Un misionero en Palmdale

Day: first pday in Palmdale

Pushup Count: 313

Buenos días mis amigos, como están? This week was absolutely crazy. We had transfers, so that meant lots of goodbyes, lots of driving, and lots of trying to learn the ropes in a new area. But I'm doing good, I'm excited and ready to start working hard in the desert again. But before all that:

- We went to a ramen place on pday and Elder Hanson got sushi for me to try... Super overrated btw 

- That night I went to say goodbye to one of my favorite families and they had made me ceviche :) we ate it on tostadas with hot sauce in true Mexican fashion. Then I shared my favorite scripture with them and they gave me a huge bag of candy (including some suckers that look like a raw chicken )

- Hermana Martinez told me that I have 3 years to come back to Shafter with my wife and a kid... Not sure how she thinks that'll happen but ok 

- On my last day in Shafter we taught our friend Star and she accepted a baptismal date! I'm so excited for her and I hope everything goes well

- I had one final meeting with Bishop Orozco and he gave me a bag of chocolates... I have no idea what I'm gonna do with all this candy

- I always promised myself that I would get donuts on my last morning in Shafter so we picked some up on the way to transfers... Then I made the silly mistake of eating two of them on the drive and I had an upset stomach through the whole meeting... Oops 

- We picked up Elder Hanson's greenie! Hopefully he likes Shafter as much as I do

- I met my new companion, Elder Archibald. He's a football player from Idaho and we get along great

- My first day in Palmdale we had a zone meeting with the stake president. He's super cool but the meeting took foreverrrr 

- I met some of the awesome people here in Palmdale. A lot of them are from El Salvador so I'm gonna have to brush up on my salvadoreño 

- We live in the same complex as our district leader, my dear friend Elder Kemp, so they came over one night and we ate more donuts

- On the way back from transfers a tiny little rock hit our windshield and left a little chip. Unfortunately that little chip quickly turned into an 18 inch crack so we had to go get the whole windshield replaced... It took almost three hours, so we eventually ran out of stuff to do and just watched TV in the waiting room 

- We've been called upon to give two blessings already this week. Always an awesome opportunity.

- We taught this dude named Eddie who kept bringing up politics and conspiracy theories so that was a tough lesson to navigate. His dog's really cute tho 

- I cleaned out my new closet and now have two stuffed trash bags of old clothes and garbage to take care of. And that's just the beginning of all the cleaning I have to do... Ah missionary apartments 

Anyways I'm doing good. Super tired because transfers completely wipe you, but I'm excited and I'm already kind of getting the hang of things. I'm still not sure how I feel about getting sent back to the desert though  the forecast for the next week has highs of 106. I love the cool fall weather here... Let me know how y'all are doing, I hope you have a good week!

Spiritual Thought:

A quick quote from Elder Bednar from the April 2014 general conference. He asks us to ponder, "Is the load I am carrying producing the spiritual traction that will enable me to press forward with faith in Christ on the strait and narrow path and avoid getting stuck? Is the load I am carrying creating sufficient spiritual traction so I ultimately can return home to Heavenly Father?" Think about that. We all need hard things to move forward, so make sure you're pushing yourselves, but if it's too much or too little, do what you have to do to get traction again. 

Mucho amor, 

Élder Page

Fotos!