It's the Little Things...

Another week down! This was my first week as Zone Leader and it went pretty well.

We got 20 new Elders last Wednesday but no new sisters. They were split up into 3 different Districts, 1 fast-track 3-week District with 4 Elders in it and 2 'normal' 9-week Districts for the other 16 Elders. It's always super exciting when new missionaries come into the Zone because they have no idea what's going on and it makes us feel so wise and experienced! As the oldest District you feel like the seniors on campus and as if no one can touch you. We interviewed all the Elders this past week to make sure they were doing well which took FOREVER but it was super good. I can't ever remember any of their names because there's so many of them...but at least they have their name tags so I can pretend to remember them.

We had a devotional last Tuesday which was on the 4th of July and the choir song was, "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Singing that with several hundred missionaries was so powerful. 

Our whole District is starting to go crazy because of how long we've been at the MTC for. Literally everything that would normally not be very funny to us is absolutely hilarious. It's all super fun though, it's definitely going to be sad to leave them because of how close we've gotten over the past several weeks.

Yesterday we got a new Elder in our District that was moved in because of difficulties with his previous Branch. We weren't told any specifics other than they thought a change would help him. He got put in as Elder Ellison's companion and Elder Ellison's previous companion, Elder Spencer, got moved into my companionship with Elder Otani. We're happy to have a new Elder in the District to try to help him out but now that I'm in a tri-companionship it's going to be really difficult to learn how to teach investigators with 3 people instead of just 2. It will be a good learning experience before Taiwan, though since we'll have to adapt to the teaching styles of several different companions.

We get our travel plans to Taiwan this Friday! We're soooo pumped and ready to get out to the field! On one final note, ponder this- have you ever been bitten by a mosquito? What about an elephant? It's the little things that will get you, not the big things.

ElderSmith (Shi Zhang Lao)