Daniel vs The Small Town

From: Eric Feller <eric.feller@myldsmail.net>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:04:14

So I'd figure I'd talk about my area. Its half of a little town called Saint Johns. Three wards. Half the town is already members of the church. Maybe more than half. The other half has rejected the missionaries over and over so staying busy is not as easy as other places in the mission. I'm designated navigator in our truck so I'm getting pretty familiar with the town. The most frustrating thing about Saint Johns is that the Zone Leaders have never been here and still want us to "OYM" or "Open Your Mouth" to 10 people a day. We'll its really ineffective and when we have the time to try and do it, we cant find people out and about. Namely late at night. Or any time. People actually have jobs here, and stay in their houses at night. Tracting is worthless because its been tracted a million times and everyone's mormon anyways. Oh well. We have a few investigators. One has been strong in the church for a year, but cant get baptized because her stupid boyfriend wont marry her. Their kids are baptized and everything. I told her to fast and pray that he would marry her last night. Hopefully it works! Our other investigators are pretty normal. They're attached to their church or their parents wont take them or stuff like that. I probably shouldn't go into to much detail. I did go on splits with the ZL's in Show Low when our truck was getting fixed, and I taught a recent convert. and the ZL made me teach the Law of Chastity. So in my first lesson I taught the most embarrassing principle.

Sis Treadway asked me a bunch of questions, and they're good, so I'll answer them.
Yes, we still live in the house that was haunted. It feels a lot cleaner now. Its actually a double wide "trailer" or mobile home. Puke Yellow. Its awesome... now.
 We dont teach near a reservation. Well we might, but we dont. The elders in "Eager" do. And they also go to Luna, New Mexico. Pretty cool.
Me and my companion get along fine. We're both quiet, and I'm new and trying not to mess up. But if I follow the spirit when I talk I'll be ok. He's had a rough mission and has lots of good advice and stuff. He's been out for 19 months and has had a few bad companions and stuff. Like really apostate companions. And its hard for him to really train me in teaching because we dont have a ton of lessons to teach and stuff. He also got what they call the "STD" call, meaning this is his first time going Senior companion, Trainer, and District leader. STD. haa. But he added a W because we had to "White wash" our area. Meaning neither of us were in this area before.
 I'm getting the lessons down ok. They're in the planner which helps when we do teach, and I've got a pretty good grasp of the topics in each section.
The biggest challenge is getting lessons with people.

Which reminds me. There was a stake priesthood meeting on sunday where the stake president "Threw Down" in my terms. He called out the whole stake and said it was their job to find people, and our job to teach them. Hopefully we can get a ton of referrals from that.

Oh a dog attacked us the other day! It was a little one and was scared. it kept trying to run around us. my comp kicked it in the head.

Oh if anyone wants to send me packages, go to thrift stores and get me cool ties. Like the cheap polyester ones. hahah. If you can see a missionary looking good in it. There's a difference between cool and ugly though. Its not cool to wear ugly ties. But ridiculous ones are cool. Use wise judgment! Also, thanks Stephen for the starbursts. I had them for dinner and they were gone in two days.

I'm gonna cut this short and try to send pictures. Idk if I have time.