Pero....no hablo inglés. (But...I don't speak English.)

 Mission Leadership Council

 Saying goodbye to mis amigos

October 19, 2015

............................Transfers literally never fails to get me. I've always had some sort of idea of what is going to happen, and then something completely different takes its place. So on Friday night this last week the AP's called us with our transfer call. I was a little nervous, but I had a pretty good idea that I might be going to this one specific zone. Elder Walker found out that his new companion was going to be Elder Maldonado! (My mission dad will be coming to replace me haha.) Elder Walker is excited because it will be the first time he has ever actually had a native Latino companion. And then came my call....

"Elder Alley you will be going to the Elkhorn Springs Zone with Elder Adamson!"
"But...there's no Spanish missionaries up there...."
"Yupp, you're switching to English!"
".........pero yo no quiero hablar inglés." (Translation for you gringos: "...but I don't want to speak English."

So yeah. I am going to be an English missionary now. They're switching me because they want me to remain a Zone Leader in the mission so I'm going to go be a ZL up in that zone. I'm actually a little nervous to be honest, because all I've known for the last 15 months of my life has been teaching in Spanish, contacting on Spanish, sacrament meeting in Spanish, studies, dinners, members all in Spanish! Haha this is going to be quite the change.

Some other comparisons for you to see the grand change coming up for me. Las Vegas Zone is the largest in the mission; Elkhorn Springs is the smallest. I've only ever covered 1/4 of a ward and shared it with other companionships; in my new area we are covering 3 different wards (2 family wards and 1 YSA Ward). I'm currently in the most economically challenged area the mission has to offer; Elkhorn Springs is mostly affluent, white people. Vegas Zone is the closest to the strip; ES is the furthest north zone in the valley.

So, yupp, it's going to be quite the change. I'm super nervous, but really excited. Elder Adamson is awesome! He is 20 years old, a big guy who played linebacker in high school and is super funny. We are going to get to mob around in a truck too :P We are actually pretty good buds already and he called me when we got the news and we talked about how stoked we are to be comps for his last transfer before he goes home (so I finally get to "kill" someone in the mission). So that will be super fun!

Other than that this last week we gave a Zone Training Meeting that went super well. We did this one activity where we blindfolded one person in each companionship and put them in a dark room that had a tv playing a movie and two different speakers playing two different things. Then one by one their companions went in and grabbed them and lead them through a course that lead them to the chapel where we had a tv playing the Because He Lives and Because of Him videos. We talked about how that related to what we do as missionaries. How people are trapped in a dark world with no real purpose or direction in their life and the media is constantly throwing things at them, keeping them unable to focus on anything bigger. Then we, as missionaries, get to pull them out of that dark room and bring them to Jesus Christ. The Spirit was super strong in the chapel as we talked about all that. It was a really cool experience!

Then we had a lot of lessons this week and we were able to make a lot of progress with a lot of people. Hopefully, one of our investigators is actually going to get baptized next week! (I would get to return for that:)

As of right now all I'm really trying to do is mentally prepare myself for this big change on my mission taking place today. Here's hoping it all goes well! Love you all and have an awesome week!

-Elder Alley