Week 32 (Lone Pine)

The missionaries' exciting news this week is someone new they've been working with. They always love having people to teach! Their new friend is named CJ - she apparently was meeting with previous missionaries 2 years ago. But, she's been in the hospital, it sounds like continuously, for all that time! I think he said she was fighting cancer and lupus both? Anyway, she's had quite the fight for her health, but was recently released from the hospital and was able to start meeting with the missionaries again. She's really excited to hear what they have to teach her; they met on Sunday and had another appointment the next day.

The P-Day plans this week included heading up towards Bishop. Possibly they were going to go on a hike, but they were worried the trail they wanted to take might be closed. If so, the backup plan was playing basketball at the church there in Bishop. Then, on an exciting note, they will drive to Ridgecrest to do some exciting shopping at Walmart! When there aren't many grocery stores around, you take what you can get.

I got to enjoy a trip "with" Elder Wood and his companion as they headed out towards Bishop, including a stop at the gas station. Their car is pretty gas-hungry, and California is expensive, so I think it cost something like $75 or $80 to fill it up. We had an interesting discussion about the merits of gas vs. electric cars, and some new induction-based car charging technology I've read about recently.

That's about all that was new this week - we'll see what exciting adventures they end up with next week!

The district: Sister Davis, Elder Davis, Elder Wood, Elder Wolfley, Elder Wright, & Elder McCurdy 

Bird photo: A quail on a road sign

Another bird photo: Apparently this bird was sitting around with its mouth open, not because it was making sounds, but he thinks because it was hot and that helped it to cool off

One more bird photo: Can you tell there was really not much but bird photos this week?

Week 31 (Lone Pine)

It sounds like this was another fairly quiet week - Lone Pine is pretty small, so they don't have a lot of people around to talk to and interact with. But they did manage to have some nice interactions this week.

In good news, their friend Holly is very interested in being baptized and joining the church, so that is very exciting for her. Unfortunately for Elder Wood and his companion, it won't be by them, since she is moving to Kentucky this week. But hopefully she will connect there with some other wonderful missionaries!

In Lone Pine this week, they did meet a new friend, Betty, who is interested in learning more from them. Her granddaughter (apparently around 10 or 11), who lives with her, is especially interested in being able to go to church, so hopefully they'll see them there soon.

For their Preparation Day this week, they didn't go up to Bishop since the companionship there had other plans. Instead, they stayed home and decided to cook! Apparently they get a lot of food from the food bank where they do service each week. The food bank can't use all of the things that it is given, so they send the elders home with some extras, and one of them recently was a frozen turkey. You can see the photo below as they were getting it all ready to cook - I haven't heard yet how it turned out, but hopefully it was delicious!

I didn't get the backstory here - maybe it is just Elder Wood with a large woodpile?

The previously mentioned turkey, all ready to cook

Bird photo: I think two in this tree

Another bird photo. Some week I'll post all of the bird photos for the week and you'll appreciate how many I am sparing you.

Week 30 (Lone Pine)

The non-specifically mission related news this week was that Elder Wood was summoned to be part of a "special jury" at home in Oregon. Since it was "special" they accepted no standard deferrals or excuses. We had to do a fair amount of communicating with the court, but eventually they determined that a copy of his mission call, which included his place (California, ie out of state) and dates of service would be sufficient. That was fun!

This week Elder Wood and his companion had a few different teaching appointments. They have had some with a local who works in a restaurant, and they were pleased when, while they were eating at the restaurant, he waved at them and came out (from the kitchen) to say hello. "He must like us!" They also had an appointment to participate in a Baptist bible study session, which he said was interesting. And finally they've been working with their friend Holly, who has been really interested in learning more. They're hoping she might like to plan a date to be baptized when they meet with her this week.

As far as food, he reports that they don't really have to buy many groceries, which is a good thing since there are no real grocery stores in Lone Pine (just convenience stores and gas station mini-marts). One of the members in their branch feeds them dinner about once a week; apparently the quality of meals has gotten much better since his niece moved in with him recently! They are also given some extra food during their weekly visits to Bishop to do some service with the rest of their district, so that keeps them in pretty good shape for food options.

This week for P-Day they went up to Bishop to play tennis on the court that is available at the other companionship's apartment complex. It sounds like none of them had really played tennis before, so Elder Wood reports that is was fairly boring, since they spent most of their time chasing after balls that they hit out of bounds.

A photo of the entire zone

They came across this bridge during exchanges - this is one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Kirby

A random truck that they happened to see while out walking - he thought it was interesting and took a photo

Bird photo: A blue bird of some sort, my phone suggests a scrub jay

One more bird photo: A duck!