December 10, 2012

Hey mom I am on. So both Elder Chatwin and I have bed bugs. We will be getting new mattresses here in a couple of weeks, but do you have any ideas that we can do at least to help the bites that we have?

Elder Chatwin is a fantastic missionary! He is really excited to be here and is taking the challenges of being a Missionary in Angola pretty well. Also It is kind of funny because he reminds me of myself sometimes when I was in my first transfer. Yes all 6 missionaries cover the same branch in Viana. Yes I brought a raincoat and boots and stuff like that. No package yet. Christmas call depends because one of the Elders here has family friends that live and work here in Angola and they want us to come over for Christmas and then Skype in their house. The elder asked President Thompson for permission to see if we could do that and he still has not responded whether we can or cant. I will do my best to have everything figured out next week! Elder Tingey? He went to Mountain View didn’t he? I saw his picture and he looks really familiar!

Mom,

So this week has been actually pretty stressful because not only am I am training, but I am also opening a new area! The area that I am in did not exist before. The missionaries before in Viana had worked a little bit in the area that we are in, but pretty much have not touched it what so ever. Right now we only have two or three investigators. So it is really hard and stressful sometimes to build up an area, and right now I kind of feel like I am doing it on my own, just because Elder Chatwin is new and is still learning the language. Also President Kretly really likes numbers especially high numbers, which Elder Hansen and I were doing before, but now because I am training and building a new area our numbers are really really low. I kind of talked with President Thompson (President Thompson is the one who does transfers and who decided to make me a trainer) about it and he said that he does not care about numbers really just as long as we are getting to know our investigators and working and doing what is right, but it still stresses me out a little bit because President Kretly likes the high numbers.

This whole training thing though is helping me learn how to be a good parent though:) (Elder Tilley said, we are not allowed to put the complete story on the blog but here is the moral of the story):  … Apparently I did not explain that very well and I guess I kind of just expected him to read my mind (sounds familiar :) ) …Fortunately I did not yell at him and … I tried to explain to him in a calm manner how we should do it next time:) Anyways just some fun parenting stuff! :)

I was able to have an interview with Pres. Thompson and he told me sorry for transferring me so soon and splitting me and Elder Hansen up. He said that he realized that we worked really great together and got al ot of work done but he said it just seemed to feel so right to have both Elder Hansen and I both training. So that was a comfort to hear because a lot of times I feel so inadequate to be training, but if the Lord has confidence in me to do this then I will be able to do it! Love you Mom!! I hope you have a great week!!!!

Elder Tilley