Week 29

 Hey everyone, don't have a ton of time today but I thought I'd send in a quick update (read: photo dump) from the last few weeks. Not much has happened, we keep trying to meet with our friend Jerome and he keeps not showing up to lessons, and we still haven't been able to find anyone else to teach. But we're chugging along. We had a phenomenal zone conference this week which as given me a new perspective on the best way to do effective missionary work.. I will likely write about it greater detail in the next email. Until then, I am

Faithfully Yours,

Elder C. Calder

A very ab-gnormal lawn ornament.

Our dinner last night was in fabulous Sun City (The members we ate with live in that other ward but have permission to come to ours). We decided to have a nice after-dinner selfie, but couldn't figure out where to do it. So we just found a random street lamp on a dark street. Elder Johnson was worried about some geriatric thugs coming to steal our lunch money but I told him we could probably take them. 

A few nights ago we were pulling up to the park and we saw a car pulled off to the side of the road with police cars all around it. We were wondering what all the commotion was about, but we came back later to visit some less-active members and we noticed that a wall that used to be over there... wasn't there anymore. I guess somebody had an exciting night.

It rained for the first time in quite a while. We had to go on our morning walk but somehow it didn't occur to me to pack a raincoat when I learned I was being called to Arizona. Elder Johnson kindly allowed me to use his. It was very snug and dry, minus the dry part.

Chik-Fil-A war balloon.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with the Greenwood family, up in Apache Park ward. Sister Greenwood was really nice and asked us if there was anything we normally had for Thanksgiving back home that we'd like her to make. I of course requested that staple of any worthy Calder get-together, cranberry fluff. She'd never heard of it before, but she did her best and I had cranberry fluff on Thanksgiving. Reminded me of home. I miss you all, and I look forward to the time that we can eat all together again. But for now I'm trying to enjoy being a missionary and making the most of the time I've been given.

For a zone activity we all went to the baseball field behind the church on Thanksgiving day and played kickball. Our mission president and his wife showed up and I got to have a neat conversation with them. 

I also had the privilege of being seriously humbled while we were playing. Whenever I'm getting a little prideful, all I have to do is go participate in literally any physical activity with other people and then I get nice and teachable again. 

But by far the best part of the activity was getting to meet THE one-and-only Famous Fence. I never anticipated that my missionary service might lead to meeting a real celebrity. Truly I had a lot to be grateful for that day.

Our car's battery died Saturday night so we had to get a jump from the Sun City Elders. Elder Johnson knows a lot of practical mechanical stuff, but even so we had a challenging time trying to hook up a Corolla Cross hybrid to our gas-powered Rogue. Hybrid engines are weird, Elder Johnson kept fiddling with the clamps and muttering about alternators or something. Pictured here we have the two cars mid-jumping attempt 24. Elder Hill is helping!

As a consequence of our bad battery, we were forced to become bike missionaries for a day because the Nissan dealership was closed on Sunday (and also because we didn't want to profane the sanctity of the Sabbath day, duh). It was certainly an interesting experience. Most people know that I have no special fondness for biking, especially in this climate. But we had some members drive us to visits for a lot of the day, so it wasn't too bad. Despite my best efforts I even started to enjoy myself for parts of it. The weather has really cooled down now and it can even get a bit chilly in the mornings and evenings. And after a while you forget the crippling agony your muscles are undergoing and get to enjoy gliding down the street with the wind in your face. 

Since then we've actually instituted bike rides every other morning for our daily exercise. I don't have a picture sadly but we get to wear our extremely fashionable, one-size-fits-most (but not me) reflective vests. We don't get a choice on whether we wear them or not but I guess I can't complain since they make us look so cool. I'll have to get a photo of the APM biking missionary fit to include next time.

Ugly Hannukah sweater

We played a game at our district activity this last Monday where one person would write a sentence on a sheet of paper and then pass it along to the next person. They would draw a picture of what the sentence described and then fold over the initial sentence before passing it on to the next. The third person would look at the picture and write a new sentence describing what they thought it was supposed to be, before passing it on. Basically it was like a game of Telephone, only on paper. My favorite illustration was Elder Hill's interpretation of my starting sentence: "I am the Twerp who will slurp the Purp."