Week 53

September 8, 2014
Hey!

The Buffalo Bills won yesterday. Everyone was sure to tell me that.
Buffalo for the most part is pretty depressing. It has good hospitals,
but that is the only thing it has going for it. Except, when the Bills
win. I have never seen people so happy and friendly around here. I
also learned that there is a big difference between people being drunk
for negative reasons and people being drunk for positive reasons. We
were just walking around to our appointments after church and everyone
was just stoked. People that were barbecuing on their porch were
calling us over to talk to us, and they were all telling us how the
Bills won in overtime. None of our conversations went anywhere with
them, mostly because they were all drunk, but at least they were nice
to us. Usually people that are drunk on their porch aren't very nice
at all. Cars would drive through the neighborhood with a Bills flag
and everyone around would just start yelling "GOOO BILLLLLLSS!!!" It
was pretty funny.

Anyway, this week was good. We had zone conference on Tuesday, and
right after it ended, Elder Rawe left with President Francis and the
AP's to go home. I was pretty sad to see him go but he's going to
BYU Idaho so I'll hang out with him at college. Our zone conference was
good, and we had a training on how to use family history to find
people. Other missionaries had tried it out, and apparently it got
them in homes that normally would never let missionaries in. Me and
Elder Clinger thought we'd go try it out on some super nice streets in
the north of our area, because that's where the nice suburbs are with
rich people.....that did not go well (haha). We were all excited about
it, but I don't think I have had quicker rejections my whole entire
mission. We decided to shy away from telling people we were
missionaries because when we did that they would just immediately
close the door, so we just started by asking people if they knew about
family history, but apparently it doesn't really matter what you're
going to say, they just want you off their porch as quick as possible.

That was about the only thing that was different about the week. We
saw Mark and Jack again, and we are teaching the commandments so that
they can be prepared for their baptism. They are still excited about
it and super willing to keep any commitments we extend to them. Our
other appointments didn't happen because they canceled on us,
so we should get in contact with them all this week.

Cya!
Love, Elder Holt