Parker's Mission to Cleveland: Stayin' Busy in Lima City

HOLY COW what a WEEK

man Ok lets start from Wednesday right about the time I sent my last email

(feels like a month ago with all the stuff that fit in between!)

So Preparation day we all finished emailing and then we drove up to Findlay Ohio to meet up with the Zone for Steak and Shake (man I am gonna miss that place when I go home)

anyway we all meet up and have some lunch before going to this warehouse off the main road.

we walk in and this super nice lady is like "you all need to sign the 'it's not our fault if you die' disclosure" and we are all like "Elder Fransen what is this place?!" because up to this point he had kept us in the dark...

about Glow-in-the-Dark Dodge-ball!

so we got to play dodge-ball and, like always, cuz I can juke and jive all day I was last man standing 3 times....

but since I can't hit the broadside of a barn my team lost those times XD

that was our first hour of play, the second was spent playing soccer. but since the entire field was enclosed by a net the ball never really went out...

I think we *might* have gotten just a *bit* too competitive at that part....

but what else are you to do when you have 5 high-school/college level players in the zone..

by the end of it we all drove home happily exhausted.

we finished off the night with some street contacting at the square

Thursday:

I told you it was a busy week

granted Thursday was probably the slowest day just cuz of weekly planning that takes up most of it because I still don't know the area super well yet

that evening we were with Brother Stanley who went teaching a Returning Member with us.

Friday:

SO I had my Second to last interview with President Brown. which went well, lots of laughter and lots of president Brown telling me I was going home soon and me telling him that I'm the last batch of missionaries that's been on there mission longer than he's been (by like 4 days but if twins can argue over 4 mins I can argue over 4 days XD)

but the day however didn't really start there

It started out with us being picked up by the St. Mary's elders and them driving us up to Findlay's chapel at like 11 am cuz our usual ride (the Zone leaders) were already there to set up for the interviews

well we got there at like 11 and our district didn't have interviews till 2:30

so if you do the math that is approximately a bunch of time to kill

so we did some studies and had lunch and worked on the Progress record till Finally we had our interviews and our district meeting that I DIDN'T have to lead! (#districtmonkey)

(knowing my luck I'll get called the last transfer just to spite me XD)

after our district finished we went to dinner at Culver's

Like I didn't even know Ohio had those

still as good as I remember it from CO tho

we drove home from there and it was like 6 or 7 so we just kinda did some contacting at the street square till nightfall

all and all a good day

Saturday:

Saturday morning was pretty uneventful but the afternoon is when things got fun

Apparently there is this super nice guy that lives in Columbus but comes up to Lima on occasion to play his church's organ.

he also likes to take Mormon Missionaries out to lunch when he does come up to Lima so that's how I got to meet Mike from the Christian Science church

for those of you who like me never heard of the Christian science church think if Joseph Smith was Female, founded the church in 1860 and instead of the restoration of all things she just had a realization that Christ's miracles were accomplished by God's version of Science

so like its cool and all but seems a bit

*puts on Sunglasses*

"Derivative"

(maybe 3 of you will get that reference)

but he took us to Lunch at a nice Tex-Mex place and Menchies for Fro-yo

which is pretty awesome

but Mike is working on there version of The Joseph Smith Papers for there founder so he knows a lot about both church's histories

after lunch we walked to an older member of the ward's home

Brother Sig Miller will be turning 99 some time this year so yeah definitely been around the block a bit XD

we just visited with him for a little bit before walking home so we could bike to Anthony's place for dinner

Quick background on Anthony. a couple of days before this we were biking around town and we got a call from a weird number (we still haven't figured out the story behind the old owner of the phone number. basically it must have been someone else's number that the missionaries had saved and then had there number switched...

regardless Anthony was a less active member that had pretty much vanished because he was at a care center for the last 7 months but he reached out to us out of the blue and offered us dinner

pretty cool guy :)

after Anthony's we headed home.

Sunday:

We had ward council and then Sacrament where I was reminded that I only have 2 more Fast and Testimony meetings till I go HOME

crazy how time flies

oh and like everybody loves President Uchtdorf so at least all us crazy Mormons are united on that front

(bout died laughing because google corrected Uchtdorf to Hasselhoff and I almost left it XD)

Gospel Principles was on the Atonement which was fitting for the Beginning of Easter Week

Elder's Quorum was Elders Quorum

it was on Daughters of our Heavenly Father

you do the math XD

it was entertaining if not enlightening

after that we went with Bro Bowen (second Councilor) and met with another Returning Member who unfortunately keeps her home at somewhere in the range of 90 degrees so in about 10 seconds both myself and Brother Bowen were fighting the sandman. some how Elder Worthington was immune to this problem but Bro. Bowen and I had a good laugh about it after the fact XD

pretty much the rest of the day was spent finding sooooo

Monday:

we are almost halfway done I promise XD

Monday kicked off with District meeting yet again like not too long ago we had one... XD

it was lots of fun, one of the sisters gave a great discussion on the Easter Week and how it lead up to the moments in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Garden Tomb that meant that we are all free

if you haven't watched the #BecauseHeLives video in a while do so it's amazing

Elder Worthington then gave a pretty good discussion on an MTC talk about seeing the End from the Beginning

It made me think a lot about Ends and Beginnings

I am almost to the end but at the same time it will soon be the beginning of a new chapter or even a new book (judging by the long-winded nature of these emails possibly a spin-off series is required) of this portion of my Life

I've had a lot of Reflection on life lately

missions do that to a person

After we had district meeting we went to the Lima Care Center with the Zone Leaders and helped out there for a bit

Elder Alder and I went ahead and cleaned out there bird cage and Elder Frandsen and Worthington did some Cleanup on the outside

service is bomb

anyway after that we helped out the Ward Mission Leader by doing his Lawn and then he helped us out by having Missionary Correlation that evening

so win win

Tuesday:

we started off after studies to go to Daily Bread again. I really enjoy helping out there it's lots of fun and a good way to just help

I've really come to understand more fully King Benjamin's Council:

"When you are in the service of your fellow man ye are only in the service of your God"

after that we met up with Eddie who's a Self-Referral. Elder Worthington knew him but I hadn't got to meet him till now but we had a great time talking about the Plan of Salvation and what it means to him. we also got to share a Book of Mormon with His friend and taught the Restoration to him.

a couple reschedules later and we headed home for the night

on our way back home we were biking by and some guy yelled at us to stop

so we did and got to meet Gavin and taught him the restoration

and he's coming to church this week!

#awesomepeople

then we got home and relaxed for the evening

after all we needed plenty of rest for tomorrow's.....

TEMPLE TRIP!!!!!!

and not just any temple trip

a district temple trip...

to the Indianapolis Indiana Temple!

so since Lima district is so far West we get to actually pick which of the temples we want to go to and since we had a very nice member taking us we all decided on the Indianapolis temple.

But man did Satan try to stop that trip!

we had just crossed the state border and we hit a construction zone and...

BAM!

out goes one of the tires

we limped to the nearest exit and inspected the damage

it was a really REALLY flat tire so we busted out the spare donut and made our way quickly to the nearest Goodyear

thankfully they were super nice and got us in quick.

we sure looked like a strange sight though with four 20 somethings in suites and ties and 3 sisters in dresses and skirts

but after that detour we got back on the road (A different road) and bee-lined for the temple

as we were pulling in to the parking lot they called to see if they should hold the session so we ran in to get there in the nick of time

I had forgotten how much I missed the Temple

we are so lucky to have them all over the place in Utah