The One With David Archuleta and The Magic Pop Machines

Monday January 5, 2015

Hey y'all 

The highlight of my MTC experience came on Sunday. We had a Sunday night devotional as always and the speakers/musical numbers were the primary organist to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Richard Elliot, and David Archuleta! It was David Archuleta's birthday so we sang to him. Richard Elliot played some amazing organ solos and David Archuleta sang beautifully. I may have cried, just saying. I finished up my packing that night and set my alarm for 2:30am. 

Monday was a long crazy day of traveling. We said our goodbyes and headed down to the travel office where we checked in, put our bags in a moving van, and loaded up on a bus headed to the airport. The airport was fun. It seemed like I was the only person in the travel group that had ever been on a plane because every one else was struggling hard to figure out how to print a boarding pass. 

Our flights were uneventful. Our "layover" in Atlanta was more of a sprint over for three reasons. One, our gates that we landed in and where we departed from were on opposite side of the airport and two, ATL is the biggest airport I have ever been in by far and three, our first plane landed at the same time our second one was boarding. We had to take a train in the airport to get there on time. 

We got picked up in Charlotte by President and Sister Craven and the Assistants. President is super nice and Sister Craven is super short and sweet. Again, we loaded our bags in a trailer and drove to the mission home. There we had dinner of barbecued pork, cole slaw, beans, and Mac and cheese. It was delicious. After that we had a question and answer session talking about the mission and missionary life. Then we went back to the Assistants apartment to sleep. 

Funny story. So Elder Ashby must have stepped in dog poo on the way into the apartment and, since most American people don't take their shoes off, ended up tracking it all through the apartment and had to scrub it out of the carpet. That night I slept in a room with Elder Ashby, Seely, Craig and Clarke. It was a lot of fun. 

The next day was spent at the mission office doing paperwork, taking pictures, safety stuff and getting our iPads. Fun fact. Since it's technically still in the trial period I don't have to pay for one and its brand new. Thank you tithing. During transfer meeting all the missionaries leaving got up and bore their testimonies. Then they called new district zone and sister training leaders and assigned transfers. Then the put us with our trainers. Drum roll please. My trainer is Elder Dortch and I'm serving in the Lenoir ward. Our address is in Hudson which is a small town just south of Lenoir but our area services the entire Caldwell county. 

There are eight missionaries in our district, a set of elders and a set of sisters in Lenoir and a set of elders and a set of sisters in Morganton. Elder Dortch and myself are in Lenoir along with Sister Grace and Sister Leishman (Sister Leishman is from High River, crazy right! But she left for her mission from Texas). The sisters in Morganton are Sister Training Leaders and our district leader is Elder Bishop and he's training an Elder Marsh who flew out with me. 

A bit about my companion. He is from Idaho and, and has been serving for just under a year which actually means six months because you are actually supposed to say that you've been serving for just under a year whenever anybody asks you how long you've been serving. If you been serving a week or are going home in a week you've been 'serving for just under a year'. Weird right?

We left with the Lenoir Sisters back to Lenoir. Sister Dancey drove us. It's about two hours north and a bit west of Charlotte. Our bikes were just sitting in the van. She has a wheelchair access van so they stood up in that big open space. We ended up eating at a place called #1 Fuji and it was pretty tasty. We were supposed to meet with an investigator at the church but it got cancelled.

New Year's Eve was great. We walked over and taught a recent convert. Our purpose was basically to convince him not to get a tattoo. We went to Walmart after lunch and bought bedding and whatnot.

We tried to go over to teach our investigator again but instead taught his recent convert mom as he was sleeping. After that we had to go home because it was New Year's Eve and we could not be out after 7:00pm. 

Because I have a lot to do I'm going to summarize the week quick. We did missionary work. Taught people, had too many people cancel or not be their when we showed up. Did service. Had dinner appointments one of which was at Wendy's because the members family was sick. That's where I discovered these magical pop machines.  When you touch a button on a touch screen for the drink you want it then gives you the option to add a flavour. So I had vanilla coke zero. 

I will tell you of one really great experience I had. We were struggling to find people to teach. We were calling so many people. Both previous investigators and other people we've found. We had no success. So we said a prayer and literally thirty seconds after some one called us back and we set up an appointment to teach them. Miracles happen. Prayer works. The church is true. Need I say more? 

Love y'all

Elder Galvin