Monday August 22, 2016 - The One where we get free hibachi

This has been a crazy busy, crazy successful, absolutely insane week.
Unfortunately, I have to keep this email pretty short this week as I
spent about four hours this morning cleaning the apartment,
rearranging furniture etc. because Elder Peterson and I are going be
getting a new missionary! I will share a couple of highlights from the
week.

We got free hibachi at restaurant this week. We had a dinner
appointment cancel so we went to this fancy Japanese place. It's one
of those places where the chef cooks your food right in front of you
and does crazy stuff with fire. Food was incredible. There was this
man who used to be RLDS who we chatted with over dinner and he was so
kind. He payed for our dinner for us.

This week we went on a three night exchange. I went with Elder Everett
after our district activity on Monday and he came with me back to
Pineville. We had a great exchange over the two days and we exchanged
back after district meeting on Wednesday. I was with Elder Peterson
for a total of forty five minutes because we went on yet another
exchange after. I went with a new missionary down to Fort Mill.

We had a good day. We found the first new investigator of his mission
together. I also saw a Canadian Bank while I was there. We were in
South Carolina so apparently they have a random TD banks in SC.

We had this lesson where we taught to Spanish Speakers. They were a
referral from our bishop and we brought a Spanish speaker with us and
she translated the lesson for us. It was such a neat experience.

Alright. Sorry. I wish I could write more. I'll de better next week!

Send me pictures, love you scriptures!
Love you!
Elder Galvin

Hibachi!!

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Monday August 15, 2016 - The one with Stolen Keys and Skype lessons with my Trainer!

Wow! What an eventful week in Pineville. It has been absolutely insane
and so many funny things have happened.

The week started off pretty interesting. We had a zone activity where
we made crepes and played a bunch of games at the church. It was
really successful and a ton of fun! Unfortunately there was a big of a
mishap after the activity was over. We had just finished cleaning up
and we're going to leave when we realized that we didn't have our
keys. We search everywhere and they were no where to be found. Turns
out. And it's another story how we figured this out. The elders who
live in Monroe (about a 45 min drive from the church) accidentally
took our keys with them as well as their own. So we were stuck at the
church, in non proselyting clothes, with no way to leave. What we had
to do is have our recent convert who we were planning on teaching that
night come and pick us up, drive us to Monroe to get our keys and then
take us home. We just taught him in the car.

The big issue was we were planning on going on a double exchange
staring that night where I would spend two nights away from home
hopping between companionships but that had to get postponed. So we
ended up doing one exchange on Tuesday and were doing the other this
week.

So Tuesday I went down to Fort Mill with Elder Richins who was Elder
Dortchs companion for a transfer. We had a really good day together.
There were so many crazy things that happened though!

One of the crazy things may cause lasting damage. While I was getting
into their members car I smashed my chin on the door and cut myself
pretty bad. Like not dripping blood bad but bleeding bad. I didn't
want to ruin our appointments so I just dealt with it the whole night.
The bleeding stopped after a while and I didn't make a mess at all.
Though I will probably have a scar. Woooo...

The next morning on our way to district meeting we were in the car
with the other Fort Mill Elders and we all witnessed Elder Richins
totally not even swerve to avoid this huge price of metal in the road.
We ran over it and the noise was so loud that Elder Peterson heard it
over the phone as I was talking with him. We were driving along the 
highway and I was like, You probably just popped the tire, check the 
tire pressure. Well. Three of tires were where they were supposed to 
be and one was at 8 PSI so me and the other Elders start yelling to 
pull over. We get into the parking lot of this apartment complex, get 
out the car, and see that the tire is completely flat!

We then get to have the lovely experience of changing a tire. Strike
two for Elder Richins was when we were jacking up the car. He forgot
to put the park break on so the car rolled off the Jack. Luckily no
one was underneath it. Oh boy it was a hot mess. The tire had like a
two inch long gash in it. They got it fixed after though.

The rest of the week was nowhere near as eventful. Well not things of
note at least. Just the usual. We did have that neat experience at
Starbucks where we got free drinks. (See my Facebook page) And the 
assistants were at our church one night doing a baptismal interview in 
Spanish so they took us out afterwords and I got a root beer float.
 It was so good.

My birthday was hectic. We had a zone conference that day which was
nice. I got to see some old friends. We shot these little paper
rockets we made at lunch when the meeting was done. Everyone sang me
and another Elder happy birthday  at lunch because we both turned 20.
Ugh. I can't believe I'm old now.

Saturday was busy too. We help an investigator move all of her stuff
into her new apartment. It was hot and her stuff was heavy but she was
so grateful. We brought her to the ward activity afterwords and taught
her that night. She was originally taught by Elder Dortch in an
adjacent ward but she moved to our boundaries and was out of contact
with the missionaries for about a month. We found her again and
actually got to skype Elder Dortch into the lesson. (he went home in July)
 It was so neat!

Overall a good week!
Send me pictures, read your scriptures,
Love you!
Elder Galvin

Fixing the Flat tire

Me and the Garlicks...love them!

Skype lesson With Elder Dortch!!

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Monday August 29, 2016 - The One with the Fast Food New Investigator

This has been a really good week here in Pineville. But first some big
news. So Elder Peterson and I were originally supposed to be training
but that changed last minute. We got a call from President early
Tuesday morning saying that we were getting a different missionary. So
instead of picking up a new missionary to train we now have Elder Ulrich! He
was in my last zone with me so I know him already! He is actually from
the same town as Elder Peterson (Farmington Utah) which is crazy!

So we spent most of Tuesday in Charlotte. Well I guess I live in
Charlotte but we spent most of the day up at the Hilliard building. We
were supposed to be there around noon to pick up Elder Ulrich but he
had forgotten some things at his previous apartment so they had turn
around enroute. When we finally were able to meet up with him we had
to wait for the trainer meeting to get out because he had to meet with
President. I was totally okay with the wait because two of my friends
from Albemarle came up to the Hilliard building to say goodbye to
Sister Collier. So I got chat with them which was
incredible. After leaving the Hilliard building we drove to a nearby
Dairy Queen to use my gift cards I got for my birthday. Thanks Nana!

This week we had the opportunity to do some really fun service. We had
talked with a place called Loaves and Fishes which is this huge Food
Pantry type place. We got together four companionships to go and help
serve at this place twice this week. Our job was to take these pallets
of boxes of food and to sort them. It was a ton of work but also lots
of fun.

This week wasn't the best as far as proselyting. We weren't able to
set up as many appointments as we would have liked. There was a crazy
experience that yielded a new investigator. We had just had an
appointment cancel on us and Elder Peterson was thirsty. So we went
through the drive through window at Burger King to get some water and
the lady at the window was super nice and we talked with her. She just
moved to Charlotte. We got her phone number, found her on Facebook and
we are going to teach her this week!

We went to lunch with President one day this week. He came over to our
apartment on Saturday morning  and afterwords
he offered to take us out to lunch. We went to Panera Bread which I'm
not sure if it's in Canada? But it's a super healthy pseudo Fast Food
place that's really good. Elder Ulrich is also a wizard with sewing
stuff and he taught us how to make our own ties so we went to a fabric
store today and bought some fabric. I also made a couple of ties of
mine skinnier and they look really good!

Overall it was a pretty good week.

Send me pictures, read your scriptures,
Love you!
Elder Galvin

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Monday August 8 2016 - The One where I ride the bus

This has been a great week here on Charlotte! It has been a bit long
and drawn out because of way too many meetings but that's just life I
guess.

Tuesday was a good day. We spent the day at a meeting. It was an MLC
meeting so there were missionaries from all over the mission there.
I got to see some friends which was really nice. We were piloting a
training that was just developed. It's an online proselyting training
that was developed in the Arizona Tempe mission. It's a series of
brand new videos and planning guidelines that we were the first to get
our hands on. It's going to be interesting to see how things change in
response to our feedback. All the videos and outlines have "draft" on
them.

Wednesday we meet with the Sister Training Leaders to plan for zone
meeting. We decided to change the order the training was presented in.
We also planned our zone activity for today's p day. 

This week we spent a decent amount of time trying to learn and
implement our new training. We spent quite a few hours on Facebook
messaging and contacting people. We were really trying to hit our goal
of finding a new investigator on Facebook. Unfortunately it didn't
happen this week. But we definitely tried. We must have message
hundreds of people, from formers to random people and no one
responded. We cried. Not really but we should have.

Friday was our zone meeting. We had a bit of a technical mishap when
we had the wrong adapter for he iPad. We thought the one that some
missionaries were brining for us would hook up to a projector but it was
an hdmi adapter. So we had to have a member of our mission presidency
who was attending run to an electronics store and get an hdmi cord for
us. He showed up just in the nick of time.

We also had a great time this week with President Alexander. He wanted
to come out and teach with us. We brought him to a dinner appointment
and taught the family afterwards. Then we took him out with one of our
investigators. It was so nice to just be able to talk with him.

After zone meeting on Friday we went on exchange with the Elders in
the Sharon ward. It was the first time I've rode public transportation
on my mission which was super fun. I got to use bus passes. We totally
got rained on which seems to be an exchange habit of mine this
transfer. We did get stuck like five miles from the apartment without
a ride back. So we called like 20 people until someone came and picked
us up. Everyone in their ward is out of town.

The next morning Elder Peterson came to the apartment with the other
missionary and they taught a Skype lesson. Funny side story. So they
have a weight bench in their apartment so Elder Peterson put all the
weight on and lifted. Well when they went to do the lesson it was all
still on there so the elder I was with, who is pretty skinny too,
decided that he was going to try and lift it. Well. He got it up off
the rack and brought it down. Then couldn't get it back up. So the
two of us struggled for like twenty seconds to try and get it back up
on the rack, dying of laughter which didn't help the situation at all.

Overall a really good week.

Send me pictures, read your scriptures,
Love you!
Elder Galvin

 Zone Activity at an Indoor Trampoline Park

My district at the Zone Activity

More Zone activity fun back at the church

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