Week #78 - So...no Ma?

Before I forget, here's some important info:

We switched apartments with the Spanish Elders here in Sonoma, so our address is not the one I sent home last week. However, any mail that was sent to their place I have received or will receive, so no worries.

My new address is:

Elder Pants Balagna
888 West Verano Ave
Sonoma, CA 95476

It's been a fantastic week. My newborn son Elder Bankhead is awesome. I immediately realized after being with him for a little bit that this is exactly what I needed. This past week has been excellent- my greenie just wants to learn and basically teach him everything I know. He's very humble but not afraid to do the work. It'll be a good transfer!

As for Sonoma, it's quite the place. We had a baptism on Saturday that went really well for a lady named Loretta- she's almost 90 years old. It was pretty neat to see her get baptized. Other than that, there's really not much going on here at all, but we just got a new Ward Mission Leader who isn't here to mess around. We're way excited- he knows what he's doing and he's excited to make stuff happen.

Because I am well loved by the vehicle coordinator, some switches have been made and I once again have my truck to enjoy. I was pretty excited when I heard, but the only problem is the only setting on the air conditioning/heating is 4. The 1, 2, and 3 don't work. That took away a lot of my excitement. I suppose I'll live though.

Elder Bankhead and I had a pretty neat experience on Saturday. We were out walking trying to talk to people, and Elder Bankhead finally said "I'm going to talk to everyone until I can hand out a card." We talked to I don't know how many people, and one of them actually grabbed me and shoved me away and told me to go get a blank-ing job. He was about fifty years old and I guess he was trying to impress his other friends that he had around. He dropped a lot of F-bombs. Anyway, after he shoved me, despite everything that was going through my head and my strong desires to punch him in the face, somehow a smile and a "God Bless" came out of my mouth. That gave a whole new meaning to scriptures that talk about how "the spirit restraineth me." In a totally different attitude, the man then told us to have a good night and good luck. My greenie was blown away and kept telling me how cool it was. I of course brushed it off like it was just something you learn to do after being a missionary as long as I have (hehehe...even though in my head, I knew I still wanted to punch that guy in the face). So, that was kind of off track, because that wasn't the reason I started this paragraph. What ended up happening was nothing- we talked to tons of people and no one would even accept a card. I started feeling bad for my discouraged lil' son, and we finished our walk and drove back to our apartment. It was about 8:50, and I said "Hey, we still have ten minutes. We can't go in yet. Let's walk." Our street was pretty dead, and I told him to go wherever he felt prompted to. We took a couple of turns, and lo and behold, there comes a man out of a house to his car. Very friendly, we start up a conversation, he accepts a card, our phone number, and gives us his. Score! That's why we don't go in early. My greenie is in tune with the spirit!

Anyway, out of time, but merry crimbo and the gospel's true!

Elder B

Week #77 - Pants Delight

Hey Everyone!

So transfer news is out, and I've got quite the new and different assignment. I'll be whitewashing into Sonoma (it's in the Napa zone) and I'll be training a greenie. I'll be a District Leader again, which I kind of had a feeling I would be. I guess it was kinda nice that this happened after our last zone conference where President stressed over and over how there are no "ranks" in leadership- and if he feels that even an AP would be of best use as a district leader or regular missionary after his time in the office, then that's exactly what he'll do with him (meaning it doesn't mean he "hasn't proved himself" or got demoted). So anyway, zone leader has been a lot of fun but I'm excited to go back to training- especially now that I've been out so long. I've got a ton of things I'd do differently now with a new missionary, so it'll be awesome to have another shot.

This last week was awesome in Ukiah. Our zone, for the first time in who knows how long, reached the baptismal goal! We were way excited, and also my companion and I set three baptismal dates with some of our new investigators. They're all excited about church and are progressing quickly. We had one of our investigators finally come for the first time and he loved it- and our other investigator Sharon came for the second time and REALLY loved it. Everyone's devastated that I'm leaving, but I totally knew they would be. It's always the best to give investigators the "departing testimony" and last words of wisdom that you want them to know. I wish I could testify like that all the time. It seems like it's a hundred times more powerful when I know it's the last time I get to do it.

As for the new area, they completely whitewashed it (Spanish and English elders) and so there will be me, my greenie, a spanish elder, and his greenie. What's even more exciting is that the Spanish trainer will be going home about half way through the transfer, so for the last three weeks I'll be in a threesome with two greenies. Intense.

Anyway, life's good, I'm excited for the new area, write me mail, and have a good week! The Gospel's still true.

Elder B

Week #76

Hey Everyone!

We had quite the week this week. It had a spectacular finish, too. On Sunday we were pretty disappointed that not one of our investigators came to church (two of them promised they would). However, during the first hour we realized there was someone we didn't recognize sitting in the back. We were fortunate to catch her before she left and found out that she'd been taught by missionaries about twelve years ago but ended up moving and just lost touch. She hardly remembers any of it, but agreed to start taking lessons. We went to her house after church and taught most of her family the first lesson. They're all high school age or older accept for Theo (fifth grade). All of them there were very interested and all asked for copies of the Book of Mormon (except for two of them [girlfriend and boyfriend] that didn't want them). They asked us to come back tonight and the mom mentioned that the one thing she DOES remember is that she struggles with our perception of the Godhead (she said she's been taught ever since she was a kid that they were all one being). Now I'm even more excited. It sounds like all of her concerns are my favorite topics to explain and testify of, so this should be a good week. I'm hoping to meet with them a lot before I leave next week (still don't know where I'm going though).

Anyway, on top of that we did two exchanges with some other companionships in our zone. One of them was awesome- which happened to be with my grandson and my great-grandson. It was really fun to work with them.

Our zone has been very blessed this transfer- and it looks like for the first time we will PASS our baptismal goal that we set for the transfer. We set a goal for ten (one per companionship) which is sadly MUCH higher than Ukiah zone's typical performance (when we got here in the area, the previous transfer baptisms was two). The last two transfers the zone has gotten five, and now it looks like it's going to happen! It's interesting to see how much obedience goes right along with the success the missionaries have. Each transfer has been better than the last for everyone here (obedience wise) and so have the numbers.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I've done more work on a farm in the past six months than I have my whole life. Whether I'm cleaning barns, shearing sheep (that was a hoot[not]. I will never own a ranch or a farm) throwing around and stacking bails (bales?) of hay (I felt like a true man doing that one. I may not own a farm or ranch but I'll definitely consider owning and truck and hauling hay), or cleaning up animal poop and digging trenches, I've done it all. Fortunately for each occasion, I've had a companion who used to live on a ranch so I always looked like the idiot.

Anyway, life is great except for me getting very little mail this week. Very little. Just so everyone knows though, I'm going to try and catch up on Christmas mail/thank you's today. The gospel's true!

Elder B

Week #75 - Pants

Hey everyone!

It was a great New Year celebration in good ol' Ukiah. Just so everyone knows, I will for sure be getting transferred at the end of this transfer (ends January 17th) so plan accordingly with sending me mail. Any mail that will probably arrive after the Monday after the transfer ends can be sent to the mission office address.

Devin was baptized Saturday! The service went really well and there were plenty of people there to support him. It was my first time confirming someone a member of the church yesterday- and that was an amazing experience. He'll be a great addition to the ward here. We quizzed him on everything the day before he was baptized just for fun and he knew it ALL. We were pretty shocked at how well he's studied up on stuff. For starting off as someone who didn't even know God existed, he's come a very long way in a short time.

We went to the Oakland temple on Wednesday with the senior couple in our zone. It was excellent.

I strongly recommend the talk "Jesus Knows I'm a Christian" by John Bytheway. It's deeper than his usual youth-oriented talks and very very well done. Definitely the best one I've heard him do.

Mormon Messages on youtube are still awesome. I saw a really short clip of one they did on hope (President Uchtdorf's talk) on lds.org's main page. I want to see the whole thing.

I hit my 18 month mark on Saturday. I was kind of annoyed that there was no fireworks display, no one interviewed me from the newspaper, and there were no congratulatory letters/packages all over my doorstep from friends and loved ones at any time throughout the day. Maybe people just got the date mixed up. I knew I shouldn't have put it so close to New Years and Christmas.

Anyway, it was a great week and life is still good. The gospel's true and thanks for everythiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing
Elder B