March 24, 2014 - Nanaimo South (new companion)

An Unexpected Transfer

 

Hey everyone if you haven't heard the news yet, Elder Groeneveld has been transferred! We received a phone call on Monday night just after visiting the Larsen family. The assistants informed us that I would be staying in Nanaimo and finish my training with Elder Lawter who would become our new district leader. Elder Groeneveld on the other hand would be leaving the island and working with Elder Buzby as a zone leader in Kelowna! The two of us were very surprised since we had only known each other for one transfer. Elder Groeneveld had always dreaded the thought of being a zone leader so it was an extremely stressful time for him. I felt quite bad. 

 
We got on the Ferry Wednesday evening and stayed with the Korean Speaking Elders in Vancouver that night. The next morning Elder Lawter and I met each other and were fed lunch at the Richmond chapel later that afternoon. The amount of new missionaries that came out this transfer were much smaller then the previous. Only four elders and one sister came off the plane that day. Then along came the big wrench that messed up our travel plans. We needed to drive the Van-Korean Elders back to their apartment and neither of them could drive. They had a greenie who had just come out to train with them giving the companionship three elders in total. Due to this fact we needed to pile A LOT of luggage into our Chevrolet Cruze which isn't exactly as big as a pickup. We spent far too much time getting our luggage into the car while all the other missionaries serving on the island drove straight to the ferry terminal which was about a half hour drive just south of the Vancouver area.
 
We eventually got all our stuff in the car (don't ask me how we did it) and were able to get the other elders back to their apartment but we, uh kind of got lost on our way to the highway. We tried to get to the dock in time but it was too late by the time we reached it. We missed the ferry! We called the assistants and they told us to go stay with the Richmond South Elders and catch the ferry the next morning. I didn't like the idea and agreed that it would have been much easier to just take the 8:15 pm ferry home. We knew that it was probably best not to argue so we didn't. The next morning we woke up and decided to take the 10:15 am ferry after a bit of studying. Then came the biggest problem of all. We ended up losing the car key! We searched everywhere and were unable to find it. Knowing that we would miss the ferry again we decided to grab a spare car key from the mission home to see if we left the keys in the trunk as we unloaded our stuff. Alas, we didn't find it and we decided to go upstairs and dump our bags out. We finally found it hidden under Elder Lawter's nest of unfolded ties. Sometimes, but not always, you get a break... 
 
We left the spare key for the Richmond elders to take back to the office and we left right after to ensure that we would NOT miss the third ferry!  We arrived an hour early, ate lunch at the terminal and boarded it at 12:45 pm. After a long and incredibly boring ride back to the Island we dumped all our stuff off at the apartment and had to completely re-change our teaching schedule. What a way to start off a transfer with a new companion! Fortunately I'm pleased to report that Elder Lawter has been a terrific companion to work with. He's coming into his last transfer before an extension so it's great to have a companion that's a great role model and teacher. 

 On Friday we found a couple of new investigators, one of them was a heavy smoker named Dan who we met smoking inside his garage with the door opened. He said that we could come over and teach him about the gospel the next day during the afternoon. Sadly this lesson turned out to be completely disappointing. Our lesson on the Restoration went fairly well until we got to the First Vision part. Dan chuckled at us when we told him about Joseph Smith and he didn't understand why we needed prophets on the earth. When we asked him to pray about what we taught him, he refused and we got into a bit of an argument which drove out the spirit. We decided to leave. I barely said much of anything during that appointment and it wasn't much fun to be a part of. 

 We still haven't had any baptismal dates set since our first with Clara a month ago (who hasn't been around anytime we've called her or knocked on her door) It's a bit hard to understand why. It's overall been a rough week but it doesn't matter as long as the two of us keep moving forward and keep on working. Next week should go a lot smoother now that we've gotten settled after a hectic transfer. I love all of you and can't wait to hear from you next week. Thank you for keeping me in your prayers! May God bless you all!

 

With love from,

 

Elder Maclean Samis