Week 40 TC IS SICK

 Monday, November 8, 2021

Good Morning everyone!!

What an absolutely wild first week in my new area Traverse City! I had transfers, dealt with two car accidents in my new zone, had meetings, saw miracles, and laughed a lot with my new companion and the awesome Elders I live with!!!

I will start with transfers! On Monday night, Elder Clouse and I said goodbye to some of the Bay City Ward members. Bishop Klopf's daughter gave me a drawing, and Bishop gave me some of his smoked jerky. The next day, I packed my stuff and said goodbye to the apartment I had been in for 6 months! (Well the complex anyways, I lived in three different apartments in that complex haha). It was sad to say goodbye to Bay City. It has become my second home and I will treasure the memories, experiences, and opportunities for growth I had in Bay City for the rest of my life. When I left, I signed everything in the apartment I could with a sharpie. I truly left my mark haha. On the desk, I wrote "The Lord trusts Bay City Ward! Give Bay City your all, and it will not disappoint."

I was so sad to leave my companion and my favorite area so far. But, knowing I am going to Traverse City helped. I brought all my stuff to Mount Pleasant, met my new companion Elder Tueller and made the 2 hour trek to Traverse City. We do a LOT of driving here because of how big the Zone is. I live in an apartment with two Spanish Elders and it is a BLAST! It is so fun to live with Elders who do work ;). My first morning here I woke up and said my prayers in the living room and was legitimately scared because I saw someone else up besides my companion. It was pretty funny it took a little getting used to. Elder Averill and Elder Wilde are some really fun guys and hard workers. We have a blast together! They are super fun and we have had lots of laughs already. I love Traverse City so much already!!! There are so many hills and trees! (Anything South of where I am at has like no hills at all so for the first 9 months of my mission we would yell whenever we saw a tiny hill like "yo there is a hill there!") 

The work is NOT like Bay City at all where we would average 3 lessons a day, and sometimes have more than 7 in one day. I am serving in a branch up here, and honestly nothing is like Bay City. But, I got to meet the Branch yesterday and I am so excited to work here. I bore my testimony to the Branch yesterday and met some of the members. One recent convert gave me a bag of fun things to welcome me to TC! 

My new assignment is a little stressful but it is a lot of fun! I had a few meetings I had to join this week, and we planned exchanges for the rest of the transfer. I am so excited to go on exchanges with the Elders in the Zone it will be so fun! I will be honest, I feel pretty inadequate to be a Zone Leader and to even be up here in Traverse City. My whole mission, it has been like the promised land where they send the missionaries to change the tide of the work. Traverse City is one of five Districts left in the entire United States and everyone here is working really hard to make TC into a Stake. My first night, I thanked Elder Tueller for being patient and told him I felt like a new missionary again haha. It is true though! I feel like an idiot a lot of the time haha. These past few days up here have been a fun transition. I knew Bay City so well and I had all the members and people down. Now I gotta learn the new area and the new Branch Members. 

My new companion is amazing. I love him so much. His name is Elder Tueller, and he is from Holladay Utah. He is a stud! Our first day or two together were kinda awkward trying to get to know him at first. But, as we've gotten to know each other we have had a blast together. He is literally SO MUCH like me. We have really similar personalities and we have already laughed together so much. I am going to miss my "son" who I trained, but I am excited to see what miracles the Lord has in store for me here in Traverse City. 

Okay, I have 4 stories to share and then I will finish my email 

On Tuesday, I was at Buffalo Wild Wings with Elder Kofford (who I replaced) and Tueller (my new companion). They got a call from some Elders serving in Petoskey (an area in my zone) and on their way to transfers they totaled the car by spinning out on ice. The Spanish Elders have their own car and when I got here I commented on how nice it was to not have to share a car with anyone. Well, I jinxed us because on my FIRST FULL DAY in Traverse City, we got a call and we had to drive 3 hours to give the Spanish Elders' car to the Petoskey Elders so they could have one. SOOO now we are sharing a car AGAIN. They funny thing is that I have the same truck I drove in Bay City for a little bit haha. It is fun. On our drive we stopped at Wendy's to celebrate my 9 month mark as a missionary! As Elder Tueller put it, if I was pregnant I would have a kid now haha.

Apparently our zone is just terrible with cars. Sunday morning, Elder Tueller and I showed up for the missionary coordination meeting in the morning with our Branch and we got a call that the sisters serving in our branch had crashed their car. So, we were told by our Mission President that we had to go pick them up and drive them to the church. It was kind of nuts because we are NOT supposed to drive with Sisters at all so Elder Tueller and I thought that was pretty funny. The poor sisters got T-Boned and totaled the car. One of them is a brand new missionary too so she is like "what is happening" lol. We now have one car for 6 missionaries in Traverse City because of the amount of wrecks happening here haha. Maybe we will need to do a driving course jeez

 

We were able to do a TON of service this week. Service was an absolute blast. A few days ago, we went with the Spanish Elders to help this guy un-pack his stuff in his trailer. It was so fun because we were just messing around the whole time. This guy had like SO much random stuff. He had 7 vacuums and construction cones haha. But, Elder Tueller and I had a grand time talking with David. David was obsessed with knowing our first names. We aren't really supposed to go by our first names as missionaries but sometimes people really want to know. So, I was like "yeah my name is Ernest but you can call me Drippy Ern" Of course all us Elders started laughing. But David is probably 70 and had no idea what I was talking about. He was like "what is a drip?" We were just laughing so hard. So then Elder Tueller started calling him Drippy Dav and now he is just called Drippy Dav. He didn't like his nickname lol he was like "I don't want to be a drip" HAHA we love Dav. He was telling us his life story and he was actually a member at one point but chose to remove his records from the church because his wife who converted him passed away. We ended up getting Drippy Dav to come to church with us and he showed up yesterday! He is a stud haha. It was so cool! Sometimes us missionaries call people here "Ganders" when they just talk a TON and won't ever stop. Dav is the definition of a Gander. We were with him for 4 hours and one hour of that was him talking to us about random stuff haha. We love David though.

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to serve at a homeless shelter the Branch here is working with. While we were there it was pretty eye-opening and humbling. We got the chance to talk with a bunch of the homeless people and hear their stories. I had been stressed about my imperfections and my inadequacies but it all melted away when I talked with these wonderful sons and daughters of God. Elder Tueller was talking to one of them while he handed out food and was just being himself. The man was so touched by our kindness in serving there that he came around to the door of the kitchen where we were serving food and gave Elder Tueller the biggest hug ever. All he could say was "Thank you. Thank you so much" It was the cutest thing ever. I am not really a crier but I was deeply touched. We ended up getting to know Todd a little better later on in the night and he was deeply grateful for the time we took out of our days to serve him and provide him a place to sleep. It touched my heart in a way I cannot explain. 

FINALLY THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK 

On my first full day here, and my first lesson in Traverse City, we put a guy on date for Baptism! His name is Dylan and he is going to get baptized on November 21st! I am so excited for him! This area is slower than Bay City because it is a branch, but Elder Kofford and Elder Tueller put in some amazing work here last transfer and built some momentum in this Branch and I am so excited to get to work here. I feel so inadequate. I honestly have questioned a little bit why, of all the amazing missionaries here, I got sent to Traverse City. But in the past few days I have changed my perspective. I am going to give this area everything I possibly have to give because that is all I am asked to do. Even though I will fail and make mistakes, even though I feel like NOT a good example to other missionaries, I will turn to the Lord and he will make up for the rest. 

I love this work and I love Traverse City! Sorry for the long email hahahaa but stay tuned for next week it is going to be FIRE

love

Elder Elliott