Week 73

 As they say, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. 

I've wanted to write for a long time but there just never seems to be enough time. I'm still working through all of my birthday emails from more than a month ago (a hearty thanks to all who sent me something, by the way). I was reading back in my notes from when I was set apart and blessed to be a missionary, and I noticed that one thing I was promised was that my emails back home would be a strength to my friends and family every week. Thus I will be trying this next week to write a little of my email every evening so that when Monday rolls around I don't have to stress and you all yet your email. 

I'm now in the city of Buckeye, AZ. Buckeye is a rural farming town that is experiencing a lot of urban growth as the encroaching suburban sprawl of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area creeps outwards. The concentration of members is fairly high with one in ten residents being a Latter-day Saint. We are serving in three wards simultaneously, Skyline, Buckeye 2nd, and Palo Verde. 

Our area is massive and includes a lot of farmland and empty desert. We've been loaned a Nissan Frontier truck, making this the first time that I've ever driven a truck in my life. I enjoy being so high up and looking down on all my peers, it reminds me of walking around normally. 

The other day I drove the truck into a sandy patch and it got stuck, forcing us to dig around the back wheels and place sticks underneath the tires in order to get free. I got sand and dust all over my clothes and we weren't able to get the truck out ourselves, but luckily a short and ripped shirtless Mexican man named Miguel saw us from his property and came to rescue us. He chained up our truck to the back of his pickup and pulled us free. Now whenever I'm worried about the quality of the roads I just pray that God will let Miguel know about the situation and send him to rescue us.

Doing missionary work in this area is extremely different from anywhere else that I have served. Nobody answers their phone or gets texts before 3pm because they're all out on the ranch working in the dust and heat. We drive long stretches of 25 minutes or more to visit members, and sometimes we have to drive behind extremely slow tractors that take up most of the road. Every so often you'll see yellow and black road signs denoting a cattle crossing, horse crossing, or my personal favorite, the cowboy-on-a-tractor crossing (complete with a little silhouette of a hat). The water at the stake center water fountain tastes of bitter chemicals and when the wind blows the wrong way you can smell the noxious, eye-watering stench of the nearby beef cow farm. 

I love the wide open spaces though, and the green fields of crops. The air tastes better out here (when you're not near a ranch or dairy) and you can see a lot more stars at night. With the long drives I have lots of time to think or listen to BYU devotionals. My companion is also a good chef so I've been eating well. It's amazing what one can do with cheap Great Value ingredients from Walmart. 

My companion is from Texas and has been educating me on the intricacies of rural etiquette. For example, in the city if you want an easy way to help people to open up you ask them questions like "who were the weirdest missionaries that you ever remember being in this ward?" Or "what is the goofiest thing that you've ever seen happen during fast and testimony meeting?" Give them an invitation to reminisce and roast people and nine times out of ten they will happily take it, and you can bond over your harmless shared mockery of people long gone. 

In the countryside you cannot do that (I learned this the hard way) because to the rural people's more refined sensibilities such things are "rude" and "improper." Apparently talking about people behind their back is looked down upon. You also shouldn't tell too many jokes because then you look weak and they won't respect you. And if they start talking to you about trucks, dirt bikes, or camping you must pretend that you know and care about what they are talking about at all costs. 

"Oh wow! Your truck is fitted out with an open-cylinder hyper-extended super-subatomic V-8 engine with dual flux capacitors and hyperdrive capabilities? That's really cool. You know, that really reminds me of a fundamental principle of the gospel..."

But actually I like the people here a lot. I don't think I'll ever manage to fully earn their respect but at least they tolerate me and my ignorance of country life (it helps when I say I'm from Oklahoma and then pretend to say things in a country accent without any elaboration whatsoever about how I conducted my life there). We're starting to find more people to teach which is nice. I've been getting more consistent about getting good exercise and I've been eating better. My goal is to lose 30 lbs before I go home in 8 months, which will be easy as long as I don't eat any food whatsoever beyond that which is given to us by members at dinnertime. 

My faith is growing in Jesus Christ. I believe that he is real, and that he loves me and can help me in my life. I believe that God lives and that he is leading me on the best path towards eternal happiness. When I read the scriptures with intent to understand and apply what I learn, when I sing and listen to the sacred hymns, and when I testify of the way Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have helped me in my life, my heart is full of joy. 

Faithfully Yours, 

Elder C. Calder

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We went over to the James Family's house my first day in Buckeye and Sister James gave a private harp performance for us and her family. I got to take a picture with the harp. I don't have an instrument to play currently so maybe I should invest in a career as a harpist. 

 My last p-day in Glendale we went to Krispy Kreme donuts and Elder Udy treated us to a dozen donuts for my sendoff. I miss him! 

The area outlined in red is our mission and the purple is our current area in Buckeye. It's pretty massive, there are members in the westernmost part of our area that take an hour and a half to drive to by dirt road. 

The ward clerk in Buckeye 2nd Ward, Brother Northway, is an accounting professor but he's also a magician. He showed us some tricks at dinner and I'm working on practicing a rope trick that he gave us. 

Playing board games at the stake center for our Zone Activity last p-day.

We went and did some service as a district, cleaning out a lady's garage. She also took us around back and showed us the small alpaca farm her and her husband are running. She told us all about the miraculous properties of alpaca wool and how alpacas are very low-maintenance and great to raise. She let us go into the pen and feed some of them, but they were skittish and none of them dared to come close to us. I engineered an ingenious solution by putting my arm over the gate so that there was a safe barrier between me and them, and then they were pretty happy to come over and eat. You may laugh at my piddling attempts at being the Alpaca Whisperer but I'll be too busy enjoying my lightweight and fire-retardant alpaca-wool overcoat to care. 

Buckeye's 'old town.' It has the trappings of an old Frontier town and there's even a visitor's center for tourists. I'm not sure why as I'm not sure who in their right mind would come here on vacation. 

My companion Elder Whipple attempted to lure the alpacas over to him but he lacked my Supernatural insight into the alpaca psyche, and thus his attempts failed. 

There's an awesome older couple in Skyline ward, the Husza'rs. They're originally from Hungary but moved to Austria for a better life and there met missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They got baptized and later moved to America where they raised their family. The cool thing is they still have the pass-along card that their first missionaries gave them when they first met on the street (it has the Articles of Faith on the back of it). The mission home that is listed on the card is the same address that the mission home was located at when both of my parents served their missions in Austria.