Elder Smith in Philadelphia : The End of an Era!

November 23, 2015

What a crazy week! First things first I get to stay in Lehighton! The
bad news is Elder Stimpson is outta here. It was a pretty crazy week
running around seeing people and getting some last minute work done,
so buckle up and get ready for a good read!

Last Monday was pretty rad because our zone leaders came down to
hangout with us for a bit! We just took em to Jeff's, but Elder
Fernandes played Jeff's drums and man he is good! They had stuff to
do, so they didn't stay too long, but they are coming back today!
After shopping and all that good stuff we headed up to the Bakers for
FHE and the Uhlmans (the family who we used to have FHE at their
house) was finally there! They moved up to Lansford, a place in a land
far far away that uses too many of our miles. They haven't had gas
money to get up here for a long time, but they finally made it back to
FHE! Bro Uhlman is a big dude, like large and really tall, but he said
he lost 60 lbs and he is getting a really good job soon! They haven't
been to church in a while because of no money for gas and health
problems, so hopefully we will be seeing them more!

Tuesday was a fun day filled of service, but really most of our days
are! Bro Schoenberger was putting a new roof on his garage, weeks
after having his hernia operation! What a crazy dude! So we headed up
to his place and moved the sheetmetal ontop of his roof for him. We
went with Tom out to his redneck camper in the woods to do some work
on it. A few days before him and Melanie went out and cleaned it
because it was full of dead mice lol. Anyways we were going up there
to put a new window in and look into putting a redneck roof over his
redneck porch. He actually forgot the screwgun so we didn't do the
window, but we helped him clean up some stuff a little bit. Afterwards
we had a lesson with Casper, we were going to teach him about the Word
of Wisdom. Their Uncle James was there, who we've never met, so we
were like oh great another crazy person in that apartment. We started
teaching Casper about tithing when his uncle said "Casper the bible
says you need to pay your tithing, but the bible also says to not add
or remove from it." And I was like oh great, here we go with the the
bible bash. We continued teaching Casper, and his brother Junior was
helping us out, then their Uncle started talking about tithing and he
just went off on a tangent and was all the sudden talking about roller
coasters and stuff. We finished up the lesson after quiet a while and
Uncle James kept talking to me and told me he loves how much the
Mormon Church emphasizes on family. What I thought would be a bible
bash turned out to be nothing and I walked out of that lesson really
confused on what happened, but at least Casper understands tithing! We
stopped by good ole Bro Unger's house afterwards and we just sit and
listen to him rant, then we joked around a ton and he warned us to
never get too whipped for a girl in the future! He told us he really
appreciates us coming over and listening to him and joking around with
him. The times before when I'd go there I felt like we weren't
accomplishing anything, but I no longer feel that way about going
there. I always try to keep in mind that a mission is about the
people, and if I can help out someone, even if it's just listening to
them, I feel like I'm doing my part.

Wednesday we went back up with Tom to the camper so we could actually
install the window! Now it's a sliding window so he can sit in his
camper and shoot out of the window! He took us over to his buddy
Frank's house and we visited with him for a bit. We went out to the
Roeselers to help him finish changing his oil and his break pads, but
the new tools he got didn't work either. The problem is, he had a free
oil change at walmart a year ago, and he figured he'd use it instead
of getting down in the snow to do it himself. Well they tightened some
bolts too tight and now we can't get em off, so lesson of the day is
don't take your car to Walmart! Since we didn't get any work done on
his car, we still had tome to wait for dinner so he taught us how to
play Risk, and boy do I like Risk now!

Thursday started off with district meeting on "asking questions".
Pretty much listen and ask real good questions so you can listen more!
I tried to focus on that the rest of the week. We had exchanges so I
went with Elder Laine (Pronounced line-eh) to Stroudsberg. He's in his
first transfer here, but he is from Finland and he served there for a
transfer waiting for a Visa. He's also 22 so he's got a lot more
experience than me, but being in a foreign country sometimes it seems
like he doesn't. Anyways we started off by going straight to an
appointment, but the people weren't there, so we headed out to another
lesson and those people forgot and didn't have time! We ended up
stopping by this guy named Jim, who's really involved in the Episcopal
church. When they tracted into him, he seemed kinda resistant to them,
but said they could go back. The dude was actually pretty nice. We
talked for a bit and he said he's reading the bible right now, next
the koran, and he hasn't had the chance to read the Book of Mormon yet
and I was like yo why haven't you read it? and he said I guess I've
just never put thought to it or had one, and I was like yo here's your
own copy! So we invited him to read and maybe one day he will, who
knows! I think I asked some good questions in that one. We went to
teach the Less Active member that I usually go teach out there, and
his kids weren't there this time so we got to talk more and he kinda
just vented about his life, which is fine with us! We stopped by the
Vialta's who are the missionaries favorite family in Stroudsberg. It
was Sis Vialta's birthday so we dropped off some cupcakes. I've only
met Bro Vialta twice but we are way tight now and he gave me a hug
before I left haha. We went and had dinner with the Lucas family,
which was soooo good! They are a real active older couple so we had
some good conversation with them! We then went to a lesson with a less
active member's husband. We had a great discussion and we were going
back spitting doctrine and stuff, it was super fun! His wife thought
that he was being mean to us though so she started getting mad at him,
even though he wasn't at all! I had a lotta fun with that!

Friday before we exchanged back we stopped at the church to give a
member a blessing, which is a great way to start the day! After
exchanges me and Elder Stimpson stopped by this store we always drive
by called Country Junction. Place is nuts! You walk in and follow the
yellow brick road on the ground. One minute your looking at novelty
candy, to the next looking at hardward, then looking at novelty toys,
to kitchen supplies, you name it! We had a lesson with Jeff Wartluft,
so we headed out to his place, but his wife was cleaning the house for
company later that night so we took a walk around the woods and he
showed us these awesome trees that ended up growing together! This guy
is super involved with his church, but he is very very nice and the
Book of Mormon is on his reading list, so hopefully one day he will
know it's true. Elder Stimpson had a hunch he was leaving, so he
wanted to go back and get a little packing done while we weekly
planned, but we made some awesome biscuits n gravy for dinner! We got
the call that night that he'd be leaving.

Saturday we went out to the Kellars to help em out with some stuff and
so Elder Stimpson could say goodbye. Bro Kellar had us pick up some
mcdonald's for us to eat, and his neighbor who was working on the
bathroom renovation. One of my Mcdouble's had 3 patties! Tender
mercies while serving the Lord! Anyways we did some fun stuff and
heavy lifting for him. It was a great day of service. We went to the
Kennedy's for dinner and pretty much all last week we were telling
people about funeral potatoes, trying to see how many we could get out
of it, so we had our first funeral potatoes in PA! They joked it was
like a funeral because Elder Stimpson is leaving. We ran around for
some more goodbyes before we got home.

Sunday was pretty cool because the whole Uhlman family came to church
and Bro Sandy out of nowhere was there too! Probably the biggest
attendance we've had since we've been here. Later we went to Tom and
Melanie's for Elder Stimpson's "Last Supper" and they also made
funeral potatoes for us! It was way fun because me and Tom just gave
Elder Stimpson grief because he's leaving!

We just got back from helping Tom before Elder Stimpson leaves, and it
was snowing just a little bit. So tomorrow we will head down to
Broomall for transfer meeting and I'll get a new comrade and all that
fun stuff. As for our investigators, Jon is super busy and he knows he
can't get baptized if he doesn't come to church. Casper is coming
along, but we need to get permission from his father for the baptism,
Jenny is working all the time so we can never teach Christian. Right
now it's a waiting game, but don't worry because things will pick up
and we can always find things to do to help out the branch and other
people! I hope you all have a great thanksgiving and I hope to hear
from y'all soon!