy, Elder Pizzey

PS sorry if this email wasn't the greatest or didn't make sense. I wrote it between games while playing in a basketball tournament at the Taylorsville Institute.