Monday, February 28, 2011

Fernandina Beach, Letter #6 Feb. 28, 2011

Here we are another week-gone way to fast!

Well, first off - for transfers (which will be Tuesday this week) I am staying in Fernandina and my companion Elder Johnson is indeed leaving, kinda stinks; but I suppose change is good. I really hope that I stay in Fernandina until time for me to head home. I really want Elder Day to come here and be my last companion, so maybe tomorrow that will happen. I am thinking that this next companion will be my last companion. So yesterday (and again today), Elder Johnson and I have been swinging by some people’s houses and saying his goodbyes to everyone he has come to know and love here in Fernandina Beach. Today for his last P-day, he wants to go to a local pizza place in town and try that out for lunch so after this letter we will be going for pizza!

On Saturday, Elder Johnson and I got a call from one of the primary teachers in the ward asking us if we could play the role of King Benjamin during primary. Sweet sauce!! So Sunday during Primary, we were able to dress up and do a little skit for the primary kids! It was super fun!! Well actually, on Saturday night we did a little practice performance! We figured that since we live on in a two story building it would be the perfect place to practice. We went out onto our porch at 9:00 pm and I played the role of King Benjamin to our neighbors! Ha-ha yeah! To tell the truth, I am not exactly sure if anyone heard us…but it was fun nevertheless.

This week at church, we were able to get an awesome less active family to come back to church!!! moreover (wait for it…) they stayed for the full 3 hours of meetings and participated in all the class discussions! Elders Blair and Johnson are way stoked about that!! Man oh man…Elder Johnson and I have had so much fun serving here together in Fernandina. He is an amazing missionary! We work hard and have fun while we work!!

I have not received the homemade bread, but don’t worry when it finally…does arrive ehh I will just pray over it and eat it anyways, stale or not!! Ha-ha! Oh yeah news of the mission- we found out that our mission boundaries are going to change this summer and go up into Georgia and some areas of South Carolina. It won’t happen until July, I think. That will really expand our area. I never got a chance to serve in Georgia but I hear it is really pretty up that way.

I am going to ask Sister Gainey for some of her southern recipes. No one cooks like her!! Her cooking is sooo good!!! Maybe we can trade her some northern recipes…hehehe!! Sister Gainey is the best!! I told her that she is pretty much the older sister I never had! That’s a cool thing about missions. It’s kinda cool to come on a mission and gain more family members!!

So yeah, that is pretty much the week in a nut shell. Today I will be getting a new GPS because I have saved up enough money. I will also start putting addresses from my peps in Florida in the GPS, so we can keep everyone’s addresses for our return visit!! I gotta get running now so I will have to talk to you next week!!

Love ya’ll
Elder (serving in righteousness) Blair (Words of Mormon 1:17)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Fernandina Beach, Letter #5 Feb. 21, 2011

Hey family and all my other peps,
All is well here in Florida!! This week we did a lot of service, oh yeah! We helped move a family out as they head off for Tallahassee; we also helped build a ramp for Brother Harris. Brother Harris had hip replacement surgery so he cannot get around too well so the ward got together to build him a ramp. Moreover, since Elder Johnson and I are pretty much the only young guys who were available in the ward we came and did all the heavy lifting! We really had a good time and Brother Harris was excited about the new ramp.

In addition to those projects, we helped a less active (part member) family do some yard work this week for several hours. Then Saturday we helped another part member family paint some of the windows on their house. My goodness, last week we could barley find someone to serve and now this week we had a whole army of people that needed help!! Elder Johnson and I really enjoyed it!

In other news; we didn't get our baptism that we were planning on for last Saturday the 19th. We still have to do some work with them to get them ready for baptism, but we did have great success with some of our less active families. We were stopping by this family’s house (maybe once a week) they are super cool people, but they had just not been coming to church. However, after our lesson this week we were able to get the wife to come on Sunday! Her husband and son stayed home though, but it’s a start! I think if we got that family back to church, that would be amazing because they are super nice and really cool!

This week with the Florida weather, it really has been heating up a lot. Not to the point where it is too hot - but very nice spring weather, which I am excited about! I really enjoy springtime in Florida, it’s a great time of year here.

I really enjoyed the 100 days candy bar poster that ya’ll made for me!! It was pretty clever! I can't believe I have less than 100 days left! I never really thought about it, until I opened the poster. Oh well.

My Companion Elder Johnson and I are getting along great!! I super love that kid!! He is going to be an awesome missionary! I am kind of nervous about transfers this week, because I really don't want a new companion just yet (this Saturday we get the calls) so I will let you know about that next week. Elder Johnson has been in this area 4 ½ months now, so he might be transferred. The great thing about our companionship is that Elder Johnson makes up for the area's that I lack in; and I make up for the areas he lacks in…so it is a really good companionship! We get a lot done, work hard and have tons of fun!

Well, hope all is going well for ya’ll. I love all the letters and things I have been receiving lately and as always I enjoy rubbing it in my companions face! Ha-ha!!

Love,
The Elder “with shoulders built for service” Blair 

Monday, February 14, 2011

Fernandina Beach, Letter #4 Feb. 14, 2011

Hey, hey, hey!!
So yet another week gone once again! It was a pretty interesting week! Elder Johnson and I did a lot of tracting… cause for some reason most people were busy this week and couldn't find the time to have us drop over. Tracting was long and there were a lot of doors slammed (of course) but amidst all of the bad things that come from tracting there is always a lot of good as well! We were able to pick up a new investigator this week from hours of tracting! Boom diggity!! Therefore, I hope all goes well with that.

We had an amazing stake conference this last week and we were able to get one of our investigator families to come to that, as well another investigator, his girlfriend and their 2 kids. With him, we are all praying about a baptismal date for him so that he can accept be dunked. He wants to be baptized; but he just is nervous about messing up again after baptism.

Nevertheless, this last week was sweet! Elder Johnson and I tried our best to focus on the atonement this week and put things into “action”. So on Tuesday tried to do a service for a member and for an investigator, ideally to find a way to serve each other. It was really fun telling people that we were trying to follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ and do service for others. People had the strangest looks on their faces!! You should have seen their expressions when we would ask, “Could we please do any type of service for you?” You would be surprised how many people said “no”! It was just crazy; we were like “We will do anything you need…perhaps clean your house...mow your lawn? Anything!

Each and every time they would always say no. Man you would think if 2 great looking guys in prime health showed up at your door and said they would be more than willing to do any type of service for you…you would jump at the chance and say yes for sure! Then you would ask, “Do you have 3-4 other friends who want to come by and do housework and do yard work for free? Bring them all!!” Ha-ha!! Well then, finally after many failed attempts, we were able to help a member box up some things (cause they are getting ready to move). After that, we grabbed a 25-dollar gift card (for one of our more poor investigators) and left it in their door. We then did a classic “ding-dong ditch” and peeled out in our car! Yeah!! Therefore, that was our day of active service as wimpy as it was!

Today, we had a super fun P-day!! We went clam hunting down by the beach and scored a big 93 clams! We split them with our member friend Adam; he was the one that took us out with him to show us how it is done. Holy cow it was so much fun!! We got knee deep in the mud, and it took us quite awhile to actually find some “live” ones because the seagulls apparently picked them dry in several areas. At long last, we found this secluded place and saw their air bubbles. (There is a little hole in the sand and if you cover it over with sand and the hole comes back, there is live clams in there).

As soon as we saw the holes, we went to town digging! We only dug in a small area for about 15 minutes and pulled out 93 clams!!! Holy cow you could find like 6 in one little hole, it was so awesome!!! I really enjoyed learning to do that. Adam said when the weather gets warmer; he is going to show us how to catch crabs on the shore!!! I am super pumped for that!! Oh yeah! That is something awesome that they do here, that I never would have had the opportunity to do in Utah, so that is super cool I got a chance to try that today. With all of our clams we collected today, we are going to boil them and eat them later, so that should be pretty fun as well! When ya’ll come back with me to Florida, I will show you how to dig for clams and catch crabs on the beach, how does that sound?

Thanks for the Valentine packages that I received this last week, Elder Johnson and I really enjoyed them!! I know indeed that I am well loved!! It was a huge week of deliveries and mail for old Elder Blair!! Ha-ha!! Oh yeah sweet action!! I love ya'll and hope everyone back home is having as good as a time as I am!! It just doesn’t get any better than this!!

Well...that’s the week in the life of the missionary known as...Elder Blair
Love to everyone!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Fernandina Beach, Letter #3 Feb. 7, 2011

Well hello family, fans and friends,
Here is the Fernandina happenings for this past week! This week has been super rainy! However, we worked straight through it. We go in the car mostly when it is pouring, but on average rainy days we go on foot or bike to save miles. Missionaries don’t melt, so were good… ha-ha!!

This last week we had four investigators show up at church on Sunday. In addition, one of them has set a baptismal date for the 19th! She is a single mom. She has really been trying to find out where she belongs in the whole scheme with God, so fortunately we are here to help her with that! Also this week Elder Johnson and I tracted into a less active part-member family. We stopped by on Sunday night and talked with them for a little bit. We gave the wife (who is the non-member) a Book of Mormon and get this...she started reading it as soon as we gave it to her, right then and there!! She has lots of questions about the church. Which we are ok with~cause we love answering questions! We are also working with this other non-member family. The only thing that I see holding them back is getting married. I mean they have been together for 7 years and have two kids...so you would think that should be a no brainer! But then again Satan is pretty crafty.

In other news, we are in a “prank war” with a member here in Fernandina. His name is CP and he pranked us first; by doing a lot of crazy stuff in our apartment. So therefore Elder Johnson and I were more than obligated of course to get him back. Now get this - he was kind enough to tell us the day he would not be home last week and what time to actually perform the prank. So we went to his house, (he left the garage door opened for us), we went in and went to town! First we took his clothes and soaked them in water; and promptly put them in the freezer. Next we took all of the furniture out of his "little man cave" and hid them throughout the house. We even went to the extra effort of taking his big couch out of there and relocated it all the way upstairs in his house! Then we took all of the plants out of his house and put them in his man cave and the “cherry on the ice cream sundae” was when we bought a hamster and put it in a little roller ball and left that in his man cave as well. Needless to say, we got him really good!! Lol! By the way CP kept the hamster (we named the hamster Xena cause she is a warrior princess). One of my favorite things about being back in Fernandina is seeing the members again, they are awesome! I think one of these first p-days (when it is not pouring rain) we will probably go looking for shark teeth and maybe an alligator if we’re lucky!! Today we are doing nothing really, it is really rainy today, but we will try to figure something out, I’m sure.

And thank you for the Chinese New Year package it was pretty fun to receive that!! I loved the fortune cookies! I know some people don't really enjoy the taste, but I think they are good! ha! oh well. I was pretty happy about hearing the Packers beat the Steelers yesterday! Oh yeah!

Well I hope all is well with ya'll back home and your getting a little warmer out that way. We’ll talk again next week, so until then, stay safe and stay happy!
Love, Elder (jumping over puddles) Blair