JUNE 17, 2013
Happy (belated) Father's Day, everybody!
This Waterbury ward has been a real culture shock. Not only is the area much more rural than Cambridge, but the meeting house is actually a converted Jewish synagogue. The area is pretty big (it took us close to 50 miles to get to the Bishop's house and back), but the car makes it doable. Staying within miles, however... that could be a challenge. It is nice, however, because the ward is much smaller than the Cam1 ward. We have about 150 members (tops), but about 1/4 of the ward only speaks Spanish, so we have Spanish-speaking Elders in our ward as well. It can be really tough to coordinate our efforts and auxiliary assignments, but we're making it work and looking forward to still building the ward. Scheduling is also a joke, because nobody really "schedules" stuff. Most of our visits to investigators are just impromptu things where we stop in every time we're in the neighborhood and maybe they're home, maybe they're not. Also, the entire area kind of feels like Price, UT-borderline thriving, but still run down everywhere. And the water tastes kinda funny...
One family that's investigating, Ray and Dawn, have been investigating for a LONG time, but they really do just love the Church. We usually do some kind of activity (like tennis, a BBQ, etc.) and then teach them a lesson. They struggle to keep committments, but they're good people with an honest desire to change. Old habits just die hard, I suppose. They've also said that they'd like to take us fishing sometime (YEEEEESSS!!!!), and Elder Echols and I thought we'd try teaching them about the Creation while we're by the lake. We'll see what happens and how we help them progress.
This first week was tough, because I was pretty much out of commission from Sunday until about Thursday afternoon. The climate/food change really just knocked me out and got me pretty sick for a while. However, I'm back to full strength and ready to go again!
We had a Missionary farewell in Waterbury yesterday. Carlos is going to the New York North Mission, which actually borders this Mission, so he'll fly all the way out to Provo, just to stay for 10 days and come back to a Mission Home about 150 miles away from his own home. We had a big Brazilian BBQ while we were there (SOO GOOD!!!!) and had some neat experiences while we were there.
Waterbury has been treating me really well, and I'm excited to help this ward continue to progress. We're in the midst of creating a WMP and helping the members "catch the wave" of Missionary Work to keep us as busy as possible. There is so much potential in this ward, and if we somehow unlock it, this place will absolutely BLOW UP! I'm excited to keep progressing myself and to hopefully help this ward improve as well.
Love allayall and hope this finds you well!!
-Elder Alex Boone
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