Week 66

"Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66."

Beginning two weeks ago, I've had the pleasure of training a new missionary. His name is Elder Udy and he's from Norman, Oklahoma! Oklahoma missionaries are very rare in this mission, there is only one other, so it's fun that we were put together. As previous trends were indicating, he should have been about 5'2" but in defiance of those trends Elder Udy is 6'2", enjoys feasting on whatever good food he can find, and did Football and powerlifting before his mission. He's a big boy. 

It is not clear from the scriptural account why exactly Jesus' apostles James and John were referred to as the Sons of Thunder, but I like to think that part of it was that they were a large, loud, and dynamic duo, impossible to miss as they went out to preach the gospel. Elder Udy and I work well together, even though he's still developing his teaching skills he's quick to testify of how the gospel has specifically blessed his life, and bold enough to invite others in times when I am not. We pass off in lessons fairly well, and he very rarely gets flustered and tries to pass it back without saying anything even if he was caught off guard. He's a hard worker and is willing to be uncomfortable in order for us to get the job done. People look a little intimidated sometimes when we walk down the street towards them with copies of the Book of Mormon in hand.  We are the Sons of Thunder.

Yours Faithfully, 

Elder C. Calder

The baptism of our friends Garriet (pronounced Garrett) and Christy. They've been taught by missionaries for over a year but moved around frequently and never made it to baptism. We had a remarkable experience where we taught them about the power of fasting and prayer and related it to Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. They committed to fast in order to overcome a serious problem they were having which was outside of their control. We fasted with them, and then the evening of the day we fasted we gave them a call for a short lesson and right as we started talking they got a text from someone indicating that they could help with this problem. They were very impressed and called it an answer to prayer. I believe that if they hadn't exercised that faith, they wouldn't have been baptized later that week.

The drive up from our apartment to the mission office to pick up Elder Udy. This is what it is to be a Phoenix missionary, the Mission Office is about 30 minutes away and that's considered quite the drive. In other missions thr mission home might be several days away, but we're spoiled a bit here.

Over at the Cooper family's house for dinner, they let their little tropical birds out and let us hold them. The Coopers are great, they moved into our more southern ward (Agua Fria) a few weeks ago and the first Sunday they attended they went up and asked the bishop what they could do to serve. They are very excited about missionary work and Brother Cooper is an excellent teacher back from when he served his mission in California.

Elder Udy and I on his first day out in the wilderness- ie the mission field. 

Us at St Mary's food bank with an interesting man named Richard. We were stacking boxes in the assembly line and the employees sent Richard over to help us out since Elder Udy had never done that before. He has a very strong New Jersey accent and would cackle and mutter to himself constantly while he was stacking boxes. When you're stacking boxes there is a basic, repeating pattern in the way you stack them but he kept forgetting what it was. Almost every other time that he would stack a box he would put it on the wrong way and we would have to re-remind him of how it worked. We stacked over a thousand boxes and I'm pretty sure we explained the stacking process to him about a thousand times as well. He was good-natured about it and fun to work with, he kept telling us crazy stories about his life and his unhinged political theories. 

We found a man named Rudy who lived in my first district leader's area when I was over in east Phoenix last summer. He was baptized in Agua Fria ward but has had a rough and rocky road since then, dealing with a lot of personal things. He eventually moved back here to this ward and it was really neat to find him after all this time. He had gotten lost and no one had visited him since he moved. We'll see whether he's fully ready to come back as of now but in any case it was a miracle we were able to find him. I was looking through reassigned records that had recently been moved into the area and saw his name and I was flabbergasted when I recognized it. We went and stopped by, knocked a few times with no signs of life from the house. Not taking no for an answer, I stepped up to the door and called out "Rudy! Are you there? It's the missionaries." Then his sister, who had been waiting behind the door, answered and let us in. She couldn't really see who we were from the door's peephole but she knew who the missionaries were. Shows the blessings of persistence, something I'm becoming better at.

We went to lunch with my friend Graham who I helped teach over in Arcadia ward. He was preparing for his baptism, which was last Saturday, and he seemed very different than when I was teaching him. He shaved his mustache, but more than that he just generally seemed calmer and happier. It also helped that he was done moving and with school for the semester so he could relax a little more, but I felt that it was more than that. He just seemed more hopeful and more at ease with himself and with his goals. There was a brightness around him that I could perceive and it was really gladdening. It shows that he's sincere in his repentance and in his turning towards Jesus Christ, and accordingly is being blessed with a new heart. It was great to catch up and hear how he's doing. He moved to Mesa which is mostly outside the mission, so I couldn't get permission to come to his baptism sadly. But I'm excited for him and wish him luck during this new chapter in his life.