Week 9- dead birds, drunk people, and baptism

 Hallå! This was my first full week in the Mission field, and it has felt like one of the longest weeks of my life haha. It has been fun though! We're having trouble finding people to teach, (which I'm sure is a common issue for most missionaries) but the couple lessons we have taught have been great. I am definitely very new to all of this and need lots of training and work. 


Some highlights 
-My favorite part from this week was playing basketball last P day! It was exactly what the doctor ordered haha.
- A close second though was I got to call two of the sisters from my MTC district for language study!! It was so good to talk to them and see some familiar faces. It's also very comforting to know that other people are going through the same things I am. Shoutout to Sister McCombs and Sister Wilcox! 
- I had my first baptism this week!! Although my trainer and his last companion found her and taught her a lot of stuff, I was able to jump in and help teach our friend Raylee some thing and she got baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday. I had a funny experience at her baptism, the bishop came up to us and asked us to say something to everyone while she was changing and stuff after the baptism happened. There were so many people at her baptism we had to go to the Chapel! Anyway Elder Cook and I had the opportunity to get up and teach this congregation. It was fun, I was definitely nervous but It was a "welcome to your mission" moment for me because I realized that I better get used to doing stuff like that.
- This isn't really a highlight just something interesting that happened, we found a baby bird with a broken wing in our backyard. He had fallen down in a hole and couldn't get up. The hole was to the window to our kitchen, so me and this bird got close. I named him "Kurt" So I wanted to help him and Elder Cook wanted to help him his way. (For some context he's a farmer back home so he saw it as if he killed the bird he would be helping the bird) so we went out to the backyard, helped the bird out of the hole and this is where we disagreed. so he picked it up and killed it and it was a little traumatic for me. RIP Kurt
- We met a drunk family while knocking on doors and talked to them for awhile, it was pretty funny. They kept saying how much they felt bad for us that we were serving missions in Salt Lake City. They were actually really nice just kinda crazy. They said that they would invite us to their barbecue though so stay tuned for that. Although they said "no talking about Jesus, just about good times" little do they know that it is quite literally our job to talk about Jesus so we'll see what I can do.
- I had my first zone council this week. (For those of you who don't know, that's just when all the Missionaries in a zone come together) it was cool, definitely not what I was expecting but cool. There are definitely a lot of weird Missionaries here but to my pleasant surprise, there are plenty of normal guys here too. 
- One really cool part of this week was that we got a car!! 15 minutes before we were leaving to go get a bike for me, we got a call that my companion was made a last second district leader so we got a car. Shortly after we started driving, we realized why they gave the sisters who had it before us a new car. The air conditioning in our car doesn't work!! Now please don't get me wrong I would much rather have a car with no AC then having to bike everywhere. Utah is hot right now though so it is a little brutal. It was like 110 degrees the other day. (Shoutout my big brother Carston though, he's on his mission in Phoenix AZ and he's had to deal with this weather for like 2 months now so… yikes) 
-I was talking to some people when we went to go eat and they put some stuff in a cool perspective for me. She said, "everytime you think about how hard a mission is, think about how much harder it would be if no one was praying for you" that made me think about how many people are praying for all missionaries, myself included. The majority of the church is praying for us every day! It was cool because I feel very blessed and lucky to be here. Thank you to everyone who prays for me and all the other missionaries.

I've been studying alot and one thing I've loved is Alma chapter 26. The verse that stood out to me the most is verse 12. "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." 

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me and sending me emails, it means the world to me! Keep up the prayers for me, my family, and my visa please! Love you all

-Äldste Calder

Ps- I have an all day P-day today so I can respond all day. Thanks to pioneer day. I've never loved the pioneers more.












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