WEEK 81- Crazy transfer time again

Meet  Joseph Kambo!!! I taught him in Annandale, then he got a job and was away on on the job training for a month, then I was moved......he is strong , brave and wonderful and Loves the Lord!!  Proud to be a member of the same church as this man.

Well, yet another proof that transfer weeks are the craziest weeks ever!!! I'll run you through my week this week....

Monday, Preparation day! We joined the Springfield Zone for a dart war! They have a ton of PVC blow-guns and darts, and we basically just divided into teams, ran around and shot each other!!! It was a total blast!

Tuesday, we went to the beginning of zone training, but we had to leave early to get to the "train the trainers" meeting at the mission home. We spent the afternoon with all the missionaries who would be training new missionaries and helping them get prepared to train! President, Sister Riggs, Elder Cluff and I each run a station. My station was on inspired questions, so we talked about why inspired questions are important and how to make our questions most effective.

Wednesday, we finished with some prep and picked up the new missionaries from the airport! And one of them was from Rocklin!!! haha Sister  Deaver arrived safe and sound this past week! Kellys companion is Sister Egbert, a visa waiter who is going to Brazil. She's one of our best trainers right now, really solid and understands what she's here to do. Very fun girl, too. I guess she used to be a rodeo clown at a local rodeo.

After picking them up, we drove into D.C. and saw the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean War Memorial, then headed back to the mission home! After dinner and training the new missionaries in online proselyting, we went back to the office to finish prep for transfers! We knocked it out pretty quickly and weren't up too late! Still pretty late, but not too late. haha We also had to drive 6 new cars down to the Centreville Stake Center. Thank goodness for the office elders! They turned 6 runs into 2 since they came along!

Thursday was transfers! We all gathered at the Stake Center for that fateful occasion! This transfer I was conducting, which was fun. It was my first time. It's always exciting to start out with "President Matthew L. Riggs with be presiding today. I'm Elder Matthew L. Hodgson and I'll be conducting..." It's pretty fun with my Companion a Matthew too!! Three Matthews

This transfer meeting was a bit rough, because my MTC sisters were headed home... :( It's been a good 18 months serving with them, but they're off now. It's really weird... For the first time it's actually hitting that this ends at some point... Other friends go home, and it's still not quite real, but when your sisters go home... it hits...

Thursday night, we had a great meal and a great spiritual evening with final testimonies and instruction from President. Then we got to go bowling! Departing night is one of the perks that makes all the craziness of this assignment worth it . It's also known as "trunky eve" though for the assistants.. haha it takes some drive to get back into gear  on Friday .

Friday morning, we drove the departing missionaries to the airport. The van was full, so Elder Flaherty hopped in the truck with me and the luggage. That was really neat to have a little more time with him before he left.

After dropping off the missionaries, we went back to the office for a conference call with the Zone leaders!!

Finally, Saturday, the sisters in our ward had a baptism for one of their investigators, and we had access to the font keys, so we filled the font for them! Sister Borland was transferred, so now it's Sister McCormick and Sister Smith! I was Sister Smith's zone leader when she was fresh off the plane, so it's a blast serving in her ward now and seeing her adjust to life as a Sister Training Leader.  Sister Training Leaders are sisters that are called to uplift and inspire the sisters in the mission. Since Elders cannot counsel and train sisters on the same, personal level they can counsel and train elders, the Sister Training Leaders are amazing and wonderful. They typically go on 2, sometimes 3 exchanges with Sisters each week, and report back to district and zone leaders on their progress and needs, in addition to providing training during the exchanges.

Sunday night, we had a dinner appointment that one of the brothers in our ward signed up for... Turns out he's the Stake President's son, so we had dinner with President Bush! (the name is coincidence)

It's been a busy, exciting week, but we're ready for another one! Currently the office staff is running around deep cleaning the office because Elder Teh of the Seventy is flying in tomorrow to tour our mission.

Hope all of you are doing well!

Love you!

Elder Hodgson

Hey, just a heads up. We start our zone conference run next week... We'll be busy every weekday for the next 3 weeks, which means we don't have an open Monday until December 16th. President says he'll probably switch our Preparation days to Saturdays, so when you don't hear from me next Monday, that's why... It'll be coming eventually...