Bell, Rigdin PT

First full week in Monahans is all done now! It's a pretty cool area, with the only downside being that Google Maps is really broken out here. MONDAY we went down to Fort Stockton for P-day and hung out with the zone for a good while. We played some spikeball and had a game of Betrayal that went way longer than it needed to, but it was all plenty fun. That evening, we did a family home evening with a Spanish family that we're teaching, and it was great for me because I just had to sit there until they needed me to look up an answer to a random question they had. TUESDAY we went on a blitz of the area with the zone leaders. What that means is that they came to our area for the day, and we split up into two companionships to do double the work. I went with Elder Lee, who is from Queen Creek, Arizona. It was really fun being able to spend the day with another Elder living with us because it's been a little while since I've lived with someone other than my companions. WEDNE...

Another week, another area. If this rate of new companions keeps up, I'll end up having somewhere around 17 companions by the end of my mission! MONDAY was my last P-day of the transfer, so a lot of missionaries got together really early to play basketball and board games. It was a pretty good time, and I was able to say goodbye to a bunch of people. When we went shopping, we ended up running into a ton of members, which was pretty funny because of how back-to-back it was. TUESDAY was a pretty normal day for finding where we just gave it our all before I got transferred. A lot of downtime that day was just spent packing. WEDNESDAY was the actual transfer day, so we headed over to the transfer site to get everything switched around. I said hi to a bunch of missionaries I knew and hello to a bunch of new ones before I left. We spent almost all day just driving out there to get our new companions, and then when I met Elder Watson, my new companion, we had to spend another 2 hours to g...

This week has some interesting news and will be remembered as the week of the first transfers in the TEPM! MONDAY was pretty fun because I was able to try out a new board game I got called Betrayal, and it was a pretty big hit at p-day! TUESDAY I forgot to write down anything that happened, so I'll just say that we visited a lot of people. WEDNESDAY I actually remember what happened! That evening we had dinner with this younger couple in the ward, and it was pretty funny because it was almost the exact same as talking with other missionaries or people around our age. They just joked around a bunch, and it was a pretty good time. We also had a really cool experience at the downtown plaza where we got to teach the plan of salvation to someone who was really humble about it. The spirit was really strong as we were teaching him, so I know that what we were saying was hitting true with him. THURSDAY the most exciting thing was that we got a couch for the new apartment! Having some furni...

This was actually a really eventful week where we were able to help a lot of the friends we have been teaching make steps toward the Covenant path! I really love being a missionary because I am able to help the Lord in this great work! MONDAY was my companion's, Elder Krebs, birthday! To celebrate, we went to Top Golf with the missionaries in our district. Afterwards, we went and had lunch with the Spanish missionaries we used to live with at a place called Famous Dave's. It was pretty good, and to make it even better, a member walked in and paid for us just as we were about to pay. TUESDAY we went on exchanges with the district leader. We met up at a McDonald's to exchange and have lunch together, and an interesting miracle happened. We ordered a really big order for everyone, and somehow, we ended up getting the order twice but only paying once! WEDNESDAY we visited with an older convert, got to know him a bit, and learned about how he joined the church. He had a really c...

This week was a pretty busy one with a lot of good news! Also, just a heads-up, my list of people who are supposed to be on this email got messed up, so if you know anyone who's supposed to be here that isn't, let me know. Thanks! MONDAY was a bit interesting because, in the middle of our shopping, we got asked to go to the hospital to give a blessing. Unfortunately, a young woman had been in a bad car accident and was in a medically induced coma, and the family wanted us to come by and give her a blessing of healing. We were able to go right over and give her that blessing, as well as blessings of comfort to her parents. Afterwards, we went and had a good time at the zone P-day, with Sister Willis even showing up and playing board games for a bit. TUESDAY we finally were able to go and grab our car that had been in the shop. It's weird having two cars in one companionship, but it's also weird to technically be two areas in one companionship, so you take what you are gi...

Biggest news for this week: we got our new companion. Elder Short is from Las Vegas, Nevada, and has been serving for 9 months now. MONDAY I got to play a ton of board and card games. That's pretty typical for me to do on a p-day, but other than that, we just helped Elder Gurney get ready to leave. TUESDAY we went to a local restaurant for lunch to have a final meal with the apartment before half of us left. It was a pretty good time, and we even had a bit of a miracle because all of the parking meters downtown weren't working, so we didn't need to pay. WEDNESDAY we spent a good bit of time out finding and just trying to teach people. Other than that, it was just us getting ready for zone conference. THURSDAY we met our new companion, Elder Short. He's been out for 9 months and is from Las Vegas. We met him at zone conference and made the swap between him and Gurney. Zone conference was pretty interesting with a bunch of different trainings and "get-to-know-you...

As of Wednesday, I have officially been serving the Lord as a full-time proselytizing missionary for a year! Some parts have gone slow and others really fast, but I've still got a year to go, and I'm going to give it my all! MONDAY I spent a lot of preparation day just playing board games and card games with the missionaries in my zone. It's not the most interesting thing to write about, but all that matters is that I won. Other than that, once we got back to doing missionary work, we had some fun tracting a couple of neighborhoods. TUESDAY We got the news that we can do our weekly planning at any time of the day as long as we are done before 5. It's not the craziest change, but it will definitely give us a bit more control over our schedule. Something really cool that happened was that we were able to have a great lesson with one of our friends over the phone where they said they wanted to be baptized! The weather Tuesday was also really crazy—we got a big dust storm a...