Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Beams of sunlight through the fog at Adam Ondi Ahman

As usual, "Busy" is the key word.  But despite all of that, Alex managed to email us twice over the last couple of weeks which is now unusual.  Anyway, one of the things that he told us is that his responsibilities as an assistant to the president will be changing a bit.  Over the last week or so, both Alex and his companion have felt that they needed to get out more and work with individual companionships.  During the past few months, they have been doing a lot of training session at zone conferences and working with the zone leaders, but they haven't worked much with individual companionships.  Now with his new responsibilities, they will be able to do just that.  Alex is very excited about this new opportunity.  He told us that both he and his companion will be spending a lot of nights sleeping on the floor at various missionary apartments as they travel around the mission, but that is all part of the excitement.

In his latest email, Alex told us that he and his companion had already started traveling.  He told us about traveling to Gallatin and spending the morning in scripture study while over looking the valley at Adam Ondi Ahman.  Alex told us that they got up early in the morning so that they could experience the peacefulness.  When they got there, the whole valley was covered in fog.  When the sun started to rise over the horizon, they could see beams of light shooting through the fog.  Alex said that it was one of the coolest sights he has ever seen.  I reminded Alex that this would have been a great time to have had a camera ready.  We would have really liked to have seen that sight as well.  Since he will be spending a few days there, hopefully he will take his camera with him the next time so that we can share the same visual experience with everybody.

Since Alex and his companion won't be spending as much time in their home area, now that they are traveling.  They were asked to turn some of the people that they had been teaching over to the Sister missionaries there.  Alex was a little sad about that because some of the people that they were teaching were really progressing well.  In fact before too much longer, Alex felt like some of them would be ready for baptism.  Of course no matter who is actually doing the teaching, knowing that somebody is ready for baptism is always a great feeling.  Alex is just glad to know that he was able to help out even though he couldn't be there through the whole process.

In his last email, Alex told us a cute story about wrestling.  He started out the story by telling us that he had his first official wrestling match recently on a Sunday night.  At first when you read that sentence you think to yourself, "official wrestling match", "Sunday night", "Missionaries".  Ok, something sounds a little off with this story.  But after Alex's explanation of what happened, it all seemed to come together and make sense.  As it turns out, one of the mission president's grandsons was visiting the area with his family recently.  This grandson is a little blond headed kid who reminded Alex of himself when he was little.  Apparently this boy's grandfather had told him that Elder Nicholes would be dropping by a little later and that he was a wrestler.  Upon hearing that news, this little boy immediately wanted to challenge Alex to a wrestling match.  So there you have it.  Alex's mission president had just scheduled a wrestling match between Alex and his little grandson. 

Alex and his companion arrived at the mission home and after dinner, they all went to the conference room where there would be enough space for this wrestling challenge to take place.  Ok, so this match seems a little lopsided but this is where the whole story gets really good.  Immediately on the whistle, the little boy charges for Alex's legs.  Good move, especially since that is what a good wrestler should do.  The only problem was that with Alex being more in the 172 lbs weight class and this little boy weighing in at maybe 40 lbs.,  this little brave wrestler ran into Alex and immediately bounced off to the floor.  Oh, but that didn't discourage or stop this little guy.  He jumped back up and the wrestling match went on.  After a few head shucks, granbies, arm bars and cradles, this little guy finally pinned Alex flat to the floor.  So after a state champion season a couple of years ago, Alex has just started out his first official wrestling match in two years at 0-1.  We aren't quite sure how Alex is going to recover from this loss. ;-)