today is 8 months

Which is one third of my mission. That's nuts. Very nuts. Peanuts.

This week was a little less eventful. We're slowly getting over the "we don't know anything" phase and getting into the "what on earth are we gonna do" phase.  The baseball player that came to church last week (Charles) didn't keep his appointment this week and when we stopped by later his "caretaker" (I'm not even sure what you would call it) said he was sleeping. When we stopped by the next day apparently he was sleeping again and she said he would call us, which is never a good thing to hear. I'm hoping it's all just coincidence and he's still good to go but who knows. 

We did some serious walking this week in Waverly cause it's pretty much where everyone we see lives and we needed to conserve miles. We found some new people but their level of solidness is still in the air. We're still tripping over ourselves at this point since hardly any of our scheduled appointments held. I know that's like standard missionary work stuff but it was worse than usual. 

Tuesday we had a Mission Conference in Richmond where we listened to Elder Symbrowsky (I think I spelled it right) talk about how we need to baptize, baptize, baptize. That was essentially the message of the whole thing. We've been doing better as a mission with that ever since President Perry got here and we got the new curriculum stuff. We were on pace to get over 90 in September which would've been double our previous mission high (47). But of course we could do better. But we already knew that. Elder Symbrowsky is a pretty stern guy (military background) so there was a lot of "we need to"s. It was good though. 

This last Sunday was Branch Conference and a linger longer (which they do every 3rd Sunday here) so people from the Stake came down and a couple people from Chesterfield 1st ward were there. It was weird seeing them all again, but I think only a few really recognized me. The branch here is pretty united and willing to help us but I can tell that they've given the missionaries many referrals before we got here and so they're grasping for straws at this point. At least that's how I see it. Our pool is pretty shallow here but I think we just need to boldly proclaim to everyone and we'll get something. The branch president feels like this area could explode so anything's possible. 

This computer won't let me upload anything.

This week I'll be Lawrenceville for 3 days (tonight, tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday morning), which is just as country if not moreso than here. Elder Christensen is going to a leadership meeting for 3 days that I'm not privy to attend (did I use that word right?) so I had to pick between spending 3 days in Petersburg or Lawrenceville. Lawrenceville got shotgunned too and they're struggling so I figured I'd rescue them from despair or something like that.

I'm doing fine though otherwise. I didn't realize 8 months was 1/3 until Jacob pointed it out, so that's weird. It really is picking up speed. Now more than ever I feel like I'm really just "in it" and not worrying about how good I am at everything. I just want to help the branch however I can and have more people baptized. 

-Elder Parker