Thursday, November 26, 2009

Lake City, Fl. Letter # 6 Nov. 23, 2009

Hello to everyone with frozen winter toes!!

So, transfer calls have not happened yet, so no news yet on that. We should be getting them today and getting shipped out tomorrow to our new area, (if we are leaving). It is called an “emergency transfer” because it would happen quickly. However, it would be because the original transfer date would fall on Thanksgiving Day, not really an emergency. I don't think I will be transferred this time…but you never know. In my Presidents interview last week, I asked President Newman if I would be transferred. However, he didn't say yes and he didn't say no. What he did say was “That he has no problem keeping missionaries in an area for 6 or 7 months”. Therefore, I don't think I will need to worry too much about packing this week, but one never knows. As soon as I know “who is going”, I will let you know as soon as possible. I might not know until tonight though. Maybe I can let Ronee know if I am being transferred, and she can relay the information. So that is all I know about what is happening with transfers.

I am glad you liked the pictures and the sea shells, I sent home. I have had those for awhile and finally got a chance to send them. I will be sending more pictures very soon. I am glad you enjoyed our little “Elders in the Kitchen video.” Yes, indeed it was a missionary kitchen lol. Dude, making those donuts was so fun! That was such a crazy night! Then we went to the beach the next day for district meeting!! Ha- ha good times, good times! And we loved the mustaches you sent! We had a mustache party and yeah I did take pictures of everyone wearing the mustaches! We even have a video of it lol. It was pretty funny; I will send that home in this next group of pics.

I haven’t had a chance to use the church puzzles yet. The family I am working with now has kids, but I don't think would understand the puzzle seeing how they are 3 years, 18 months, and the youngest one is a 3 month old baby. So yeah, I will need to use those with older kids. Elder Taft and I were supposed to have a baptism yesterday (Sunday) but it didn't go through. She backed out at church yesterday and now we are thinking that she wanted to be baptized for the wrong reasons…just for a handout or something? We won't find that out for sure until tonight though because that is the next time we will see her.

Other than that, the weather here is getting colder each day. I really miss my Utah snow!! There are some trees that have their leaves fall, but not many. It “kinda sorta” feels like winter. But not winter as I know. The days are getting cooler but no snow.

And so everyone can rest assured that Elder Taft & Blair will enjoy Thanksgiving this year, “Yes for Thanksgiving we are having dinner with a part-member family”, (that is if we are still here, and not transferred). And today we have a dinner appointment at 3pm with a part-member, so that will be good! Two meals in one week, wow we must be doing something right…LOL!!

Ok your funny Elder story of the week coming up! As we were out tracting yesterday, we knocked on a door that had a sign on it saying "Real Men Trust Jesus Christ" We knocked on the door and talked to the guy who lives there. However we found out he was “not interested” in our message at all. Even though, we told him that we have a message about Christ to share with him. So, after we talked to the guy and decided he was not a “Real Man” we thanked him and he closed the door. As soon as the door was closed, we whipped out our cameras and we took our pictures by his door with the sign behind us!! Ha-Ha!! It was pretty funny!!

Yeah that is what is happening here in Lake City, Florida. I hope all is good up there. Thanks for sending me the articles about that meteor crashing in Utah. That totally looked pretty sweet! Did anyone find a piece? Did they determine how big it was? I bet all the pieces burned up as it entered the atmosphere. Man, I wish I had been there to see that!!

Well, hey I gotta get going. I will talk to you next week, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Elder Taft and I have to go and give the ZL’s (Zone leaders) a ride. Well love you all and “see” you next week. I will talk more next week. We just have to go and give the ZL’s a ride…so we got to bail! (Oh and I get to call home in like a month). Byeeeeee

I Love ya’ll bye!!

Love from Elder (looking for some snow in the South…) Blair
PS We just got transfer calls and Elder Taft and I are staying put.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Elders in the Kitchen!



The finished product:

Friday, November 20, 2009

What are you thankful for?

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Lake City, FL Letter #5 Nov. 16, 2009

Hello to all my fan club members!

This week flew by so fast, that we blinked once and it was gone! We had zone conference, which was pretty sweet. I just love Zone Conference, you always walk away with a huge “to do” list both personally and spiritually. But feel as if you can raise the bar just a little bit higher than you have done in the past.

We got a pretty sweet investigator this past week. I think she might possibly be baptized this coming Sunday. I know you would all love her. Her name is Rose. She is a really sweet, sweet lady. In addition, she made it out to church on this last Sunday, which is always a big plus with new investigators. Sometimes it is hard for them to make it to church, even after they know it is true and they want to be part of the church. Rose’s comment after the meeting was “All that was said there was the truth, she could feel it.” She said that she knows she needs to be baptized. Then she said, she “wants to learn a little more, but by Sunday she could be ready!” (LOL) Rose said that her “last baptism” she felt was “fake.” She wants to make sure this one feels real. We suggested that she attend a baptism with us this week. Therefore, we are taking her to a baptism this Wednesday evening, so she can see how it goes and how it feels.

So yes, that’s pretty much all this past week. My birthday box totally blew me away. It was amazing! I was totally blown away with everything inside!! How did you get everyone to get all their gifts and cards ready to be sent at one time? It really was a party in a box (LOL)!! We had an unofficial-official birthday party last Monday. Everyone was like, “Dude this is so cool.” Yeah we had a great time. Be sure to tell everyone it was almost worth leaving my teenage years behind, just to have such an awesome & totally sweet birthday surprise box!! It rocked seriously guys! Awesome, awesome birthday!

Hey and guess what I bought last P-day? A CD of Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas songs lol!! It is pretty sweet! Before I forget…just a reminder that transfer calls are this coming Saturday. So don’t send anything after this Thursday. I will let everyone know this next Monday if I am being transferred or not.

So yes, that is the update from Florida and by the way…it is cold here!!! 55 degrees this week! Brrr its cold enough to have icesiscles hanging from your favorite elders nose…HA-HA my Utah mates…I can hear your groans from here…but for Florida that is cold indeed!

Take care everyone and thanks again, you guys are an awesome Elder Blair fan Club!!
Love,
From the Elder who loves the liquid Florida sunshine!! (Even when it’s cold!!)
Elder Blair

Monday, November 9, 2009

Lake City, FL Letter #4 Nov. 9, 2009

Hello from the old dude in the South,

Yeah, lol my birthday was weird cause I didn't even remember it was my birthday that day (until later that day I realized it was the 8th). As a special surprise, Elder Bowen and some of my favorite Fernandina members gave me a call last night. They started the call off by singing Happy Birthday (lol). It was pretty sweet! Ronee also called me; it was fun talking to her again! And Jason and Debbie called me and wished me a happy birthday as well! Wow!! What a great surprise!! It was tons of fun talking to everyone, Fun fun times for Elder Blair yesterday!

But yeah no baptism this week for TJ. Oh well, just gotta keep working I suppose. I got the GPS and man, it helps out so much! It is totally sweet. And it is pretty accurate. Elder Taft and I calibrated it in to show us the shorter distance routes all the time. So to test it, we plugged in this address and she took us to a dirt road, the dirt road was a cut through. lol It was pretty wild, we didn't even know that road existed! It looked like it was not used for a long long time. I programmed her to have an “Australian accent” and I call her Claire! Yeah it’s pretty funny. She’s a great traveling companion, ha-ha!! We have not tried the pedestrian mode yet for when we are biking or walking. We will need to try that this week for sure.

But holy cow… we are like going hard and working like mad every day, and still nothing. But Elder Taft and I…we won’t quit. We just got to keep pressing forward with faith. It wears on you though, so that’s why I am glad we have p-days. It gives us time to un-wind form the previous week.

Oh and I have pictures that I need to send home still from Fernandina. So I will try to do that today too, along with the seashells, I gotta send those too. So yeah, you guys should be getting some sweet stuff soon.

For my Birthday dinner, (even though I won’t be there this year), I suggest Teppanyaki, (or you could go to Famous Dave’s). But lol I don't know which is better… Sonny's Bar-b-Q which is here in the south, or Famous Dave’s back home. Ha-ha! Just go ahead and pick one and then let me know how well I liked my birthday dinner this year! Lol!!

Anyways I love you guys! Have a good one! I hope all is well up there in the cold!! I need to get going now and head to Wally World to get us some food for this new week.

So long from the companionship of 3 (Elder Taft, Elder Blair and Claire ha-ha!!)

Talk to y’all next week!

Love, Elder Blair

Friday, November 6, 2009

2009 Mission Tour 10/28/2009

At center with the Ringwoodinator!

Transfer Day 10/15/2009

Who's your Daddy? Elder Blair's first son.

Zone Conference Jax West 9/15/2009

Still making the white shirt look good.

Zone Conference Jax West 8/12/2009


Would Missionaries exist with out the Relief Society?
Spaghetti, the food invented for royalty! (or missionaries)

Is that Elder eyeing my food?

Monday, November 2, 2009

Lake City, FL Letter #3 Nov. 2, 2009

Howdy peep’s!

Well this week was pretty, cool! Zone Conference with Elder Ringwood was pretty sweet. He talked a lot about unity and said, “That we are doing something amazing in this mission”. He talked about 2 Nephi 31 as well, which was totally sweet! I enjoyed hearing him speak to us. Yeah it was pretty amazing listening to his talks, unfortunately I was so tired from the day before (of extensive tracting and the fact we had a total of 8 elders in our apartment the night before). We had the Zone Leaders and the AP’s (Assistants to the President) stay in our apartment for the night, which was pretty noisy, thus I didn't get much sleep. Therefore, I was very tired during Elder Ringwood’s talk, but still got a lot out of it. He brought a great spirit with him that filled the room.

Then for Halloween this year, we went and tracted! Ha-Ha big surprise, right? People couldn't believe we were out on Halloween night, still working! lol Some “more kinder” people gave us candy, and some people actually thought we were dressed up as Mormons! Once they found out that we were the “real deal”, they were kind of surprised.

I have a great Halloween story to tell everyone. We were in this one neighborhood, (which we had just finished tracting,) and it was about 8:50 pm. Being time to head back home, we started to walk back towards our car. Our car was kind of far away. So anyway, we started to walk back, when see a cop car driving very slowly with its lights on, but not flashing. I whispered to Elder Taft, “This is for us,” and Elder Taft’s like “nu huh,” and I said, “Yeah huh.” Then when the cop car got right up to us, he flipped on his flashlight at us and said, “Are you two soliciting?” I said, “No we are not selling anything,” as I walked up to his car door. He then said, “Well then what are you doing?” And I said, “Sharing the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The officer then replied laughing, “That’s soliciting.” I promptly replied with, “No sir even in the Florida state law it says we are allowed to do this. However we are leaving this neighborhood now anyways.” He had this really confused look on his face. Then he said something like, “ok.” And we started to walk off. Then he asked us, “Why are you out on Halloween night?” So I replied and I told him, “The Lord never takes a day off. He wants us to go out and share His message every day!” Then the police officer said, “Ok God Bless” and they drove off. Lol. It was freaking sweet!! I got my first cop car called on me… and on Halloween no less. Boy was I excited! But yeah that was our big Halloween night and yeah it was amazing, one for the journal indeed.

The person we are going to be baptizing soon is T.J. lol he is a sweet dude. We are working on getting him and his girlfriend married. Then we hope to baptize them on Nov 8th (Oh yeah that will be sweet, right on my birthday. Couldn’t ask for a better birthday!!) So yeah, that is what is happening this week, looks to be a totally sweet week.

So I hope everything went well for you guys Halloween night. I know Will really enjoyed the murder mystery party! Lol he sent me two emails about it!! I want to hear how everyone’s Halloween was. What did everyone do? Any great parties or outstanding costumes this year? And all the details on the Murder Mystery. Tell me who had what parts, and who killed, bribed, stole from each other etc. And send as many pictures as you can. Also, I got the Halloween Cards from everyone, which was super great. I sure love hearing from everyone.

Well this Sunday I hit the 20's (the big 2 and 0) lol. Well I guess I will talk to you next Monday. Take care of each other for me, and tell everyone I say hello and pray for each of you every morning and night.

Well let me know how you guys are doing and all the happenings back home.
Love,
The Lake City cops favorite Elder…
Elder Blair