Alright my friends, family, acquaintances, and others that will read this! I’ve been having a blast with Elder Witbeck. We have been trying to meet with every member in the Branch! Also yes, they pronounce “eaux” as o sound.
last day with Elder Wight
We drove up to this one member’s house way out in the boonies to see if they really existed, because earlier in the day we had tried to visit some inactive members but their houses were abandoned and destroyed, and when we knocked on the day she came out and basically shouted “Elders! It’s been so long, I’ve missed you guys coming to visit me!” It was a fun experience and in a few weeks she said she would be able to come to church.
I suppose I should explain the picture of the microwave from last week. Elder Witbeck found a huge clump of dryer lint and because as missionaries we are warned dryer lint is a fire hazard we decided to set it on fire in the microwave. We also decided to get some mood lighting for the apartment.
I went on exchanges with Elder Thomas and it was really fun, we found some cool signs as well as doing some fun service.
Elder Witbeck got some cool cowboy boots for his birthday and I’ll be sure to add a photo of them next email.
I don’t know when this email will send since I am having some internet issues but first I have to apologize for not sending an email last week. I know that you all are understanding and some of you may know that there are not enough chapters in the Lord of the Rings to send an email with a chapter name on it every week for two years. However, if I add the title of the Hobbit and its chapters I’ll have a little over 50 chapters left to title my emails. Still not enough to send an email every week but if I miss one here and there, there will be just enough. And if I am really good at sending an email every week I can just start sending chapters of the Silmarillion!
Now with that out of the way we can look back to the past two weeks…
At the beginning of last week I went on exchanges in Morgan City with Elder Fatiaki. Morgan City doesn’t have a washer and dryer so they do laundry at a member’s house. So we had to stop by the members house throughout the day to switch laundry and one of the times we stopped by, the member asked if we could help them with some technology they had. Since this member wasn’t very good at technology.
I have to interrupt the story here to thank my dad for letting me watch and explaining what he was doing when I was younger as he helped others with their computer problems.
So I helped this member make some shortcuts for some of the apps on their computer, connect their computer to the printer, their phone to the printer, and the phone and computer to each other. The member really needed the help and I was the only one who could help, so I know that exchanges are an amazing experience because on exchanges somebody’s life is going to be altered for good! That person may be you, your companion, or someone who you meet randomly on the street!
We had DC on a Friday because we had our PPI’s which was interesting but I really enjoyed it because President Smuin is a cool dude. He gave me and Elder Wight a mission to find something for him so I’ll tell you guys if we find it.
I cut my own hair this week because I felt like the sides were getting long (and because mom commented on it) but I think it turned out pretty good but I may have someone else cut the back because I cant see back there.
So, I have spent 9 months in the south and this week was my first time visiting a Waffle House and I gotta say, it was pretty good, I enjoyed it!
For P-Day this week we went to Top Golf so that was pretty cool and did pretty well. In the two games we played I got first and second which was good considering it was my first time.
While we were at Walmart we ran into a guy that Elder Wight had met before in a previous transfer that believed that he traveled to different planets. It was a really weird conversation.
Transfer news dropped so we found out that Elder Wight is Leaving to the area of Bastrop/Monroe and I am getting another “W” companion Elder Witbeck!
May the Wind be in your sails And the Currents in your favor May Luck be with you And your fortunes be bright May the Light of Christ be in your heart And the Power of God in your efforts (Especially you Elder Walker! Congrats)
This week went by pretty fast! We had Zone Conference and my Zone Conference is pretty unique because it is the only Zone Conference where three Zones come together for Zone Conference; Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, and New Orleans zones. The rest of the mission does it with only two zones.
We have been working on our relations with the members of our branch but we still have to do other missionary work so we can’t visit every active member but we’ve found that just randomly stopping by can really brighten up someone’s day.
I gave a talk on Sunday in the branch, right in front of the Stake President. I thought that it was pretty good because I was able to add some things to it mid-way through from my personal studies.
For P-Day we went down to Morgan City with the district to the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. While there I did not see Shrimp nor Petroleum but I did see some cool stalls selling all sorts of stuff and fun carnival rides.
This week has probably been one of the hardest I’ve had in the mission. But it feels so good to have done it. I’ll dispense with the usual day by day format for no reason whatsoever so if y’all hate it, email me with your complaints.
So it turns out that sickness that I mentioned in the previous email might have been Covid. I continued to be sick all throughout this week until around Friday. I contacted our mission nurse on Tuesday and told her what was happening and she said it was either a small cold or Covid. I did not lose my sense of taste or smell so we don’t really know, but I am recovered now.
We had the funniest thing happen this week. We decided to stop by and see if a teaching friend we hadn’t seen in a while was home and after we knocked on his door twice we were going to leave. As we were headed back to the car he walked out from behind his house a greeted us! As we were talking and catching up with him, another dude approached us and our teaching friend introduced him as his son that was living with him. We asked if he was interested in coming to church and he said he was. Then his wife walked out and we asked her the same thing and she said she had been waiting for somewhere to go to church this entire time! After that, another person walked out and our teaching friend introduced him as another one of his sons and we asked him if he wanted to come to church as well. He did and so did his wife! So from just stopping by one of our teaching friends to catch up we we’re able to invite 4 of his family members to come to church! Fast forwarding to Sunday. We had 11 of our teaching friends come to church which was astounding because in the previous weeks. We had maybe 1 or 2 show up!
The Lord multiplies our efforts! Even though I was sick for most of the week, we were able to get so much missionary work done.
For a spiritual thought I was inspired to explain my favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon. Ether 12:30 (no not 12:27 you doctrinal mastery nerds)
For the brother of Jared said unto the mountain Zerin, Remove—and it was removed. And if he had not had faith it would not have moved; wherefore thou workest after men have faith.
I love the scripture because it is one of the few instances in the scriptures where a mountain is actually moved. But the real reason this is my favorite scripture is for the second part, because when we do not have faith, we don’t recognize or strive for many miracles. But after we have faith, we are able to access the infinite power and countless miracles God has in store for us.
Farewell until next week and May the Power of God be in your efforts.
I’ve been pretty sick this past week, but we set inspired goals and hit them all which was super cool. We have a few people we are going to put on a date and people have been coming to church! Faith and the Atonement have been some things that have been recurring quite frequently these past two weeks. Catch you next week!
A really short one this week, Because I’ve been having too much fun. I will recap it in the next email…
Well… I guess I can give a quick run down of the new area, it’s very exciting. I got bashed twice in the first three days, won both of them, and got a dinner appointment with a Jehovah’s Witness to talk more. Elder Wight is really awesome. He’s only been serving for 4 months. He’s pretty new but really good at teaching. He’s had some awesome previous companions that taught him a lot.
Well this week was faith week for our Zone which means we set high goals and high expectations then act and see miracles.
On Tuesday me and Elder Keller cleaned the car and visited a ton of people and played basketball with the Cullota’s outside. It was hot!
On Wednesday we had District Council and PPI’s which were really good. We had dinner with some members but it was cut short by a medical emergency. We met a really cool dude called Yair from Mexico.
On Thursday we weekly planned at the mall where someone gave us an invite to their gospel festival. We then found five people in an apartment complex in a little over an hour and then had scripture study and dinner with the Dustins.
On Friday we had some good lessons and knocked more apartments and found five more people!
On Saturday we had some really cool contacts and did a ton of calling inviting people to church and had like 20 people promise to show up!
On Sunday nobody showed up to church but we had a great huddle! We went back and taught some lessons at the apartments and then ate some really good pasta at the Reynolds then went to the youth fireside at the church and got there just in time for the refreshments.
We also got transfer news and I am leaving McComb and headed to New Iberia, Louisiana. My new companion is Elder Wight. Resulting in having exactly half of my companions come after me in alphabetical order. I keep getting W companions, that’s a win in my book!
Have a great week and may your fortunes be bright.
This transfer has gone by so fast! We learn about transfers this week! It has been awesome! We’ve been working hard and have found around 70 people so far this transfer!
On Tuesday me and Elder Staker did some grinding, found a cute puppy, and went knocking past dark.
On Wednesday we had DC and Elder Bowden’s birthday and did a lot of calls.
On Thursday we had weekly planning and then it rained a ton so we went knocking then had a wonderful scripture study with the members.
On Friday we visited a ton of people and the Ohrans from my Ward stopped by. We had a great time with them. We also visited Brother Hiersche and had dinner with him.
On Saturday Brother Threlfall drove us to the temple for our branch temple trip. It was awesome and I bumped into the Ohrans again! We also had our Pioneer Day celebration which was really fun where I got to have homemade ice cream!
On Sunday one of our friends came to church! It was really hot but we knocked Blessed and Miracle Lane and went past the Lynyrd Skynyrd monument.
On Monday we played volleyball and poker at the church in Baker and had an awesome FHE with the some members.
Well it has been a minute so I’ll try to give a brief recap of the three weeks that happened without an email.
So back around July 1st is when you stopped hearing from me. So let’s start there!
If you remember back that long I had started an exchange with Pride, it was pretty fun with Elder Bowden, the new missionary in our district being trained by Elder Dearden. They’re currently in a trio, so elder Keller went up to McComb. We did a lot of knocking and had some cool miracles happen, it was really hot for much of the day so many people gave us water.
For the 4th of July, we went over to the Reynolds and fished after we had dinner with them. The members here are awesome and are really involved in the work. A little after the 4th of July we also hit our first feels like 100° while raining.
We had Zone Council where we got our Zone scripture which is really awesome from Exodus about concentrating everything to the Lord. We also had Zone P-Day, which was really awesome. We had a huge water balloon fight and then played volleyball at the church. It was super fun! On the way back I also hit that giant traffic jam and couldn’t send email due to how late we got back home.
We were also gonna go on exchanges with Pride again, but there were some injuries that happened. So we switched them up a little bit and had Elder Bowden come up to McComb with us while the other two Elders just stayed in Pride.
During the exchange, we went and played basketball with some of our members then it rained and I slipped on the wet court and injured my arm a little bit. It actually wasn’t too bad. The photo that we took makes it look a lot worse than actually is.
Work hard play hard! Smacked the sport court.
Finally this week. We helped make some stairs for a member where we dug some post holes and got to use a sledgehammer to break through concrete, the “feels like temperature” was twelve degrees higher than the actual temperature where it felt like a 106° in the humidity.
I had an awesome exchange with the ZLs and then went down to Baton Rouge for our Zone Conference, which was really fun and got to see the temple for the first time on my mission. Our Mission President gave a talk about moral agency.
For P-Day we went over to Liberty and went fishing at a member’s pond and played pickleball. Since we saw the sisters’ car at Walmart, we decided to put some pamphlets on it as a joke. After all that we went to the Perkins who are some pretty awesome members! I got to eat some pretty interesting food. I had some pickled quail eggs, some Dubai chocolate, and yellow watermelon. I love the food down here in Louisiana. You always will get something unexpected.
Sorry for missing so much hopefully you’re all caught up now!
Elder Zachary Ward 