California Daze

Kinda a crazy week, it's sorta weird for me to write right now, mostly because for the last 7 months, I've written from the comfort of a nice, air conditioned office. Maybe I'm just spoiled now, but it feels weird to write from a regular old cyber cafe. Guess I'll get over it, poor me.... 

Hanging out with Elder Neville from the office

I said goodbye to the office this week. I still got to drive everyone around for transfers, which was crazy! We got in the Hiace at 11am, and didn't get home til 11:30pm. There was a lot of running late, a lot of pulling people out of Hiaces, and shoving people in. I was pretty proud of myself for commanding the way I did, everybody knows me as being happy and nice, but I think a few people saw my not happy or nice side :P I did my best though, and thankfully, EVERYTHING went as planned (more or less), and the Lord put into our path some direct miracles, which was super cool. Like, we had 3 missionaries who needed to get to an island where there were no open spots on a plane, and when we got to the airport, they told  us they had just added a brand new flight the next day, and had tickets. Literal Godsend!! I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of it all.

New companion - Elder Ronces

Thursday I got to meet my new companion, Elder Ronces, who is from California. I seem to have all the luck getting Californian companions, being that he's my 5th from Cali. All my mission family too is Californian, being that my dad, Elder Stone, was from Cali, as was Elder Mason, my first son. Elder Ronces is Mexican though, and he's a really fun kid. He reminds me a lot of when I served with Elder Martinez back over a year ago. It's funny, because he's super down to talk and get to know people on the street, but his Portuguese comes out as about 75% Spanish, which works for understanding. He's got a really solid base in the language, and I have no doubt he'll pick it up quick.

This week brought a LOT of new things, new companion, new house, new area, (sorta) new ward, but it's been really fun. My new house used to be a Sister house, which used to be a Couple house before than, so it's good some good perks :) By that, I mean we have hot water, in which I took my first hot shower since January. We also have air conditioning, which is the first house I've ever set foot in on the mission that has had air conditioning.It's reaaaaaally nice to plan at night with air conditioning going :) I turn it off at night though, cuz I know it costs a toooon to run (been in the office paying bills for too long..... )

As for our area, it's different for me to work in. It's the first time on my mission where I've worked in a place that has legitimate apartment buildings, or houses that are hard to access or talk to the people inside. For a large part, my areas have been places where I can go up to the people on the street, talk to them, and teach them inside. Here, I feel we're going to have to do a lot of door knocking. I'm not a huge door knocker :P we'll see how it goes. As for the work so far, we've been working a lot on the borders, which are poorer areas where people actually are sitting outside and it's easy to talk to them. We had a few days where we had nothing to do but just go up to houses, say hi to the people inside, and then ask if we could share a message. It kinda shocked my companion that we can do that here, but it's been really fun for me :) 

I think I'll leave it at that for now. I'm really happy, and really loving the way this area and companionship is making me push to be the best me I can be. I know the Lord has me where he wants me right now :)

Love y'all!

Elder Massey, father of 2 Californians.