Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Y'all I realize that I didn't really explain all that much about Sarah, the girl I baptized last week. So I met her on Facebook, and normally we wait until people add us back to message them, but she saw that I was a missionary and messaged me first, at first I totally thought she was just gonna bash me. But turns out she was totally interested. She had taken a BOM from a Mariott a few months earlier and was skimming it. She had researched our faith on her own and knew a lot. We taught her the first three lessons over video chat and then reffered her to the downtown elders. Teaching her was awesome, she is great. So she asked me to baptize her and it was awesome. 10\10. If anyone wants any more details hmu.

Next story, I also said Elder Gay told the part 2 to the story about his sister from general conference, at our stake conference. So here is the second part to that story. (shoutout to Bro. Nance)
So after he gave her the blessing, and was rebuked by the spirit, he remembered an experience he and his sister had had when they were little with their grandma. He asked his sister if she had ever told her that story. (remember the sister is on her deathbed and all the kids are gathered around her.) So he told the story basically as follows. "Grandma came to us one day, i was 12 and my sister was 14, and pulled us into a private room and told us, "Last night the Savior came to me, he told me that i had accomplished everything i was sent here to do and that i was being called home, don't tell your parents, but I want you to know."(and then the grandma bore her testimony to them) Sure enough 3 days later our perfectly healthy grandma died from a massive heart attack. After i had told the story to the kids she (the sister) said, "Thats great Bob, but thats not the whole story." "what is the whole story?" i asked "3 days after grandma died she came to me, she told me that she loved me and that Christ loved me, she told me that i was going to have a hard life, and that there would be many challenges, but that i could get through them, that her and the Savior would be there with me and for me, every step of the way."" Elder Gay went on to relate that to his conference talk and seeing people the way God sees them, it was awesome.

Now for the week. We had Thanksgiving at 3 different places, I don't have any pictures from dinner so sorry about that, but it was a good day.

News this week, we have started teaching Maryann, Michelle's(our recent convert) oldest daughter. We've taught her the first 2 lessons and she is on date for Dec. 15th! super exciting! Shes super solid. anyway thats about it for this week. Love ya!

Baptism!

Hey everyone, This week was pretty good! 

Tuesday was zone conference and we talked about using family history as a finding tool and my companion got an entire platter of meatball subs dropped on his lap, it was quite hilarious. But after zone conference we finally got our dinner with president, it was great, we went to Red Robin and had dinner with President and Sister Smith and the rest of the winners and the AP's it twas a good time. 

Thursday-Friday we had exchanges with the zone leaders, I was with my boy Elder Chapman, it was great we tried contacting a bunch of people, then at the end of the night we met an amazing lady in our are, she was a BOM referral from SLC and we taught her the restoration and it was amazing. 

Saturday! Saturday evening I had the privilege of Baptizing Sarah, a girl I found over facebook and taught her a few lessons over facebook. She asked me to baptize her so we drove clear into downtown Richmond for the service, which was great! She's awesome! Afterwards our WML took us out to this AMAZING burger place that was super fancy in Richmond, called Beauvines, I had the most amazing salted caramel shake of all time. good day

Sunday was stake conference, Elder Robert C. Gay was presiding, he reorganized the stake presidency, but he spoke and told the rest of the story about his sister, from his talk in General Conference, but it was a great talk. 

that about sums up the week..... 

Dinner with the winners

Sarah's baptism

Exchanges 

New Guy

Hey everyone! I misplaced my keyboard so this one is gonna be shorter maybe. We'll see..... so to start, Wednesday was transfers and I said goodbye to my good buddy Elder Jones, he was transferred to Waynesboro. And said hello to my new trainee Elder Stark! (First name not Tony....) he's from San Clemente California. He's great and we get along well. Thursday: very first day in the field for Elder Stark, he tripped on a rock and bashed his shin into another rock, so I got to play doctor and get him patched up. We then spent all of Friday morning at urgent care determining if he needed stitches or not. Turns out yes yes he does. But it also turns out that it was too late for them to stitch cause the skin was deteriorating, so now he's got a nice hole in his shin and a good memory from the VERY FIRST DAY in the field. This was a good grief Charlie brown moment for sure. The days go by quick with the extra hour of study we do, but we found a new investigator this week, the first one in a while I'll keep you all updated. Now to the crazy part of the story.

Grandma Allphin just shows up at church!!!! I was so confused 🤣 I thought, "hey that lady looks like grandma" then I thought, "hey that IS grandma!" I was just in shock I was speechless Haha. So great to see her! All the other missionaries were like what the heck!?

Ryan passed the sacrament for the first time this Sunday, so that was awesome. But not much else for the week. The gospel is true everyone!

Elder Stark
Neat bridge and fall colors
Grandma Allphin

Hallow-clean!!

Hey Y'all, this week was pretty standard, finding, tracting, ect... ect.... But there were some parts that weren't standard too, so I'll focus on those parts instead.

Tuesday I did a baptismal interview for a lady that some sisters in my district are teaching, she was super prepared, and we had a fantastic interview, she was baptized and confirmed this weekend, definitely a highlight.

Wednesday was interview with President Smith, AND Halloween! Interviews were great, as always, I walked out feeling the need to have some more faith to find. After the Interviews we had district council which was really great this week, and we had costumes.......
halloween night we have to be in by 6pm, so in this mission we do, Hallow-clean, where from 6 to nine we clean our apartments and the winners of the best apartments (1 from each zone) get to have a steak dinner with president and the AP's, so you already know ya boi won hallow-clean! LETS GO! Free steak dinner sounds pretty good to me.

Thursday-Friday we had exchanges with the Zone leaders down in Appomattox/Petersburg, it was a good time, I was with my good pal Elder Raty (Rae-tee), we taught a couple good lessons which was a needed break from the constant tracting. Good times were had by all.

Saturday Morning we helped out the Belmont sisters with a service project in their area, we tore out wood flooring, tile, linoleum, all kinds of stuff, it was a good time, another nice break from the normal day to day. you cant tell in the pictures cause only like half my face is showing but were all supposed to be flexin.

Sunday, my man Ryan, who Elder Jones and I baptized, Received the Aaronic Priesthood! He even asked me to ordain him, such an awesome experience, he is stoked to pass the sacrament next week!

Overall a pretty good week, didnt find anyone to teach, but we planted a lot of seeds

TRANSFER NEWS!
So everyone hold on to your butts, I'm staying another transfer in meadowbrook! which means another 6 month area! pretty crazy, Sadly Elder Jones will be leaving. BUT I'll be training this next transfer, so I'm pretty nervous\excited for that.

-district shenanigans
-my halloween costume #ifyouknowyouknow
-one of the senior missionaries cars, I had to get a pic
-exchanges
-pics with Ryan and Fam
-service shenanigans