This week has been insane! There has been a crazy amount of stuff that has gone on since I got transferred. On Wednesday I was transferred into the Ridgeway ward! My new companion is Elder Pace which is sweet because he is the first companion I've had that I actually knew before getting put together. He was serving in Gaffney when I was in Boiling Springs and I've been seeing him around ever since. He also served in Mt. Pleasant a little bit before Elder Bowen and I came in. He and I cover the Ridgeway South area. Biking only. Biking here has been so much easier than Lexington haha. The hills aren't nearly as bad out here. This place is out in the middle of po dunk nowhere haha. We seriously have been banished. There's one gas station in our area and no stop lights at all. It's always been my dream to serve in a town like this haha!
The ward is awesome too. Elder Jeffs was trained in Ridgeway and so he told me all about it when we were in the same apartment the last 9 months. I've met most of the ward already and they have been really welcoming to us. We're serving here with 2 other Elders, Elder Roetker (Rhettker) and Elder Furr. Elder Furr came out at the same time as me and Elder Roetker was serving in the South area of the ward before. They moved him to the North area with Elder Furr.
Elder Pace and I live in a 2 pack together. It's been weird because I've been living in places where there are 4 Elders my whole mission. We've been having a great time though. The other Elders are only a few miles away so we have been working with them a lot. They've been really great at introducing us to the members and learning the area. We went on exchange on Saturday in just the South area so that they could show us around too. It's been fun.
It was hard to get proselyting time in because the trailer was in really bad shape. It took us about 2 days to clean the entire thing. IT WAS SO GROSS. The toilet was covered in so much gunk and the tub was stained totally red and black because there was mold growing everywhere. The red is from the clay in the water. Yeah clay is a big problem out here and it's in everyone's water. So for about 2 days we cleaned the heck out of the trailer. It's spotless now. We even ripped the baseboards on the tub out, scraped them clean, scraped all the calk out, and then put it all back in with fresh calk. The clay was a tough project too. We got it all out with magic erasers. Best invention ever made.
So yeah that's all about the new place i'm in. I'm stoked to be here. Elder Pace and I are getting along really well and we are having a great time. It's going to be fun working with the ward and the other elders.The ward has struggled with growth and we are going to be starting from scratch with everything to spark missionary work here. The ward mission leader (Bro. Hansen) has been home from his mission for only like a year and he's really willing to help out. Bishop Christensen is way awesome too.
I feel like this is definitely the place that I'm supposed to be at right now. Elder Pace and I have had to white wash before and so we feel like we are going to be able to adjust well and get things going here. I can't wait to see how things roll out this week. Ridgeway is awesome!
This Saturday we are having a mission wide conference with Elder Christofferson. I'm way excited for that!
Elder Sean Bills