The Assistants to the Mission President called me this morning...
I'm getting transferred and I have been called to be a District Leader in my new area!!!
It's so bitter-sweet! I'm super excited, but I'm so scared to leave Elder Whitehead (haha :) and I'm so sad to leave Cornelia! I think that in church yesterday everyone sensed that I was leaving because about 7 people mentioned "the missionaries" in their testimonies. (Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting because next week is Athens' Stake Conference.) Elder Whitehead will be coming back home with not one new companion, but two! People have called this morning wondering about transfers and they have all joked around with me saying that it's gonna take two missionaries to replace me. Elder Whitehead said it's a good thing that I'm a humble guy and won't let that go to my head hahahahaahha jk jk jk.
It's crazy that I am finally leaving though. I am sorry to say goodbye to the friends that I have here. Cornelia and Elder Whitehead are all that I know about missionary work! The Sisters in Commerce will both be staying, but Elder Disbrow and Elder Harmon are both getting shipped out. The Hartwell Branch closed down and merged with two larger congregations and so E.W. and I have been joking around all morning saying that those two are both just going to be transferred right next door to Cornelia.
I was pretty shocked to hear that there will be a threesome here in Cornelia and also to hear that I am going to be a District Leader! The Assistants told me I need to be at a leadership meeting early on Wednesday before transfers. They also told us that no members are allowed to go to the meetings because we will be told some confidential information that the church isn't going to be publicly releasing until Sunday! Changes are exciting :)
Sooooo, here is some information from the past week.
A kid that I am friends with from the Hartwell Branch just got his mission call--he is going to the Salt Lake City South Mission! He enters the MTC in April. His name is Derek. We are excited for him-- that will be a good fit. Also, BYU sent out their acceptance letters this week so I found out that a few kids that I know from the wards around here will be going to BYU!
On Saturday the Hartwell missionaries had a baptism for this girl and 11 missionaries showed up to support them haha. Eleven missionaries! Elder Whitehead and I were two of them... it was funny. We all took a picture with this girl after the baptism just to capture the moment.
A bit happened this week. Like I said last week, we had Zone Conference on Tuesday in Athens. President King told us that the new mission president had been called and that he (President King) served as his (the new MP's) Zone Leader in the same mission!!! We got an email this morning informing us who he is. He works at doTERRA and is from Orem so that's pretty exciting!!!
The work has been going well in this area. We found out some bad news about Kathryn and Justin. We were going to go over on Friday and give her a baptismal date, but Justin got contracted to do some work in Texas for 6 weeks so that slows things down. They will be reading the BOM while they are gone and attending church, but we won't be able to teach them until they get back.
Thursday we picked up a new investigator and she has a kind of interesting story. About 5 or 6 months ago, Elder Whitehead and I tracted into her. She answered the door told us she wasn't interested, BUT that she had a cousin in Arkansas who is a Mormon. We said, "Oh that's cool," and she said, "Yeah, but I'm not interested." So while we were on the front porch right after we had gotten rejected, I heard from inside some metalcore music playing. I knew who the band was and so I said, "You like ... (whoever the band was, I can't remember now)... huh?" and she laughed and said, "No, that's my son's music." So her son came to the front porch and we all talked and laughed for a few minutes and then said, "Goodbye! Have a nice day!"
Anyway, about 3 weeks ago Elder Whitehead and I felt prompted to go back. So we did. She answered the door and pointed at me and said, "You're in trouble!" I said, "Me??? Why?" haha she said that her cousin had sent in a referral form for the missionaries to start teaching her 3 years ago and that no one had shown up. When we tracted into her door none out of the 3 of us knew that her cousin had requested that. So she asked us, "What took you guys so long?" We laughed and apologized and said we didn't know and asked for an appointment. She said she was busy then, but to come back next week. We started heading back to our car and she said, "Wait! Don't I get one of those books?? (referring to the Book of Mormon). So we came back the next week and she wasn't there. Sooo, we went back this week with a member. The member ended up knowing all of her friends and family and stuff so that was funny. But the craziest part is just her change of heart. When we first met her she was friendly, but not at all interested. Now she has asked for a BOM, the missionary lessons, AND if she can come to church some time. Good thing I listened to so much crazy teenager rock-n-roll screamo music in high school, Mom. Hahaha jk jk, good thing that the Lord has blessed us all!
Another crazy story for a new investigator that we got this week. We went to go visit a less-active member. They weren't home, but some guys in the trailer park called out to us, "Jehovah's Witnesses!" We didn't respond or anything, but as we were about to get in our car a lady came up to us to talk. She said she overheard those "loud mouthes" and was wondering what church we were from. She said she used to be Southern Baptist, but that now after all of the trials she has been through that she doesn't even know if she believes in God. We had an incredible lesson with her right there in the middle of the trailer park and have an appointment set up to meet again on Saturday.
God truly blesses us with things we don't even deserve and He guides this work. I am so thankful for that.
Unfortunately we had 9 people tell us that they would be at church this week and only one showed up. She is a less-active member and she got up and bore her testimony after having not been to church in years and years and years. She was so happy to be there also because everyone was realllyyy nice to her too! That made our church experience incredible even though everyone else bailed on us.
I told you last week that on Monday we had a pretty good lesson with our new investigator Kren. We took a girl from the ward with us and on Wednesday at the church the girl came up to us super excited. She told us that Kren had emailed her on Facebook and said that she was really glad to have met her and was excited to be coming to church and taking the lessons. That was pretty exciting for us to hear :)
Sister Barnes (from the ward) works as a lunch lady at Level Grove Elementary and on Friday she invited us to come to the school to meet her co-workers. One of the ladies didn't know what a missionary was and didn't know what one looked like, so we came on over for Show-and-Tell. It was a good experience, but a pretty funny one too. Sister Barnes was like, "This is a missionary. They ride bikes and teach the gospel and move away from home. " We joked around with them for a little bit and told them briefly what we teach people.
Well, I can tell that summer is quickly approaching and I am scared. We walked outside last week to exercise in the morning and I said, "Uh-oh, it smells like Florida." The humidity is coming in strong and the heat is coming quickly, haha, summer here is soo miserable.
I have loved Cornelia and have learned so much. I can't believe that I spent 7 months here and that I am already leaving. I will miss the people and the country and my home in Cornelia, but I am excited to be a District Leader and to have a new home. I know that God is in control and that all we have to do is to listen to him and that he will direct our paths.
Time to go now, we are having a Zone P-Day in Commerce and I have a lot of people to say goodbye to. I love you so much! Thanks for the support!
Love Elder Mikey Caplin
