Elder Dittmers Journey to New Mexico

Dunjzo! (That's 'hello' in Apache!)

Monday

Me and Elder Adams first went to the library in Cortez to email, then we went to the bookstore for Elder Adams so that he could find some weird religious stuff to read and study. We didn't have much else to do in Mancos or Cortez so we went to Durango and hung out with a bunch of the missionaries there. After we arrived back in Mancos, we went to an appointment with a man named Tyler and he gave us milk just taken from a cow! Elder Adams couldn't stop talking about the stuff. We brought the milk home and put it in the fridge. Not much else happened today, it was mostly just me and Elder Adams saying goodbye to people.

Tuesday

Today is transfer day! I finished up packing and cleaned the entire trailer. I tried the milk, but it just tasted like normal milk to me. When I told that to Elder Adams, he thought I was weird. We were asked to throw away all the food, so a lot of good food went straight into the trash. I secretly left a giant thing of cinnamon in one of the cupboards as an act of rebellion, then we headed out to Farmington to find our new companions. I found my new companion Elder Sperry, got most of my bags into our BRAND NEW 2018 TACOMA, and headed out to Dulce, New Mexico! Note that I said that I got MOST of my bags into the truck. I left my big suitcase with all of my clothing in the Apache building in Farmington. I had to go THREE DAYS wearing my suit pants and a long-sleeved white shirt before I would get it back at district meeting on Thursday. All that driving took up the entire day, so that's about it.

Wednesday

I can't remember what me and Elder Sperry did on Wednesday... I guess it's one of those great mysteries that will never be solved (I forgot to journal on Wednesday).

Thursday

We had to leave early and drive for over an hour to make it to district meeting because it's all the way out in bloomfield. To my surprise, when I got there, the district leaders had my suitcase! I snatched that thing like it was made of gold, put it in the bed of our truck, and went to start district meeting. Sister Allred is in our district, and she was in my last district in Cortez, and there was also Elder Bruning who was serving in Polacca (I don't know how to spell that) while I was in Kayenta. It was nice to see a couple of familiar faces there. After district meeting, our district had a district lunch, so me and Elder Sperry went and got Subway for lunch and talked with a bunch of people. It turns out Elder Redford is our zone leader, and I knew him from when he was serving in Tuba City. We have been on exchanges together before, so I was excited about that. On the drive back to Dulce, we stopped by an appointment we had with a man named Daniel. He was definitely NOT sober, I can tell ya that. He talked a lot about the sasquatch making yelling noises at like three in the morning, and he sang us a song about leaving with a blessing or something like that. He was kinda strange. After meeting with him, we headed home. The drive in total going to and from Bloomfield took about 3 hours. Yikes!

Friday

In the morning, we were SUPPOSED to do weekly planning, but a whole bunch of stuff got in the way like appointments and service. We called the district leaders for permission to move our planning time to later, then went to help a family build a shed. After that, we went to a really old lady named Winona who has a seventy-something year old sister with down syndrome. She is the nicest old Shimah I've ever met. We read some scriptures with them, then went to yet another appointment which fell through before we even got there because he cancelled our appointment through a text. After all that, we were finally able to do our weekly planning, which took up the rest of the day.

Saturday

Our new mission president (President Ackerman) and his wife asked us to go to this "get to know you" thing in Farmington, so we left at 7:00 in the morning and drove for a solid 2 hours to get there on time. The whole zone of missionaries were at the meeting, so I got to say hello to a bunch of missionaries I know. We basically sat around waiting for our interviews, but the assistants to President Ackerman had a bunch of missionary activities for us to do. I think the funnest activity we did was when we did a roleplay at a barbecue and I was the one flipping burgers. After me and Elder Sperry did our interview and the rest of the missionaries did their interviews, we had a quick lunch and sat down on some tables in front of a projector screen so that President and Sister Ackerman could introduce themselves and their families. After that, the meeting was over, so me and Elder Sperry went to Elder Wadsworth the vehicle coordinator to talk about a chip in our windshield (so sad!) and get it fixed. He directed us to a repair shop in town. It was closed, so he told us to try by another day. We went back to the church building, said goodbye to a bunch of missionaries and the mission President, and began our long drive back to Dulce. After another two hours of fighting sleep in the passenger seat of the truck, we finally arrived home in time to go to bed.

Sunday

Sacrament meeting starts at 10:30 am here in Dulce, and we have correlation meetings every week with the presidency at 10:00am. We went to that, and then we went to say hello to the 15 people that came to sacrament meeting. I got to play the piano for sacrament meeting! I played hymns 58, 124, and 97. It was also testimony meeting, so I went up there first to introduce myself and bear my testimony. After sacrament meeting, about half of the congregation left so we had like 8 people at sunday school. While there are few members who come to church here, it makes me happy to hear the strong testimonies of the few that actually come every week. In a place where most people go to other churches, the fact that they aren't straying from the true church is really saying something. After sacrament meeting, us and the presidency sat at the computers in the church and did tithing stuff that lasted about two hours, at least that's what it felt like. After that, we went home and did some online proselyting on Facebook for a bit, then we went back to the church to do family history work. After that, we turned in, talked to the district leaders, watched "Ephraim's Rescue", and went to bed.

Hiende! (That means 'goodbye'!) (My brain is going to explode with all these languages!)