"And...here...we..go!"

August 8, 2016

Hi guys!

Wow! We had a really intense week! So much has happened; A lot of positive, a bit of negative, and a whole lot of crazy!

To start with, we had a pretty good week for teaching, all things considered. Our week actually started out kinda bad, but we were able to keep it together and pull through. We didn't have as many lessons as last week, and we didn't get any new investigators, but we did do a lot of teaching, and we basically solidified our baptisms that will be happening on Saturday. Mona's kids are finally getting baptized! That's so exciting! I've been working with them for about 4 months now. So yeah, that'll be fun. As far as other investigators go, Reagan is still progressing very well. Maria is also progressing very well, and it's still looking like she'll hit her baptismal date of August 27th. And Reagan, Maria, and all of Mona's kids were at church too! Kini, the 10 year old we're teaching in the 5th Ward is also

progressing well, and she was also at church! She'll be baptized soon, on the 20th. Unfortunately, Remi didn't make it to church, and his dad still says he can't be baptized, so our hands are kind of tied there. Plus this weekend he's going back with his dad to Bakersfield, CA. We'll have to refer him to the Elders there. And Ryan's still hanging in there. I didn't hear if he was at church or not, but he likely was.

He's still having trouble accepting the Word of Wisdom, so we've backed off from it for a little while, and we'll revisit it with him at another time. This week we're trying to take him to the Temple Visitors Center. And I think that's most of our teaching pool at the moment. So yeah, for the most part everyone's doing pretty good!

Last week saw the implementation of a lot of new mission rules, that unfortunately nobody's really thrilled about. Some of them kind of make sense, but there's a couple that I think are a bit much. These rules were a product of the President, Assistants, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders. Unfortunately, some of those leaders tend to be a bit overzealous for rules, and also a little fake, so sometimes a good idea can turn into just a burden for everyone else in the mission. And that's kinda what happened with a couple of the rules. Of course, I'll still be obedient, though I am a little frustrated. And I guess we'll see how long some of those rules actually last. President may be just trying it out to see how it works. We also had several mission leaders replaced, so some new opinions and viewpoints might start to be considered. And that leads me to my next bit of news...

TRANSFERS! Transfers are on Tuesday, and we got our transfers calls on Saturday, and talk about a mission-wide upset! President Smith seems to have shuffled everything! A couple missionaries jokingly said "He's an agent of chaos!" Now, none of that chaos actually hit me. I'm actually staying in Snow Canyon as district leader, and I'm getting an Elder named Elder Cornelison. He's been in St. George for a while so I already know him. I like him a lot. So I'm excited. But the rest of the mission has been totally reworked. Loa is closed. Sunset 2 is combined with Sunset 1. St. George English has been moved to the St. George West Zone. St. George East is being whitewashed and moved into the St. George Central Zone. Washington Fields, which has been a sister area for as long as anyone can remember, is being whitewashed by Elders. Beaver is having the sisters taken out and being whitewashed by Elder White and his greenie...Elder White (two Elder Whites whitewashing an area, the ultimate transfer pun). And 4 out of the 10 ZLs have been replaced, along with several Sister Training Leaders and Visitor Center Trainers. And one of the new ZLs hasn't even been a DL first. And there are a lot of new missionaries coming in, so a lot of people are training. Most of the district leaders seem to be doing so. So a lot has changed! It's kinda cool. I think it'll be nice for the mission to shake things up a bit. But yeah, as for me, I'm staying put this transfer. But I'm pretty sure next transfer (in 6 weeks) I'll get moved and Elder Cornelison will take over the area.

So a lot has happened this past week. I'll miss Elder Fairbanks, who goes home on Wednesday, but I look forward to this new transfer with Elder Cornelison. It's going to be good. What matters most is that this IS the Lord's work, and no matter what happens, that's what we're doing.

Have a great week!

-Elder Oswald

PS- I got a visit from my old "dad" (trainer; first companion) on Saturday! It was so good to see him again!

A few pictures from Zone Meeting (St. George West Zone) on Friday.

Today we went with Elders Schweers and Doeling to Snow Canyon for a little hike and some spelunking. It was super fun, and it's a really pretty area. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting St. George.

Here's a couple more from our Snow Canyon hike. The first one is a rather entertaining panorama in which Elder Schweers appears to walk into a mystic portal and then appear in another part of the desert. The second one is actually from inside the Lava Tube that we went spelunking in. The sparkles in the cave wall are gold flecks.