7-26-16
Today I made my rounds to say goodbye to some people in Hartsville. I saw
the Laffidys, Bro. Tadlock, Ronnie, Sis. Mason, the Thompsons, Patti & Dave,
the Hesleys, Sis. Catoe and the Harveys. We ate lunch with Bro. Tadlock at
Shug's Steakhouse. We ate dinner over at the Thompsons with her boyfriend Mike.
He cooked some really good ribs!
Then, Sis. Catoe and her son Cason picked us up from our apartment to go
get ice cream. There was a little going away party at an ice cream place! The
Harveys were there, Maci Catoe and the Hesleys (new move ins). So we were
stuffed today!
Tammy and Jake picked us back up from the apartment when we got done and
took us to Sonic and I just got a drink. She wanted to say goodbye, so we spent
some time with them!
7-27-16
Today is the day... Transfers! I'm pretty nervous. The Hesleys took us to
Irmo for our transfers. I was able to see Elder Wille and Jones from the MTC! I
also, saw Elder Rose. He's going to be training a new guy in a 3-pack. We got
paired up and went into our training meeting.
I am with Elder Elmer now.. Yes, his personality matches his name. He is
VERY quiet and he told me he "wasn't an outdoors guy." All he did was play video
games. It's very hard to relate with this one, but I will make it work! I am in
Simpsonville, SC in the upstate now (1st Ward). It is a fairly small area, but
we have a car! If we can find it... We haven't been able to find it since we got
back from Transfers. When we got to our apartment, we threw all our luggage in
the apartment and got dressed to go help someone move in. We helped them for the
remainder of the day. They are the Adams and they're a fairly young family from
Utah. He has been down here for awhile and his family finally came out to join
him. When we got all done with that, a member (Bro. Daugherty) took us back to
our apartment. His wife went to K-State for college for a little while, so when
I told her I was from Lawrence.. She acted all discussed. Haha I finally met
someone who is familiar with KS! When we got to the apartment, we started
unpacking everything, but haven't finished. I called my District which is a
small district. It consists of two other companion ships -who are Elders.
They're a young district! Two of them have been out for 6 months, and the other
who is training has been out for 4 months.
7-28-16
We finally found the car after walking to the other side of our apartment
complex. These apartments are pretty nice, but the Elders before didn't take too
much care of it. We looked at the miles to see how much the previous Elders left
us and they went over their miles, so we didn't have any left. So we biked today
which was a struggle for Elder Elmer. Hopefully, he will get faster with time
and work. We stopped by a lady that is on date and got to meet her. She's nice,
but I've been told by a couple people that her and her recent convert husband
ask for money all the time. She did give us a referral though!
She said the couple below her in the apartment just had a baby and told us
their names. We had a good visit with them and they invited us back!
7-29-16
After our training and planning, we went out to a small suburb called
"Fountain Inn" and tried to catch some less active's at home. We rode out bikes
out there which was quite the distance. Especially because I had to stop every
hundred yard for E. Elmer to catch up. I've got some patience that I need to
work on.. When we made it to the first house, we tried to catch this less active
lady at home. We noticed that she was on the records, but didn't know she died a
couple months ago (the neighbor told us) so that was a bummer. We went tracting
for a little while in that area, but not too many people interested. One lady
was talking to us while she was slowing backing up and closing the door on us.
Haha thx. Then, we found a black lady with a young son at their house. We shared
a little bit of the Restoration with her and gave a pamphlet. Eventually, it was
time to head back towards the apartment.
We went to go play basketball with some members in the ward, the
missionaries in the district and nonmember friends were there. It was a lot of
fun and I got to know a few more members of the ward!
7-30-16
We started our day off with biking in the rain! 
we went to go visit a
less active lady who wasn't too far away from the apartment. We quickly, found
out why she wasn't active. She's in an assisted living place and has one foot in
the grave and the other is amputated. Haha!
Kidding. I don't know if she has any missing limbs because she wasn't even
there. Her daughter took her somewhere. But we were totally ready to visit some
old folks and if need be, throw down on them in a mad game of checkers. It
eventually, stopped raining and we went to go visit a couple other people on the
record. We knocked around the ones that didn't answer and didn't have too much
success. We set up an appointment to visit a less active couple (the Nelms) at
4:00. They live in Fountain Inn, so our ward mission leader gave us a ride there
so we didn't have to bike all the way out there again. The lesson went really
well! I taught them the Restoration to kind of rekindle that testimony of Joseph
Smith and the BoM. Yes, I said I. I gave Elder Elmer a chance to speak and he
choked up and didn't know what to say.
Then, when we were talking about the BoM, I asked the Nelms how they came
to know it was true and they answered well. I asked Elder Elmer to get him
involved more and he said, "prayed about it." Dude... So he's going to have to
come out of his shell a lot. I think he can do it! After the lesson, we were
waiting on our ride so we knocked around a little bit. The second house we
knocked on, a lady answered and said, "hold on, let me go get him." We were kind
of confused... But come to find out, the Elders have met with them in the past!
Her husband/boyfriend goes by the name of "Simba." She told us to call her
tomorrow and set up an appointment! I looked at the teaching record of him after
and supposedly, he's this stoner Rastafarian dude with dreads who likes to talk
about deep doc. I thought it was pretty neat and inspired that the second house
we knocked on out there, was someone who's met with the missionaries. So we will
set up an appointment to see how it goes! After dinner, we went to a less
active's house, but there weren't home. So we knocked around the area until we
were about to leave. I decided to knock on just one more house before we leave
the neighborhood. We knocked on this nice home and a black guy came out. He was
asking about how he wants to record a video with us. At first, I thought he was
going to bible bash so I was getting all prepared. He said he wasn't going to
film our faces, just up in the sky pointing at a tree, because "it's the closest
thing around pointing to heaven." We never ended up recording because he went
off on sermons about the bible and life. He wants to start an anonymous online
ministry thing because God gave him a vision 14 days ago telling him that he
needs to do this. We could just smell the alcohol and cigarettes from his
breathe while he was ranting on. It was quite the visit to say the least, but at
least he was kind and didn't make us leave!
7-31-17
Church went okay today. It definantly, didn't have the family ward feeling
that Hartsville did. There were only a few people who introduced themselves and
shook our hands. The rest, we had to approach and start talking to. The gospel
principles class was tiny!
It was just us, the ward mission leader and three other people. Our ward
mission leader (Bro. Simpson) is awesome though! He helps us out a lot and has
taken us to a couple appointments this week so that we didn't have to bike so
far. We met with the old fart from the assisted living home today and it went
really well! She had a "friend" who was a little more than that in there with us
and we taught him as well. We committed him to read the BoM and the lady told
him that he should. He said to her; "what if I don't? Will you spank me?" 
and poor Elder Elmer... She asked him about 10 times where he's from. 
after
that, we went to go and locate a less active. We rode up on a Mexican fiesta
with like 8 cars in the parking lot. It was odd because we didn't ever imagine
that "Hughes" would be Spanish people. Well, they didn't live there anymore... A
Spanish guy answered the door and spoke to about the people who live there and
that they were busy with a family thing.
I reached out my hand to shake his and he puts this nub out in front of
me... It took my by surprise, but there was no turning back now. I just grabbed
his nub arm and shook it. There was a couple awkward moments of silence because
I was lost for words at that point. The first words that I uttered out was,
"stay safe out there!"
definantly didn't expect that one. We knocked around them to see if anyone
knew the owners before and we met this lady who invited us to come back! We set
out to meet another less active which turned out well! He answered the door
strapped up with his pistol, but then saw it was just us. He invited us in and
fed us some chili dogs. He was a rough lookin guy who is tatted from head to
toe. We talked to him and his funny kid for awhile about his tatts, the
confederate flag, the civil war, black people, and donated his beer cans to
raise money for children who have been burned in fires... so that was pretty
rad.
Haha. He's a firefighter and they do a fundraiser for burnt kids called
AC/BC (Aluminum Cans for Burnt Children). He talked about how he WAS a member
before him and his previous wife separated.
Technically... You still are, but now he's been church hopping to all kinds
of other ones with his current wife and kids. He talked our ears off, so I think
it was good that we had a visit with him. He was a really nice guy, just rough
around the edges!
-Elder Mitchell
