Moving . . . Possibly

I just wanted to start by saying that: Yes, the sunshine in Ohio does still exist. Sometimes it just likes to not shine for 11+ days😂 But Saturday it started peaking through, so that brought happiness and so much D3 right along with it. It was a wonderful week, and I even learned how to go house shopping so now in the future when I get my future house I know how to do it! Basically, myself and Elder Bennett have been talking lately and we feel that it is best to move down south to be in Waverly City. It is about 30 min away from Chillicothe, and more central in the area so we could do a lot more with members and people we are teaching. There is a member down there that has an apartment under his house that he has let missionaries use in the past, so we talked with him yesterday and he gave us a tour of it. It was kind of fun to be honest to feel like I was actually shopping for a house! I texted President about it and he said he would run it by Elder Weidner who is over housing in the mission and get back to us this week. I am hoping he can do it soon since transfers are next week it would be nice to get things in place so we could move next week to that place. Keep the situation in your prayers. It is such a better environment down there too, not as much smoking by our current neighbors and we don't smell factory paper which stinks by the way. Positive in many ways!

To be honest, I woke up 2 days ago and realized what day it was and kind of chuckled to myself and said, "Yep. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days". It was such a productive week! We drove up and down southern Ohio for 3 out of the 7 days. Tuesday we had interviews with Horgesheimers and district council up in Reynoldsburg. That was super fun and interviews went super well. President Horgesheimer was able to give me a priesthood blessing and so that was wonderful. He is a very good person, very much called to be here in Ohio with the rest of us. Then we drove back to Chillicothe in a rainstorm. Overall it was a super good day.

Wednesday we got up and left for Jackson at 8 am, to go on exchanges with Elders Hammond and Brown. They went super good, and we had so much fun. We had 7 lessons that day with them, all over the phone which was a blessing that everyone picked up when we called. We went out to lunch at this place called Arch and Eddies. It is this really good burger joint on main street in Jackson. Super super good, highly recommend when we all come back to visit Ohio. I had a super bad headache that night while we were still there, not completely sure why but made it so I could barely open my eyes, so good thing the lessons were phone lessons and not in person. We got back to Chillicothe at around 9 pm. I crashed as soon as we got back, I don't really remember anything after that to be honest, besides waking up the next morning in my missionary clothes still . . .

Thursday we had the Athens elders who are Elders Hutchason and Blaker, come to Chillicothe for an exchange. Hutchason is going to Ghana for his original assignment next Friday on the 22nd, so we worked on his paperwork for that and then went to CVS pharmacy to get his tetanus shot. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch (thanks Virginia Losee family, and Brinkerhoff family). It was at this point in the day that Elder Bennett realized he didn't have his MSF card, he had Elder Hammonds and Hammond had Bennetts card. So we drove 40 minutes down to Jackson to swap cards. Everyone fell asleep on the way down there and so I obviously had to stay awake since I was the one driving. We switched the cards and drove the 40 minutes back to Chillicothe. We had had a few phone lessons down in Jackson while we were down there, just to make some good use of our time. Me and Elder Hutchason then went to 2 families for lessons. First was the Barr family (who we did the nativity for) and GUESS WHAT??? They had it on their centerpiece on the table when we walked in! They fed us Tamales and we shared Matthew 25:40 with them and had a good hour long visit with them. Afterwards we went to Sister Rothes house and had a visit with her, she had been sick lately and so it was nice to talk and see how she has been. Then we went up to her son's house (Kris who we have on date for April 1). He was sweeping in his garage and then he told us we should go down to his moms house and we could have a lesson. So we went back down to her house and taught Kris about repentance and using the gift we have been given to make changes in our life. It was super powerful and at one point Kris even broke down into tears. Super excited for April 1 for him. Pray that he can get married to his girlfriend before then. Me and Hutchason left their house around 8:30 pm and jumped on a zoom call with the other district leaders and social media specialists for a mtg. So we did that while we drove home. I was actually really surprised it was already 9:30 that night, I felt that I could have gone another 2 or 3 hours.

Not much happened on Friday. We had our weekly mission wide zoom meeting which was super good. We talked about driving in safety. Super sad to hear about Elder Smith from the Arkansas mission who passed away this week. Then we made rounds and drove to some members in the northern part of the area. We did weekly planning, went on I think 1 walk, maybe it was 2, I can't remember though . . . :) It was your regular type of Friday, a very good one too.

Saturday was SUNSHINE day. I am being honest though, it was a vampire's cave here before Saturday came. Just very gloomy and overcast. It rained almost everyday last week. Me and Bennett were both feeling the seasonal "dreariness" and so we both were so pumped when the sun rose bright. We went over to Martin Suber's house and helped him with service. We moved shelves into his truck and then helped with his tv and bed frame as well. He asked us to give both him and his ex-wife a priesthood blessing. He and his ex-wife are going to be remarried here in the next couple months. So we gave them both blessings and finished sharing a message and visiting. We then went to the church building and called a few people to have lessons with. A total of 8 lessons today, a beautiful day. We then had our district devotional that night that me and Elder Bennett were in charge of. We played "Who said that" where we would share a scripture and everyone had to guess who said that. All of the scriptures were from the Book of Mormon. It was so much fun!

Sunday was such a great day! We went to church and it was so good. We learned from the speakers about learning by the language of the Spirit and how we can be focusing on having the Spirit at the very center of our lives, to let lead and guide us. Then we went over to the McMahans where they gave us some amazing cornbread and chicken noodle soup to eat for dinner. We went straight to Waverly, and parked at their high school football field and walked to Jamie Krueger's house AND . . . His mom ANSWERED THE DOOR!! I was so happy I could barely maintain it. She said Jamie had gotten so so sick and had to be admitted to Columbus hospital for a few days. He is home now and she said to come back a little later to talk to him. But before we left, I shared Luke 1:37 with Viola (his mom) and got her number so now we don't just have to text Jamie over facebook messenger. MIRACLE! We then walked back to the car hopped on a zoom call with the ward council, where we discussed the ward mission plan for 2021. We are focusing on Family History and ministering in the ward, and making sure everyone is accounted for. Kind of like the "no man left behind" thing. We then went to Brother and Sister Theberg's house. Theberg's are the ones who have the missionary apartment in their basement. I gave Brother Theberg the run down of what we had thought about and he gave us a tour of their basement where we would live if we ended up moving there. Let's just say, if I had to choose between there or where we are at currently at this apartment, I would choose Theberg's living space in a heart beat. Such a nice place, and so open inside with a great neighborhood to live in. I truly hope we can land this soon so we can move down there. Me and Bennett talked the whole way home about how excited we had been just even being there at their house because of the feeling we got. Cool thing too that really made me so grateful for revelation from God. Saturday afternoon I texted President Horgesheimer and asked if it were even possible for us to move to Waverly. That night Brother Theberg had a dream about having missionaries live with them again, and then mentioned how cool it would be to have the elders or sisters there again when he and his wife were watching sacrament mtg yesterday. Then we dropped by later that day. The Lord has His hand in all things. Me and Elder Bennett watched the YSA devotional with Elder and Sister Gong that night. We watched it at the church bldg. It was so so good and I am so grateful for technology that allows us to be "there" when we are many states away. Very wonderful way to end the week!

Humility is something I learned this week. Thursday night I kind of forgot that principle and deterred the lesson with Kris and then the video call with social media, and Elder Hutchason talked with me about it afterwards. I was beating myself up pretty hard after that and went to sleep super stressed for the way the lesson had gone, and felt pretty bad inside. I then got up on Friday morning, and said a prayer that that day would be a refocus for me. I am so grateful for 2nd chances. 2nd chances are something that have given me hope. Even when all hope seems lost, we feel that we ourselves have lost the game or race, I promise that we have not. Friday was such a great day for me. As was the rest of the weekend. It isn't about our perfection, it is only about our daily improvement. Don't let the adversary tell you otherwise. There is a reason we are here on earth, to learn and grow and improve. Keep learning everyday, grow your ability to hear Christ in your life, and improve to become like our loving Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for this Gospel of Jesus Christ. From the bottom of my heart, I know this Gospel is true and that every person belongs in the loving arms of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Transfers are next week on January 21, and so pday is going to be on the 20. Also, I will hit my 17 month mark this week on Thursday. So grateful for what these last 17 months have taught me and been for me. I hope I am becoming who Heavenly Father needs me to be out here and for the remainder of my life. 

I love YOU Always and Forever . . .

Elder Dylan McEwan