Transferred!- Hello Griffin(dor)!

(Part 1)
Well Monday we got the call from the APes, not the monkeys but the assistants to the president, and I am leaving Sharpsburg! So I have my bags all packed and ready to go so I'll probably email after transfers to tell you where I'm at, Elder Adams wanted to come before so I figured I'd write you now and save some time later this afternoon. But I am definitely gonna miss Sharpsburg, this ward has been super good to us.

To answer your question we do go to PEC every week and just give a report of our work for the week. Sharpsburg has a really good Ward mission Leader that always looks for ways to help. He definitely helps us get our meal calendar filled up which is definitely a blessing. This Sunday, even though I wont be attending the Sharpsburg ward, is a fifth Sunday as you know and he and the missionaries are teaching the third hour and giving kind of a training on member missionary work which should help the ward a lot and hopefully get everyone excited about missionary work. We had one of our investigators come to sacrament for a little while which I think is going to help spark some missionary work as the members see us bringing people to church and gain their trust in us. But ya I will defnitely email later and tell you the news of where I am!

(Part 2)
So we just got back from transfer meeting and I am now serving in Griffin Georgia with Elder Meacham. It should be a super good transfer. I just dropped my stuff off at our apartment and I have my own bathroom, and there's a bowflex there, so we're gonna get into spartan shape, and Elder Meacham is a super cool hard working companion from what I've heard. He came out only a transfer before I did, but I think we are going to have a lot of fun together. He's a cross country runner, just one of those skinny guys, so I'm gonna work him lifting weights and he's gonna run me skinny, or at least that's the plan. Well there's not too much other news right now, but I will talk to y'all soon!

-Elder Edwards

Pine Wood Disaster

This week has been really good. We got to teach several appointments this week and feel good about the investigators we have right now. I hope I make it past transfers next week to be able to stay here because we could definitely have a baptism or two come up in a few weeks out of the people we are teaching now.

Saturday our ward had a pine wood derby, and Elder Adams and I got to participate in it. We were supposed to have an investigator there, but he wasn't able to make it for whatever reason, but it was a lot of fun. They had two categories - the regulation division and a pretty much anything goes category. We made a car like the day before at a recent converts house, and finished painting like a couple hours before the race, and let me just say, it was a major failure. We made it to the bottom of the slope and not much further, couldn't even pass the finish line :( but we had a lot of fun making it.


None of our investigators came to church on Sunday which was kind of a big let down for us, but we will continue to work with them this week and I'll be sure to update y'all next week after transfers!

Until then have a great week!
-Elder Edwards

A- Town

Well, it has been a pretty super week for us! Sunday as always was really good, its hard to do much other than go to meetings and then church, which starts at 2, and then we generally have dinner appointments which take up the majority of the night, but this Sunday we got enough time to go contact a few people, and it was the first time we had a perfect night, where we were able to see everyone we had planned for.

Then Monday we had exchanges and the district leader came here and we had a good time. And then Tuesday we had a super lesson where we taught our investigator about the plan of salvation and he seemed to really like it. He asked us about three times what his next step was, and we have pretty hesitant to hit him with a baptismal commitment, but that third time it finally got to us to commit him already, and though we don't have an official date, he said he would like to be baptized and we are going back to teach him on Friday, and he said he might be able to come to the ward pine wood derby on Saturday with his son ( its really not a boyscout pine wood derby its more like a dad pinewood derby and they have two classes, a free for all and then scout rules, but anyways. . .) And he also should be coming to church on Sunday which will be Huge!

And then, we got talking to sports afterward and he played baseball at Auburn for a couple of years, which was pretty sweet, and then he also has a bunch of hook ups and said he can get tickets to pretty much any sporting event in Georgia and invited us to a baseball game on Saturday, which is out of the mission and I don't think we can get permission from president to go to it even though he said our mission president could come as well. But ya, we are super excited for that.

And today was probably one of the best p-days ever. Let me explain. . . Elder Sessions, who is our district leader, is going home in two weeks, and he had never been to Atlanta so he had permission from President Satterfield to go as long as a member drove them, and they weren't able to get a member from their ward but we had a member from our ward who is just awesome and he was able to take us and by grace we got permission from president as well, so we spent the day in Atlanta and got to go to The World of Coca Cola, Cyclorama (a civil war exhibit/museum type thing) and then we walked through Centennial Park and did a little tour of the CNN Center, and it was just Awesome! We got some sweet pictures which I will most definitely have to send y'all. But ya that is this weeks news, so have a great day!

-Elder Edwards

Teaching Pool Getting Bigger

I got the package yesterday, thank you guys so much for sending it! I found someone in the Relief Society to hem my pants as well.

Well, I wrote y'all leters and sent them today, so this one will be pretty short, but we had a super day yesterday.

First we had our weekly meeting with Brother Morris, which is always awesome! He is a recent convert and is about 82 years old. He lives by himself and loves all the missionaries, but especially the sister missionaries, because they are the ones that were able to convince him to join the church. Every Tuesday morning we go over and share a scripture message with him and then he feeds us lunch. We were super lucky yesterday and after lunch he showed us his bees as well. He has about 6 or 7 bee hives on his property that he keeps and gets honey from. We were pretty excited to go see them, and we took some pictures that I'll send home soon. But, it wasn't all that great of a day to go see them, because they seemed kinda aggravated by Brother Morris and stung him a couple of times as he was going through the hive. It was still a pretty neat experience. This year his bees haven't been doing so well, so he hasn't produced a lot of honey off them, but last year was really good and he would give honey to the missionaries, so I was kinda bummed that we missed out.

Then we had a super good lesson with Brother Apostolo who came on a team up with us. We were supposed to visit Craig, who is one of our investigators which would have been super good, but he was stuck at work, but we were definitely blessed because we were able to contact a former investigator and teach him, and he seemed to be interested in the gospel a little bit. Last time the missionaries taught him he had a baptismal date and everything, I think he even had his interview, but for whatever reason wasn't able to go through with it and the missionaries stopped teaching him, so maybe he will be ready this time around! Well we are doing really good, our teaching pool is steadily growing which is really good for us.

Alright well thanks again for the package and I'll hear from y'all soon!

Waitin' and Hopin' and Prayin'

Well It has been a pretty interesting week for us. We had a lot of super good plans but they fell through. We have one super solid investigator that we haven't taught since I've been here but the Elders before were teaching. She's been on vacation for a couple weeks, but we finally met her on Sunday. She's dating one of the sons of a less active family in our ward, but he is in California because he is in the military, but Lauren (the investigator) wants him to baptize her, he just needs to get leave to come home, and we just have a little more to teach her. Lauren has apparently been going to the singles ward by herself for the past couple of weeks which is why we haven't met her, but Sister Sones (the less active mom) brought her to church on Sunday and we would have taught her that night but Sister Sones wasn't feeling good so left with Lauren after sacrament meeting, and then to add to that we won't be able to teach her until after August 15 because both of them are going on different vacations in the next week or so, which will only give us a couple of weeks left in the transfer to work with. But, it is all on the Lord's time and she seems really solid so its just a matter of time.

But ya that's about all of the news lately. Today was zone p-day so we all got together and played different games. I pretty much just played basketball all afternoon with half of the other Elders in our zone, which was a lot of fun. But ya, thanks again for sending that package and I hope y'all have a good week!

-elder edwards

New Companion / New Mission President

So this week as you know was transfers, and I am still in Sharpsburg but I am now serving with Elder Adams. He is pretty cool, he was born in South Africa and then moved to Utah/Idaho about 7 years ago, he has been on his mission for about 19 months and we are excited to get to work.

We also met the mission president (Stephen H. Satterfield) last week and I think I wrote about him in the letter I sent last week, but he is awesome. He looks like President Sherm Smith which I thought was kinda funny, but he and his wife are just the best. We have zone conferences next week and then interviews the week after so I'll let you know more about him as I find out more about him.

We are still living at the same address so whenever you will be able to send me those things that would be great! :D But that is pretty much everything, nothing all too exciting except for interviews and transfers so I hope everyone has a stellar week!
-Elder Edwards

Message from Alex

That's awesome that everyone had a good time at youth conference and I was able to see the pictures of Dad and Ryan on their biking trip which looked like a lot of fun as well! We have not met the new mission president as of yet but tomorrow we are having interviews so we will see what he is like!

On the fourth of July we had a cook out with the other missionaries in our district which was a lot of fun. We had to be in our apartment complex by 6pm because they don't want us getting into trouble or getting blamed for anything or being out when everyone is partying, so after our missionary bbq Elder Warwood and I went and worked out for about an hour and a half, which felt good until I ran on the treadmill. I didn't run for that long but afterward I was just drained!

And then today has been a lot of fun so far, we got to go practice some golfing with this super cool guy that is a nonmember but his wife is a member of the church and so we went and hit some balls at the driving range and then went over and played the par 3 hole. I'll tell ya what, I am not going to be a professional golfer any time soon! We had a lot of fun though.

This is our last p-day before transfers and I can not believe that this transfer has gone by so fast! Which reminds me, if anyone sends mail in the next couple of weeks it would do best to send it to the mission office :D Well, right now we do not have any solid investigators :( We found a couple of people to teach but not much success so far that we can see. Our district has done really well, the other two companionships have been able to baptize this transfer which is always awesome. We have had some success with some less active and part member families and have gained their trust and friendship.

There are a lot of really good members in our ward as well and we have been fed at least every other day if not every night, its almost too much because we hardly have a chance to eat what food and groceries we purchase on our allotment! This week will be interesting because starting today we have our car grounded because we didn't turn in our mileage report on time, so we will be walking/ riding bikes the next couple of days. It wont be too bad because we are allowed to drive to our meetings, like interviews, church, district meeting, so pretty much only Friday & Saturday we won't be able to drive at all. Other than that things have been well. Elder W and I get along really good and have a lot in common with each other, so it will be intereting to see how transfers pan out next week. Thanks again for all your encouragement and support I need it! Have a great week!