Week 21

 It's been a while since my last email. The month of September has been a little challenging, but it's the end of the transfer tomorrow and the beginning of the next. My companion Elder Christensen is leaving Friday for home, and I'll be staying where I am now. I'm getting a new companion named Elder Johnson (first name currently unknown). I've never met him and don't know anyone who has, but I'm sure we'll get along famously. I'm still the junior companion even though I'll be leading the area, so its nice to see how confident the Lord is in my competence as a missionary.


It's kind of funny because I still have no real idea who my companion is going to be. This is the second time in a row that this has happened. Last transfer I was told I was going to be with an Elder Christensen and I had to ask "which one?" Because there's at least three or four of them in this mission. Now the same thing is happening with Elder Johnson. There's several of them so I'm not sure which one I'm going to get. Maybe the leadership will have them all file into a line against the wall at the mission office and I'll be able to choose my favorite to take home. Or maybe we can have a ticket raffle of some sort. You know, for charity. 

I don't have much time tonight, but I thought I would send all my pictures to those of you who can't access them online. I'll write a much better email next week.

Yours Faithfully,
Elder C. Calder


Elder Calder wielding the Sword of Truth in defense of the gospel, circa AD 2023 colorized

We didn't really have a Monsoon  season this year, but we did get at least one Monsoon! It was pretty great. The video won't send over email unfortunately but the rain was really coming down.

The other Elders had a plant named Henri in their room. He was looking a little wilted, so we put him on the back patio to get a little extra sun. Sadly we left him there and forgot to water him, so Henri perished under the unrelenting solar heat. RIP

We had dinner planned with some members but they had to cancel, so they gave us some money to go to wherever we wanted! They probably gave us a little too much, so we decided to go to Red Lobster since I'd never had lobster before. My professional opinion? Lobster is not worth what we paid for it. It's alright 🤷‍♂️

My beautiful mug. It was a gift from the Lee family. The Lord will surely bless them bountifully for their kindness.

7.We saw some of the Spanish Elders at Stake Conference. Elder Zegarra was admiring my very fine suit coat and I let him try it on. His comp said that he looked like Gru from Despicable Me. An accurate assessment. 

Zone picture. On the far left you surely can't miss the handsome visage of yours truly.

I tried to branch out last week and attempted to cook some shrimp. You can see that I tried a couple of different methods, boiling it, cooking it, frying it, and frying it even more (frying tastes the best). It took a bit of trial and error, but I was able to figure it out. Even when I mess up, my favorite sauce (pictured here) helps to liven things up.

I went on exchanges with Elder Schoon (pronounced Shone) one day. He and his companion cover the YSA and Sun City, which is sort of like a giant retirement village. It's a section of the city where you need to be at least 60 years old to rent or buy a house, and so everybody in the ward is, well, over the age of 60. It was a pretty nice exchange, we visited a bunch of members and had a great lesson with this guy named Mario (you could say it went Super). 

The sister missionaries desecrated our car by flipping up the windshield wipers and messing up all the seats inside (we forgot to lock it). They went so far as to leave a pass-along card at the scene of the crime, bragging about their misdeeds. As a proclaimer of peace and goodwill to the nations, all I thought appropriate to do in this situation was to lovingly refer them to 2 Nephi 10:6. 

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