McKay's Report Home

First off....Mom, I DO NOT give you permission to use Alma 39:3 as my mission scripture.  After much ponderation and soul searching (maybe 3 minutes) I chose Alma 31:34-35.  Not quite as fun, but hopefully will make me seem a bit less apostate than your choice.  ;)

As for P-day, yes, I made it!  It's hard to believe a whole week has gone by....actually, four weeks. Craziness.  Anyway, yeah, time flies. I had no idea that President and Sister Barry were going to be emailing you photos and my address, so I was super shocked when I got two actual letters in the mail (both this morning) before I had even sent my address home.  I guess I have no need to do that now.

Ok, so rewind a little bit; my last few days in the MTC were a blur. I got both care packages - one from Mom and one from the Monastery - both on the same day.  Every one else in my zone was super jealous, but I spread the goodies among my district, so the jealousy was somewhat reduced.  The night before I left, my zone was also having a Jedi/Sith night!  (Bwahahahaha!  Star Wars is everywhere -- even in God's work!)  The MTC bookstore sells this type of pencil lead that glows when you take a photo of it with the flash on so it looks like a lightsaber.  We had lots of fun simulating things and I, of course, could not pass up the opportunity to show my dark side (see attached photo).  The last Sunday night fireside there before flying out was provided by the BYU Men's Chorus and they did a stellar job.  President gave us permission to clap and cheer, so we really raised the roof after a few numbers.  They shipped us out at 4am Monday morning and we were on a plane to Atlanta by 7.  We then caught the connecting flight to Jacksonville later in the afternoon.  Just as a quick story -- Florida is no where near as bad with the "Southern" accent as Georgia.  I tried to buy a pizza slice in the Atlanta airport and had to ask 3 times what the cashier was saying when she wanted to know if I wanted a drink with my slice!

Florida....is going to be fun!  I stepped off the plane and it was 93 degrees and very humid here.  IN MID APRIL!!!  I was very glad when I could shed my suit coat after the first day.  We work in short sleeves almost the entire time.   when I was picturing Florida, I was thinking of a very tropical place with palm trees...nice beaches...sun....etc.  Well, that may be true in some parts of Florida, but not Jacksonville. My first area is in St. Johns/St. Augustine in the JAX South zone (also known as "Zion" - the most productive zone in the mission).  This city is quite literally built on a swamp.  I have never seen so much water in my life and have suspicions that if a high tide comes in the whole state will be under water.  Oh, and the hardest part to get used to is  that the tap water TASTES LIKE SWAMP!  No kidding. It also smells like swamp, so finishing a shower is very interesting if you don't use deodorant afterwards.  :P   But, yes, as a result, we do have a few palm trees here, but it is mostly dense jungle forest, algae, and a fun thing known as Spanish Moss. Spanish Moss grows on just about every green tree here and looks pretty cool, but beware!  The stuff is filled with chiggers!  As a result, I will not be doing much tree climbing while I am out here.  :)

People are fun!  ...and we encounter all sorts in this missionary business.  We tracted into a guy the other day who is convinced that the world is going to end on May 21, 2011 (yep, that's like 4 weeks away!).  He called us to repentance and shoved a bunch of fliers in our hands before slamming the door on us.  I have also never seen so many churches in one area in my life!!!  There are literally churches on every turn of the road and hidden in the jungles.  There is one Catholic church that we drive by every day that has a life-size golden Jesus hanging on a wooden cross by the road and my companions yell "APOSTASY!!" inside the car every time we go by.  But, as always, there are some people really prepared to hear the message.  My companions and I have had some amazing experiences together where the Spirit just shows up in the middle of a lesson and really delivers the truth home - both to us and to them.  We've personally been able to extend baptismal invitations to two people this week and had them accepted both times.  One of them is "soft" though and doesn't seem quite as committed as the other; almost everyone down here has already been baptized at some point or other into one of the various churches.

I've also been able to be in several different types of lessons with a few different elders this week.  Since my companions are Zone Leaders, they have a bunch of other responsibilities and I get to work with other elders frequently. I've already come to see the difference between Bold, but overbearing, and Loving/Understanding, but not firm enough.  Hopefully, I can find the middle ground in my own teaching style while allowing the Spirit to work through me.  I really like the Bold approach, but I watched one elder who used it too much and completely blew past the Spirit.

One of the most fun experiences was last Wednesday evening.  I'd been in the field for a day and a half and my ZL companions had to arrange a split.  So they sent me with a member guy to go hit up some appointments.  Lol, I'm a totally new missionary, don't know anyone, and suddenly I'm the senior comp.  Thank goodness for "greenie fire" -- we'd just come off a sweet lesson and I was totally pumped and didn't mind it at all.

A few more fun things:

1) There is no such thing as a straight road in Jacksonville. I suspect that it is because of all the standing water and the roads just kind of weave in between each new lake, but I get very turned around in these suburbs and usually can't tell north from south unless it's late evening or we have the GPS with us.

2) This mission has its own unique slang. The most common ones are:

"gators" - referring to investigators
"zebra" - a companionship that has one English elder and one Spanish elder
"lame" - a person that is not very spiritually minded or proactive in keeping commitments
"sweet" - the opposite of lame.
"throwdown" - being bold and being very upfront in telling an investigator what's what.
And then the most common mission expletive is "junk" followed closely by "stuff". 

3) People down here can be rather scandalous. I suppose it's a lot more understandable with the heat, but even a lot of the members dress down.  We were at a restaurant called The Firehouse getting sandwiches this morning and a woman walked in without any pants on. We elders all looked at each other and walked out as soon as we had our food.

Gargh, my computer time is up and I didn't get to respond to any of your questions.  Gotta go.  I am in a pretty wealthy area right now, so I'm not hand washing my clothes, but I know I'll probably be doing that at some point if I get into Interlachen or some of the slum areas.  Don't worry about me -- this mission life is the best!  Thanks for staying in touch!  Tell Amber congrats from me and don't die in the car with Gabe!!  If I know him, he'll have a hod rot car by the time I see him again!  :P

Love you all!
Elder Howell