Pittsburgh Mission Memoirs

Since I'm still in the holiday spirit, I would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, and New Years. As well as (can I do this?) a happy birthday to myself. Yes, chances are by the time you read this I will have sailed on down the river of time through the rapids...

Happy end of the world, everyone. Well... Almost. I honestly completely forgot about it until Wednesday, spent all of Thursday trying to calm people down and let them know that the world was NOT in fact going to end ("No really, Jesus said nobody would know when he is coming!"), and...

As the days of advent slowly count down, the work of the Lord continues in that lush land of Pennsylvania. By the way, if I were to take a guess right now, I would say that we probably won't have a white Christmas out here - it's been above 50 degrees for the past five days. A little wet, but my Arizonian companion is loving it.  We went to a Christmas Party, put on by probably...

So here's an interesting experience. Like anywhere in the church, there is a great structure in missions. The president has two Assistants who preside over the Zone leaders. Zone leaders steward over District leaders, who are in charge of individual companionships. As it happens, one of my Zone leaders happens to be Elder Nelson. Remember him? From way back when in Lebanon? As it...

My week has been like driving down a Pennsylvania road - up and down, lots of twists and turns, and bumpy the whole way. (Yeah, that's pretty much just like the roller coaster analogy - I just didn't want to be cliche.) Monday night we had a visit with a gentleman who referred himself through Mormon.org. His name is Dan. He came to us mainly because he lacks purpose in life,...