February 27, 2012 Letter

Hello,

Well this week is a little more interesting than the last. I'm pretty much used to the whole "country" thing. It's kind of ridiculous, but hey...it's where I live. I am most definitely taking pictures of the new area so don't you worry your little heart mother. I have a lot of pictures on this sd card that I have been meaning to send home to y'all. I just wanted to know if you had all the videos that were on the previous card saved to a disc at home? I will send y'all the memory card in the next few days.

 

Cool things to report on from this week. We got to have a sleep over with other missionaries, I got to meet Elder Kevin R. Duncan of the Seventy, I got to go on splits with Elder Johnson from my MTC group, and we had 3 baptisms on Saturday. The sleep over was absolutely necessary because we live in the BOONDOCKS!!! We had a meeting that we were going to in Longview on Wednesday (meeting with Elder Duncan). Well, Longview is 110 miles away from Idabel. No bueno for missionaries who are limited on the number of miles that they have a month. So we drove down to Mt. Pleasant, Texas and stayed the night with some other Elders. Elder Moody and Elder Drake. Elder Moody came out with me so I know him pretty well. He is hilarious. Then from Mt. Pleasant we drove into Gilmer, Texas. Then from Gilmer we drove to Longview. It was kind of crazy. Fun, but crazy. All in all it was about 4 hours of driving with all of the stops.

 

The meeting with Elder Duncan was great. Other than the fact that I was asked to sing a special musical number again. They always ask me to sing when there is someone important coming and it scares the heck out of me! It didn't sound all that great, but it wasn't terrible. All I know is that Elder Jones was the reason that I had to sing. He was my companion two transfers ago and he is one of the assistants. I am POSITIVE that he volunteered me for that wonderful musical number. It's whatever though. The meeting was amazing. If I told you everything that I wrote down at the meeting this letter would be way too long, and I don't have a lot of time right now.

 

Friday I got to go on exhanges with Elder Johnson, who is now my zone leader. He and I were in the MTC together and he is one of my most favorite missionaries. Truly will be one of my most close friends for the rest of my life. He is in Gilmer right now so that was an adventure to get there. But, when we did finally get there, we had a blast. We went out tracting in the middle of nowhere. As we were tracting we found this dog (more like the dog found us). It was huge! It was a Pyranease? However you spell that. My spelling is the first thing that is going to leave me as I serve out here. 

 

Anyways...the dog followed us around the whole time that we were tracting. I guess it was a body guard from Heavenly Father or something. After tracting with the dog we went to dinner. The little girl at dinner was hilarious. The only thing that she would eat was butter. I was dying laughing. Like, her mom would spread the butter on a biscuit and she would pick off the parts of the biscuit that had butter on them. Then towards the end she got tired of it and just decided that she would go for the whole thing. She reached over and stabbed the butter with her fork and took a big bite. YUM! Ha ha ha. The really fun part of the exchange was when we got pulled over for speeding. The cop came up and asked for registration and what not. He was the nicest cop that I have ever met. He said that it would just be a warning and that he would go and run the license real quick and be back. Awesome. We felt so grateful that we decided to give the cop a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. He accepted! Who would have ever thought that you could share the gospel when you have been pulled over? It was great.

 

Saturday. Oh sweet Saturday. We got to see 3 people become baptized members of the church. Yes mom I took pictures. They are on the memory card that I am sending. Two of them are a couple. They are from the Marshall Islands. There are a lot of Marshallese people here in Idabel. They all work at the Tyson factory. Then again, Tyson and some railroad company are the employers of more that 3/4ths of every one in a 70 mile radius. (we recently figured out that our Branch covers about 6,000 sq. miles) The rest work at Walmart or the casino. Anyways... the third person was a part member family. The wife decided that it was time for her to join the church.

 

Sunday we got to go out and meet the family that drives 68 miles to church every Sunday. Man, THEY live in the boonies, not me. The family is awesome though. I'll have to send you more updates next week. I don't have a lot of time on the computer today. This library only gives you an hour to email so...yeah...gotta go. But I love you all so much you cannot even believe. Being out in the "wilderness" makes you miss home a lot more I have noticed. Don't think that I am getting all mushy gushy or I can't hack it out here because I miss you so much, but do know that I miss y'all. I love you very much and I will talk to you next week.

 

Love,

Elder McNinch

PS- yes they can write to me here in Idabel. Otherwise I would only get their letters once a month. So yes, please write me here!