Week 101

 I begin this email with some momentous news. 

Many of you know the circumstances surrounding my mission call but I'll recount them briefly. When I was working on my mission papers everyone would ask me, as they do, "where do you want to go?" 

During my time at BYU-Idaho, I noticed that most of the time when a prospective missionary would say that they wanted to go to such-and-such place or learn such-and-such language, or they DIDN'T want to go to one particular place or speak a language, they would usually get the *opposite* of what they wanted. 

You maybe be aware of my passion for foreign cultures, geography, nations, history etc. I decided that if I was to get what I truly wanted- to go to a far-off country and learn a foreign language- I would need to be smarter than all the other missionaries. I would need to game the system.

So, when asked, I would tell people "Oh, I don't know. I don't have any particular preference." Which was partially true, I hadn't decided on one particular place or language that I would like to go to the best. Part of the appeal of missionary service would be that, rather than continue to struggle to decide on just ONE language to learn, I could have Heavenly Father choose for me. Rather than having an extremely broad, shallow range of knowledge of different peoples and places, I could focus on just one to conquer. 

So I continued in my machinations, always maintaining to everyone who asked that I had no preference. Because, of course, if you have no preference, you can go anywhere and everywhere. I spent a lot of time thinking, imagining all these theoretical Elder Calders-to be, so many different potential experiences, so many potential lessons I could learn. Narratively I couldn't decide on which character arc would be the most interesting or engaging story for God to tell for my life. But I continued onward, stalwart in the faith that I would go somewhere interesting.

But! I made one fatal mistake. One tiny slip-up. one moment of weakness that dashed my plans to pieces. 

On the very day of me opening my mission call, nay, only hours before I was to read the email aloud before friends and family, I was in my maternal grandparents' house in Sandy, Utah. I was pondering my future in the living room when my grandma came in and started talking to me. And she asked me the same question: " where do you want to go?" And I said the same thing, "Oh, I don't have any particular preference." 

But then I paused. There was one thing that bothered me, one thing that many summers in Oklahoma had taught me was potentially deleterious to the health and happiness of a full-time missionaries. One thing that, perhaps, wouldn't be too much to ask to avoid. So I cracked, just a little, and added: "...as long as it's not anywhere too hot."

And Alas! I know that surely the words on the email shifted the moment those words emerged from my lips. When I read that email aloud, "Arizona Phoenix Mission... you have been assigned to labor in the English language" I looked over at my grandmother and her face was full of wry humor. I sowed the wind in my hubris, and now I reaped the whirlwind. 

Now, why do I bring this story up? Because I, after coming to terms with my assignment and, indeed, seeing the wisdom and the mercy of where I was placed, thought that my chances to speak another language on my mission was over. But no longer!

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I GOT REASSIGNED TO BE AN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE MISSIONARY WITH ELDER TENNEY!!

For one hour!!!!!

The Elders in the Mesa ASL Branch transitioned over to being officially a part of the Arizona Mesa Mission since their church building is in that mission. They still cover the same area (the entire valley north of the salt river) but they're under the stewardship of the Mesa Mission president. 

The only problem with that is the structure of the Preach My Gospel app forced them to create a new area in the Mesa Mission's system rather than automatically move everything over from the Phoenix Mission system. So their "areabook"- ie all of the info about people they are teaching- was inaccessible to them. The Assistants in our mission phoned us and told us about the situation. Since Elder Tenney used to serve in the ASL Branch they asked us to sync temporarily into their area and manually send over every record to the new Mesa area. 

You can imagine my delight at the opportunity. Elder Tenney sadly shut down my budding plans to order an American Sign Language tag, but at the appointed time we synced out of our area and into the scrapped ASL area. It was a little uncanny since it was so empty, no lessons scheduled, no events in the calendar. 

I thought it was particularly funny how when we synced in they placed us in the same district the ASL missionaries used to be a part of. Previously the senior companion in the branch was Elder Harding who was a district leader, so it automatically booted the current district leader out of power and made me the district leader for a bunch of people who have never met me.

Best of all, a couple nights before this happened my bike tire went flat and nobody in the zone had time to drive over to the mission office and get me a new one. So for the next few days we weren't car missionaries, we weren't bike missionaries, we were walking missionaries! In Arizona.

So, not only did I get to become an ASL Missionary, but my companion and I were probably the only walking ASL missionaries on planet earth at the time! And with me being a district leader too! The mission truly does trust me with the tough assignments. 😎 it takes a special breed of Elder to do what I do. 

Anyway, I can now say that I had a language assignment besides English. It's very uncommon for anyone in our mission to get reassigned to another language, unlike in some other missions in the United States, so even though it's pretty meaningless it's still a neat badge of distinction. 

Even though I never taught anyone in ASL or met any members of the branch, I have learned a good amount of sign language from Elder Tenney. Sadly we had transfers this last week so he moved on to another area but I'm grateful for everything he taught me. 

- - - - -

This last Thursday we got to volunteer for the Special Olympics! I'd never done anything like it before, but it was a regional meet of some kind and it was really enjoyable. We spent most of our day there, definitely the longest single service project I've participated in as a missionary (most services are supposed to be 1-2 hours).

The kids we were working with were 8-14 years old. We were warned beforehand that with this younger group there might be some meltdowns but actually all the kids were very well-behaved. I think there was only one child who cried but it wasn't too bad. 

My companion and I were assigned to one of the tennis ball/softball throwing groups. He stayed with the kids at the starting line and would hand them the balls, and I was out on the green with a clipboard and beanbags. Depending on the stage of development the child was in, they would get to throw either 3 tennis balls or 3 softballs. My job was to throw down a beanbag where each ball fell and then afterwards to mark the distance on the clipboard. 

The competition wasn't overall best but based on small groups called Heats (or divisions), of probably 2-6 kids. The best scoring in the Heat would get the gold medal, then on to silver, bronze, and ribbons for the other members of the heat. 

Some of the kids actually threw the softball pretty far! I think the farthest throw was more than 26 meters (around 85 feet). That kid wound up his whole body, not like a baseball pitcher but more like a human catapult, and then let loose. He probably threw that ball farther then I could. 

The kids were really great to be around. One little boy with Down Syndrome went to throw his tennis ball but didn't want to do it, he just stood there and smiled at everyone. The teacher was getting a little competitive I think because she kept pantomiming the correct motion to make and saying "overhand, overhand!" But this kid just smiled. Elder Gurr leaned down to help him and he gently grabbed the bill of elder Gurr's baseball cap and adjusted it for him. 

Eventually he did throw his ball and it went pretty far. We all cheered super loudly for him and he got excited. He turned over to my companion and gave him a big hug before his sister and the teacher pulled him away. I think he had been eating some lunch beforehand because Elder Gurr got some spaghetti sauce on his shirt. When we pointed it out to him Elder Gurr solemnly said that he would never wash his shirt again. So, always remember our boy Quentyn, the sweetest little Special Olympian of all time. 

- - - - - 

We had transfers this week, Elder Tenney went off to North Phoenix to the wards which meet in the building right across from the Phoenix temple. My new companion is Elder Gurr from Layton, Utah. Barring some unforseen tragedies, he will be my last missionary companion. He's entering his third transfer and just came from downtown Phoenix, a very busy area. He's not used to having 3 wards to serve in at the same time but he's been earnest and eager to prove himself so far. 

I'm staying in Surprise for my last transfer, not a huge surprise (*editor's note: unintentional pun). It would have been a little disappointing for me to leave and only stay in my new place for 6 weeks so I hope I'll be able to build on the work and the relationships with people that Elder Tenney and I have been trying to develop here. 

- - - - - 

I enjoyed my last general conference as a missionary this weekend, I came prepared with a couple of questions. Not all my questions were answered in the way I wanted but I would say all of them were either answered or something stood out to me that felt more meaningful than the answer. In general I felt a lot of happiness, peace, and excitement while I watched. It's amazing how General Conference has gone from being a boring weekend where we make pillow forts to a mental, spiritual and emotional feast. It's never sped by so fast.

Yours Faithfully,

Elder C. Calder 

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A regal pose at the public park by your favorite debonair Elder.

Us with our good friend Daniel Monson, he's been coming back to church and has a really good soul. It's been a pleasure getting to know him these last few months.

Watching general conference with our roommates on the forbidden couch. We're technically not supposed to have a couch in our house because the mission doesn't want missionaries slacking off and laying around inside for long periods of time. Trying to comply with mission rules, I asked the housing coordinators if they would take it or if we could remove it ourselves and he basically said not to move it, they'd take care of it eventually. I know it's already been here for at least 2-3 years so I'm not anticipating I will outlive it on the mission. Funnily enough our garage used to be full of heavy weight lifting equipment, but the housing coordinators took that my first transfer here. So it's now harder to exercise but much easier to nap, go figure. 

Elder Calder, Walking American-Sign-Language-Assigned District Leader Extraordinaire. 

Walking ASL missionaries on the move. Luckily the church meetinghouse is pretty close to our house so it wasn't too bad of a walk. 

Me with Elder Gurr, he seems even more smiley than my last companion 😐