8 Months and Full Integration

Hey everyone,

So much has happened this week, it all seems like a blur so lets see if I can remember the highlights. We spent the majority of last Monday running around town, looking in Thrift shops and everywhere looking for some better work clothes, so I don't ruin the jacket I had for missionary work. Elder Miles also found some pretty fun stuff there, he seems to have a knack for finding stuff but I'll get into that later. That night a member took us out to Uncle Bucks, a local southern restaurant. It was so good. 

Elder Miles and I can't remember what we did on Tuesday and nothing important happened on Wednesday. Thursday was the really long day. If you haven't heard already, the church is integrating smart phones into missionary work instead of tablets. Since my mission never had tablets, we got to jump straight from old fashioned missionary work to working with these smart phones. We had Zone Conference on Thursday, which is when we got the phones that have been sitting in the mission office. We started with "opening remarks" from President and Sister Christiansen, which means they get up and dump a truck load of Spirit on us for about 2 hours. (I couldn't think of a more official way to phrase it but that is essentially what it feels like.) One thing that I really liked about their instruction this Conference was that they were focusing on the fact that we aren't going to change due to the technology, which they demonstrated by talking about it for the first 3 minutes then not mentioning it for the rest of the time. After their very powerful instruction, we started getting to work setting up our newest tool. A quick word on Facebook, Yes I have it again, don't know how active I'll be on it but feel free to add me, besides family I can't guarantee that I'll add you back. Also, don't expect me to keep up to date on everything happening with you because I won't be doing any scrolling. We've been challenged not to get on Facebook, or really use our phones, unless we have a specific reason for it. So if you want me to know something, please email me about it, because we aren't allowed to use Messenger for non-missionary reasons either. It may seem like a lot of rules but I agree with every one of them and know that they are only there too keep us all safe. Now back to your regularly scheduled program. 

After hours of training and setting things up, and being recognized for my birthday, I guess it being the first day of next transfer is close enough to celebrate it now, we were released back into the world, armed with truth, the Spirit, and hunger, usually hunger to go find those prepared for the gospel. It was rather humorous to see the missionaries that have been out for more than 6 months trying to handle smart phones, because none of them can, then I realized I'm one of them! I picked it up and had no clue what to do next!! The IT missionaries, yes we have missionaries assigned to help us make the phones work, had to walk all of us through how to set up the phones, set up the church monitoring service, and set up Facebook. It was so weird!! 

Then on Friday we did our weekly service project of helping our Relief Society President with rocks. She's been shoring up a stream that comes through her backyard every year from the surrounding mountains. She's trying to focus the stream so it doesn't make the ground constantly soggy. So far we've been making some great headway, mostly by moving rocks and gravel around to build a wall for the water to go through. But I know we still have a ways to go because the ground still feels like a sponge when we walk on it. Luray is set right in a valley between two national parks. Beautiful mountains. I got some pictures of the valley yesterday but my finger was in front the camera for most of them so I'll have to retake them when I go up there again, still trying to remember how to use this technology.

Saturday was a really interesting day as well. We decided to go find a less active family that we knew nothing about, that lived up in the boondocks. And when I say boondocks, I mean boondocks! about a half hour drive on country roads followed by a steep uphill dirt road, I was so glad to have our crossover, instead of the little compact cars most missionaries have because a little car like that wouldn't've been able to get onto that road, never mind drive up it. But we got up it and parked, and walked over to their cabin. They were all outside working and after talking to the parents for a few minutes, we put our bags down, took our jackets off, and went right to work. We ended up spending about 2 hours getting to know this family and helping them clear fallen trees, large branches, and tons of junk out of their backyard. They moved in fairly recently and that house hasn't been kept up in over 6 years so needless to say there is trash out the wazooh! This is where Elder Miles' talent for finding stuff comes in. We ended up finding 6 tires, a washing machine, a dryer, tons of old beer cans, about as many old whiskey bottles, one even still had liquid in it, old cooking pots, a transformer, lots of old toys, and an old brake disc. It was exciting. The family is really cool too, we have a little ways to go with them but there is a good foundation already in place.

 Yesterday was church, surprise surprise, and it was great as normal. All of the members here are so spiritual and wise! Elder Miles and I also quickly got drafted into the choir after it was discovered that we sing. I think I'm starting to find my traction here and dig in to what I need to be doing while I'm here. I love you all and if you ever have any questions please let me know, or if you can't get in contact with me directly, just ask my parents and they can relay it to me.

Have an amazing week, 

Elder Howell

A picture of the area, that group of buildings is Luray.

And a picture of Christ reaching out to the one in need, because we all need him and he knows exactly what we need and how to help us, if we let him.