On Wednesday I transferred missions. Okay, not literally, but it definitely feels like it. I'm up the furthest north our mission goes in a little town called Cottonwood. I also cover a town named Sedona (full of red rocks and hippies) and another town called Camp Verde. It's a lot different up here. First of all, it's green. Not as green as Oregon but compared to Phoenix it's paradise. There's even a state park half a mile away from our apartment. It's nice to be somewhere with trees again. It's also, thankfully, not as hot as Phoenix, which is really nice.
We cover a small branch here in the valley. It's kind of a different experience covering an entire stake and to only have around 30 members but I kind of like it at the same time. The branch is in pretty bad need of leadership. Some of the English Elders here have nicknamed my position the "branch president" because our branch president lives half an hour away and the missionaries basically run the ward. I'm really grateful that my last area prepared me for this assignment. Bishop Morrison was really focused on using us to build up the Priesthood and leadership of the ward through splits and so forth and now I can really put what I learned to good use. We already have splits lined up for this week, which is great because all of the members are recent converts and still haven't learned a lot of the cultural aspects of being a member of the Church.
My new companion is Elder Scott. He only has three months in the field and doesn't speak Spanish at all. Normally his go-to phrase for teaching is "(gospel principle) is very special/important." So we've got some work to do there. He also is a little lost as to where things are. It feels like I'm flush training again to tell the truth, but it's okay because the second time around it's not as bad. I kinda know what to do a little more this time. We also have a lot of investigators right now which is nice. It seems that people up here are a little more receptive. Maybe it's because there are less people that speak Spanish and so we have less competition.
I'm taking over the area from my old companion and good friend Elder Cheadle. Man, I miss that guy. The branch misses him too.
There's a lot of cool stuff around here too. Definitely a lot cooler than Phoenix. There's a couple of Indian ruins, including one of those cliff-side buildings. There's also some pretty cool red rock formations up in Sedona, which also attract a lot of hippies to their psychic energies or something like that. We joked around with the Sedona Elders that they should offer "spiritual aqua-immersion services" to get more people interested.
I live the zone leaders here in Cottonwood, Elder Bartlett and Elder Lancaster. It's nice to be back with Elder Bartlett again. We were already pretty good friends after living together in Estrella. Elder Lancaster's pretty cool too. He's from Wyoming and can quote about any Seinfeld line from memory. We played basketball this morning and kept saying, "Jimmy's gonna score."
I'm really excited for the opportunity to work here in the branch. I always heard stories about the north. That the work's slower or the branches are really small and disorganized. And some of that seems to be true. But I think what those missionaries didn't realize is that because of those things we need to work a lot harder. There's a lot of potential here. A lot of potential to grow and establish something. But it's gonna take a lot of work. A whole lot of work. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting and I tried to help the members to catch the potential I see. We need a lot more faithfulness if we want to progress quickly. But we can get there. There's a lot of people who need to step up to the plate. They're not going to go uninvited. I want to leave this branch with some good foundations. With something to build on for the future. I've got four months to do it. I'm praying that the Lord will lead us to those families and future leaders who'll strengthen His kingdom here.
Love you guys,
Elder Grasley
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