Tornados and Teaching

Hey everyone, Elder Edgell here.

My first week in Columbia was a good one. Last Tuesday we had interviews. They went well. Our mission is starting to focus on scripture mastery. The assistants see what we knew 1st week, because we were supposed to have them all memorized by then...I only had a few...so they challenged my companion and I to memorize two from lesson 3 and 4. Proud to say that I have a accomplished that! yay! So I can call the assistants with confidence and recite the scriptures.. The ones I memorized were, Eth. 12:6, 3 Nephi 27:19, and Aof F #12.

So things here are good. District meeting last week went well. I like it now alot better than before, because instead of assigned trainings from the assistants we can choose our own trainings. It's very spiritually oriented which is good :D. I like it alot.

My district only consists of another set of Elders, who cover Lawrenceburg. Elder Walker and Elder Clouse. They are good missionaries. District meeting was there in Lburg last week, and it's here in Columbia this week. I trained on setting baptismal dates last week, and plan on training on using the BofM more in our finding efforts...its going to be a good training hopefully.

Oh also last week we set a baptismal date!!!! WOOT WOOT! His name is Clint. We set it for the 26th of November. He wasn't able to come to church though yesterday :(. But the lesson was really good. We taught the 1st lesson(the restoration). He said that he had already been baptized but we told him that he needed to be baptized by someone holding the priesthood, and he willingly accepted the date for the 26th, day after Thanksgiving...one more month till then :D yay.

So we are excited about that. But last week overall was a good week. I am surprisingly learning the area very quickly. Its not that hard of an area to learn though.
(mom addition: here's a map of where Elder Edgell is. It's south of Nashville)

This area reminds me of Columbia,KY. a town I covered when I was in Sulphur Well. It's a nice town though :D. Lots of nice people. The ward here is full of old people. It's weird coming from a college town, that is go go go all the time, and then coming to a town that people are really laid back and "chill" here. But its been good to me so far.

Story Time: So last night we had a bunch of storms come through. We went over with the Spanish Elders to a members home because the member was a single lady and she was by herself with her children, so we went with them so they could be there. We weren't there but for about 5 minutes when the phone rang, Elder Hamblin answered the phone, and it was President. I heard him say...Whats the weather like out there? We told him it had been lighting and thundering for a while. He told us that there was a tornado warning out, and it was heading our direction..directly for Columbia. AHH! He said be careful and get inside somewhere, luckily we were already at a members home. No sooner after I got done talking to him on the phone the sirens went off...I called him back immediately and told him...he said get in cover NOW! and call me back in 10-20 minutes. So we all sat in the middle of the hallway. The sirens went off about 15 minutes later, called pres. back and told him and he said that the storm had passed. Later we heard there was a tornado that hit right outside of Columbia. So last night was a pretty intense moment. But we are safe and accounted for.

Are y'all getting the storms now? The ones that came through here last night?

Settled in finally. Not sure what we are going to do today...laundry and letter writtting...the usual pday stuff. Well I think that's all for this week, hope everyone is doing well...love yall :D

HOPE YOUR WEEK IS A GOOD ONE

love,

Elder Edgell