Bell, Rigdin PT

Transfer week has come again. I now only have 4 transfers left, which really doesn't feel like a lot of time. MONDAY we went to this aquarium/zoo at the mall nearby with the district! It was a lot of fun because we got to do a ton of stuff like feeding stingrays and a porcupine, holding a bunch of different lizards, and petting some wallabies. When we were walking around, one of the workers actually asked me if I wanted to help them feed some of the bigger fish, so that was pretty fun. TUESDAY it was really cold again. Not much else than that, but I really don't like the cold. WEDNESDAY we ended up getting a little distracted helping out the senior missionaries in the mission office. I honestly feel a little spoiled having the mission office in my area because we're just able to stop by anytime. THURSDAY we had a couple of lessons throughout the day. Nothing super solid, but it's still nice to be able to share small messages. FRIDAY Elder Fetuao set up our district coun...

This was a week with a ton of miracles for the whole zone! We saw a lot of people be put on date for baptism and had a lot of meetings. MONDAY we had a Zone vs. Zone basketball game between our zone and the El Paso zone. It was a pretty good game, and I even got to play in it a bit. We ended up losing, but it was still really good. TUESDAY we got our car cleaned for zone conference the next day. That morning, while we were at the gym, we had some random guy call us and say he wanted to see the church, so we set up a lesson with him at the church for later that day. He was really cool and really prepared to receive everything that we taught him. WEDNESDAY we had zone conference, and what made it special was that the area president, Elder Alonso, was there and gave really cool advice to the missionaries. THURSDAY was just some weird lessons and an even weirder Bible study that someone invited us to. FRIDAY I went on exchanges to another of the district leader areas. Something that happen...

This week is a bit of a special one because I hit my 18-month mark! It's weird seeing all the sister missionaries I came in with go home and knowing I've only got six months left. MONDAY we had a ton of fun with the zone doing a whole bunch of different activities like volleyball, dodgeball, and soccer. TUESDAY was pretty cold and gray, which was a bit tough. Something that was cool, though, was that we saw President and Sister Willis when we were out tracting. WEDNESDAY I went on exchanges in a Spanish area and did a whole lot of nothing haha. I did manage to understand enough that I could answer questions, but not enough to really respond. THURSDAY we got snow! Snow in Texas is crazy, right? It made being out in the cold just a little better. FRIDAY was my actual 18-month mark! I went on exchanges to a Spanish area with an elder who was just swapped to Spanish, so you can imagine how that went haha. I also sat in on a meeting with President Willis and the SMLs where they talk...

Happy New Year! I hope y'all made the most of this last year and that you'll strive to be even better this year! It feels a little weird because this now means that I'm in the last year of my mission. MONDAY we started the morning off bright and early, hiking Mt. Christo Rey at 8:30 with the district. It's an interesting place for two main reasons: the massive statue of Jesus Christ at the top and the fact that it's an open spot in the border wall, so people use it as a place to cross. It was a really fun hike, and after, we went to this steakhouse for lunch with the other elders in the district. TUESDAY we had interviews with President Willis at 1:20 and 1:30 for just our companionship. We didn't get into our interviews until 1:50 and 2:30 because he was so backed up. At this point, I've just accepted that every time we are going to have interviews, it's going to take a while. That evening we came in early, got a mission-wide devotional, and I managed t...

Merry CHRISTmas, everyone! I hope y’all all had a great week and that it was a happy time for everyone. Because last week's email was a bit weird, this one is too. It'll just go from Tuesday to Sunday, but I've managed to find some stuff to talk about. TUESDAY: President Willis' kids were in town for the holidays and wanted to play pickleball, so we went to the church and played with them and some other missionaries. And as you'd expect of a very recent return missionary and a guy who lives in Utah, they were pretty good. After all that fun, we went up to Las Cruces for a combined Christmas party with all the missionaries on the west side of El Paso, all the missionaries in Las Cruces, and all the missionaries from Silver City. It was a ton of fun, with us going caroling at rest homes, having a talent show, dinner, some party games, and even a devotional reading of the Christmas story. It was a ton of fun, and I really enjoyed meeting a lot of the missionaries who I...

Don't worry, I didn't miss a week; we just had our p-day moved to Christmas Eve! This email will be slightly longer, but next week's will be a bit shorter. MONDAY we made cookies with our district before everyone got together for p-day. We didn't have a mixer, so they just made me use my hand to mix the dough. TUESDAY we had a couple of really good lessons with some of the people we met. I also had a meeting with all the other social media trainers in the mission to help get them prepared for the new transfer. WEDNESDAY nothing went as we planned. We had everything set up a certain way that morning during daily planning, and by the end of the day, our schedule was completely different! THURSDAY I took a bit of time getting some presents and letters ready for my last and current mission presidents. FRIDAY we woke up with no hot water in the apartment, which really sucked when we had to get showered! This last transfer had mixed up the zone a bunch, so I had a good time g...

My first full transfer back in El Paso is done! And the new transfer is exactly the same because Elder Fetuao and I are both staying in Redd Ward. MONDAY was a bit of a boring P-day, but we managed to have some fun playing wiffle ball with the zone. The best part was when Sister Willis showed up, and we convinced her to take a swing. That night, we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner because some of our members had given us a gift card for it. TUESDAY was a really fast day, but nothing really happened other than tracting going by quickly. WEDNESDAY, we went and helped out at the farm in the morning. We had a ton of work to do rolling up and putting away these farming tarps and pulling stakes out of the ground. THURSDAY was just cold and boring, so it was a rough day. FRIDAY, Elder Fetuao had a pretty good plan for District Council, where he had us go out finding and call a member to help us teach whoever we found. The elder I was paired with and I didn't find anyone, but it was ...