Monday, July 18, 2011

So Long Kalispell!

Well it's goodbye for now to Kalispell. For those who haven't already heard transfer calls came this Friday a little earlier than usual. Usually we don't hear anything till 1ish but at 10:20 the phone rang and it was President Gardner. He said that he would like to call me to be the new online assistant and that he was getting ready to send a voice mail message out to the mission to let them know about me and the new assistant to the Pres. so he wanted to let me know first before I got a surprise. haha I'm sad to be leaving Kalispell after only two transfers but am really excited at this new opportunity to help out the mission with this great tool our Heavenly Father has given us. I'm also excited to have the opportunity to be around President Gardner more. He is such a great man and am looking forward to working side by side with him. I read a talk this week called The Unwritten Order of Things. It was given by, used to be, Elder Packer. He talked about how we need to watch carefully and learn from the leaders around us to learn the unwritten things of the church and how we can better run it and keep it organized. What a great chance I will have to watch and learn from President Gardner and learn the unwritten things.

Many may be asking well what is an online assistant? I can't completely answer that yet. Maybe next week. I do know that me and Elder Garcia are going to be over all the online proselyting for the mission and communicating and working with President and the mission department to find out how best to use it. I know we will be on the computer a lot probably from 10-4 allowing time to answer other elders questions while they are on about how to do things. I also know that we travel to leadership and zone meetings to present new tools and ideas so that will be a really neat thing to be able to not only meet all of the missionaries in the mission but to be able to see all different parts of the mission. I'll even make it down to Wyoming for the first time. More info for sure to come next week though.

I head out tomorrow morning for a long and not so direct trip to Billings. My guess is I'll be on the van from 8 am- 8 pm. The van is fun though because you get to see and talk with a lot of different missionaries you haven't seen in a while. The trip does go faster than usual.

As far as Elder Mower he is staying here and is becoming the district leader which he is kind of nervous about but I think he'll do fine. His new comp is coming from Wyoming and has only been out 3 months. I feel confident they will keep the work moving forward in this area just fine.

This week was pretty good teaching wise. We were able to see most of our usuals and even found a new investigator. The sister who cuts our hair gave me a hair cut this morning and asked if there was anyone I was worried about leaving who we've been teaching. I told her I was not really worried but hoping that a few keep it up and can make it there. I have a feeling this area is going to be like Havre where after I left a bunch of people got baptized. So hopefully that is the case. I'm not worried about leaving J because she's solid but you could tell when I called to tell her that she was pretty sad to hear the news. She said she knew the day would come but that she was hoping it would be further down the road. Facebook is good though because I told her we can still keep in contact and I can keep sending her church links. I also told her we are planning to come up here next summer and she thought that was pretty cool and said she looks forward to meeting my family.

Can't remember much else that happened this week. Everything before Friday kind of seems like a blur now. I think I'm going to wrap this up. We have some cleaning to do and some quick shopping before I enjoy one last pday in Kalispell. I hope everyone has a great week. Stay cool, watch out for haboobs, and have fun. And for anyone that wants to send me a letter you can send it straight to the mission home for now until I get my other address. Also anyone with ideas for online proselyting I'm your man to talk to. I'd appreciate any ideas you've got whether through a facebook message or an email. That will pretty much be my home away from home now. 1848 Rimrock Rd. Billings, MT 59102 . I love you all and look forward to the adventures ahead. Can't wait to tell you all about it next week.

-Elder Davis