Major Award

Man! Saying goodbye to Wichita was tough. But my last day was grand. Elder Wood and I won a major award! We had the cleanest apartment! When it was announced at Zone Conference, everyone was surprised Elders even made it in the top three let alone the winners of the contest. The prize was the housing coordinators cleaning our place one p-day and taking us out to lunch.

I found this poem in my studies and I thought, "Well, revelation doesn't get any clearer than that."

“Father, where shall I work today?”

And my love flowed warm and free.

Then He pointed out a tiny spot

And said, “Tend that for me.”

I answered quickly, “Oh no; not that!

Why, no one would ever see,

No matter how well my work was done;

Not that little place for me.”

And the word He spoke, it was not stern;

He answered me tenderly:

“Ah, little one, search that heart of thine.

Art thou working for them or for me?

Nazareth was a little place,

And so was Galilee.”

-- Meade McGuire

I do love Great Bend. My companion is Elder Christiansen and I am serving with another companionship of elders in this area. They are Spanish-speaking, so that's interesting. Elder Christensen is just out of training so it's my job to "Greenie-Break" him. He's a really good guy, except he likes the Broncos... We still manage to be friends.

The other elders are Elder Winegar and Elder Leishman. Elder Winegar has been out for about ten months and is from Sandy. He has this innate talent of sounding exactly like David Spade, but Elder Winegar doesn't hear it. I think he sounds exactly like Richard from Tommy Boy. Elder Leishman is from Logan! He's been out for his two years, nearly.



We've been knocking on a lot of doors because we do not have a lot of progressing investigators. One such door we knocked in the dark and the cold had a sign upon it that read, "Due to the high price of ammunition, we will no longer be firing a warning shot!"

Elder Christensen tentatively read the sign aloud. I felt a mischievous grin on my face and reached over him to knock on the door, and I did so nice and loud. Elder Christensen did not appreciate my humor at that moment. A man answered the door hurriedly, said, "Get the outta here!" to shut the door in our faces.



The ward here is tiny. I know I said that about Hays, but this time I'm not messing around. We don't even have pews! And the back of the chapel is a half-court. This elder from northern Utah has never seen anything like that before.

The apartment isn't too bad. I've done a lot of cleaning. The shower was particularly unsettling, but I attacked it with vinegar, scrubbing bubbles, and elbow grease. We have a spare room and a powered room adjoining the spare room. That's all Elder Christensen's space. He can clean his own bathroom!