This transfer was absolutely bizerk. Completely crazy I tell
you. More than half of the Spanish zone got shuffled around, except for Elder
Foote of course, who is still in Dayton and will complete 1 full year there.
Elder Carranza, who we all thought was finally leaving the Ohio River
branch, actually stayed in Kentucky with the same branch, he just replaced
me as Elder Arveseth's companion in Florence. Elder Carranza is still a zone
leader even though he's not companions with the other Spanish zone leader,
Elder Thompson. Elder Thompson received a new companion named Elder
Benavides, an English assistant that is going into Spanish work on his last
transfer of his mission. They will also be working with the Ohio River
Branch. Elder Brown finished his mission. In his final testimony at
transfer meeting he talked about me and him in Dayton together. He testified of
how he had always felt that someone was walking with us and
supporting us the whole time. He testified of how he now knew that it
was the Savior and how he knows that this is the Lord's
work. Really powerful. It really struck a chord with me because I can
remember and relate to his words as a first hand witness.
As for me, I got transferred to Norwood
with Elder Garcia. Norwood is just on the other side of the Ohio River and
North of Cincinnati. Actually, my area basically covers much of Cincinnati and
I'm emailing right now from the public library downtown Cincinnati. This
library is HUGE and I just so happened to be the lucky winner of reserving a
seat right next to a wanna-be-singer. Quite distracting. You
never can know what you get with people down here. Downtown Dayton
was pretty ghetto but downtown Cincinnati blows it out of the water. Norwood is
probably one of the sketchier and more rough corners of the mission. We've
been advised to avoid certain areas in the evenings. We were on foot
for most of the week but I just got my bike fixed last Saturday.
YAY! So we're feeling pretty mobile and effective right now :) In fact, in
some instances we proved that we are quicker than the bus. We were
running late for a ward social Saturday night. We were at the bottom
of the map visiting a member and we had some good ground to cover to make
it on time to our destination which was at the top of a giant 2 mile
hill that we didn't want to bike up. We hurried to a bus stop and waited and
waited and waited for like 30 minutes. We decided that it must have broken
down so we were mounting our bikes and getting ready to ride away
when we saw the bus come around the corner. "Yay!" we
thought, "We won't have to bike there". But the bus pulled up and we
couldn't get on because the bus already had another bike on the bike rack
and it can only carry two. Dejected, we began pursuing the bus on our
bikes with the intention that if we at least stayed on the bus route we might
be able to catch a bus that would come up from behind us. After a few hills we
lost the first bus but we kept pedaling hard and to our surprise
we after a couple miles we gained sight of the tail lights
again. We ended up catching the first bus right before the big hill and
right after the man with the other bike had gotten off. We boarded the bus
and everyone celebrated with a smile on their faces. The bus driver
herself was quite surprised to see us again. It was a fun time zipping
through the city. Long story made less long, we made it to the social and had a
chance to meet many of the members.
Elder Garcia is my first native companion!
Well, almost. He's a young guy from El Paso Texas. His parents are from Mexico.
We've had a great week together. He's super girl crazy but as
we are able to stay focused we are going to see lots of fun times and
success together. He's just the companion I need right now. He's got lots of
energy and he's a good worker. Before transfer meeting we were
talking to each other about how crazy it would be if we were companions, and,
well, it happened! He was asked to give a talk this Sunday and he did
a good job. But because he was giving a talk I was left to
myself to translate for my first time ever! We don't have a Spanish
branch here. That is our objective, to lay the foundation for a Spanish
branch. This area was just opened a couple months ago (opened up by
Elder Arveseth actually). So far there are 2 Spanish families that attend,
about 9 people total. We are working out of the English ward so we have to
translate everything for the 3 hours of church services. This is really going
to grow my language skills. Speaking a language and translating it in live
action are two totally different things. So for Sacrament meeting I sat out in
the foyer with a headset and a microphone as I translated the meeting
to the Spanish members with headphones sitting inside the chapel. It was a
little rough but not bad for my first time. For the next class we taught a
Spanish gospel principles class, something that we'll be doing each week.
For the last hour I sat next to one of the brother's in Elder's quorum
and translated the class for him. This had made me appreciate the times where
you can just sit and relax and listen. It is definitely work. But I
love it. I love the Spanish people. English people are so robotic while
the Spanish culture is so full of life.
Well that's all I've got time for. I'll update you
more about this area next week. Until then Have a Good one!
Elder Graf
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| Here is Elder Garcia! We bought some chiken and steak fajitas from a local hispanic shop and we brought it home and cooked it up for lunch. THE BEST LUNCH THAT ANY MISSIONARY HAS EVER HAD IN A MISSIONARY APARTMENT. It was super good to say the least. |
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| Here's a grafiti wall we walked past on our way to meet a member. |
