P-day Changes

Sent March 3

Crazy week. Felt like it went by so fast. After i got the call as assistant i came down here to the office for some training and some suggestiongs and advice on how to do things. Elder Komgrid went over our schedule for the transfer (which is crazy as can be) and im not gonna lie.. i felt way over whelmed. I went home thinking tha tit was going to be so hard and i dont have a clue what to do. I went home and dove straight into the scriptures and prayer.. needless to say i feel a lot better now. So first week (not even full one) as Assistant... its been fairly eventful. Pretty surreal and weird how dramatically quick everything shifted from Elder Larson to me.. speaking of which, it was way fun at transfers meeting. Everyone was talking aabout who would be the next AP and i had to lie to some people (hey, it was lie or go against what President Smith said, which was, "dont tell anyone except your current companion") saying it was someone else haha. Not long though and people stopped asking. Transfers meeting started and not long into to the meeting President Smith called me to be the new assistant. Let me tell you one thing... the feeling that went through me as i strolled up to the stage.. wow. Something else. The applause may have been unnecessary, but i know not what it feels like to be sustained by my equals; and it felt good. I was so stoked to be in that room sitting up on the stand looking out on just a bunch of solid missionaries.. so cool. Almost instantly i got a dozen questions for missionaries about baptismal daters, questions about what we can and cant do, where to go, what to do.. just changed so fast! So far things have been great. Yeah im tired, but its nothing that we cant handle. Taking the Elders to the airport with President Smith was, well, weird. That will be Him and I soon. The life as an AP is very different from other missionaries; much more than i originally thought. For one, having my own phone is cool. The car is nice. Being in the office, well that im still getting used to. Working closely with President Smith? Yes Please. Oh and dont forget the part about being with Elder Komgrid again, thats awesome too. Oh, and my kid (Elder Revelli) got called to be office Elder as well haha. So we are in the same house again. Speaking of the house... Dad you woulda been proud of me here, cause this morning we CLEANED that bugger. It was probably the messiest house in the mission by far.. like, by a long shot. And we cleaned the entire place. I can finally feel the spirit in it now! Before it wasnt even fit for a rats den. Yeah, that bad. Worse than that woman's horrible hair you saw the other day.

Okay so whats happening here in the office: Well, as far as investigators go, we have barely any! We have a family thats getting baptized in a week (thats a nice inheritance to come into) and the mom is the only one not getting baptized with them. The whole family is way cool. I met 2 of the children, je t'aime (yes thats for real "i love you in french") and jap; both are way cool and are 15 and 12 respectively. The father is Joy and the mother is Tem. Theres one last son who was in Laos this weekend, James, so i havent met him yet. They are doing stellar. Theres a few others here, Paulo, Noy and Bune, but havent met them yet either. The majority of our time the next few weeks will be spent out training other missionaries. President Smith met with us yesterday and specifically told us that we are not AP's that hold his hand or go everywhere he goes; in fact he DIScouraged that. So we will go with him only when he schedules us to go or asks us personally. Otherwise we will do our thing (which is his, just in different places at different times) and he does his. Theres a lot of freedom in this job and he says he trusts us totally. Its a new world being here lemme say that much, and so far i think i like it.

Next week we have 4 meetings in 4 days and we will be flying all four of those days. Then in between we gotta find time to go get me a drivers license, practice and make sure that i can understand the traffic laws here (or lack there of.. so actually not that bad). Busy busy. Should be fun. After that week we have exchanges, meetings, exchanges, meetings all the way until the end of the transfer. And we will have to begin preparing for that transfer very quickly. Normally we dont prepare for the transfers stuff until 2 or 3 weeks before it, but this one is going to be HUGE. 17 dying and 16 coming in. Elder Komgrid included. President Smith has been stressin about this one for a while and he said hes gonna begin transfers planning early. yay.. i get to inherit all that mess! Bring it.

So hopefully by now you understand that my p-day is changes to saturday? If no, then yes, it is now saturday instead of monday. But, President Smith warned that we would have to sacrifice p-days sometimes because of our schedules.. so just as a heads up, dont freak out if one day you dont get an email. Most of the time it shouldnt be very hard to email you on any other day.

Well, i think i will keep this one short. Its getting close to head out of the office. I love you guys. Thanks for your support. Im so stoked right now.. i get to work right next to President Smith for the next 4 months and then peace out on an airplane with him too. Its gonna be a good time. Amidst all the craziness and the random "outside the law" behavior of being an AP, im trying my best to stay rooted to what ive been taught the last year and a half. On transfers day i didnt even get a chance to read the scriptures and i felt just straight weird. This morning during the cleaning i just felt like stopping everything and just reading in the Book of mormon for a little while. It felt good. I know that Book is true. Grab it. Hang on to it. Dont let it go. Love you!

Elder Gudmundsen