I am exactly where God needs me.

Hey everyone!
This week seemed to fly by pretty quickly, so much was crammed into it..
We had our ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) on Friday, exchanges from Monday night until Thursday morning, and a bunch of other stuff.
Exchanges are always fun, but this one was especially fun! I got to go to Elgin with Elder Griffin. He and I are good friends. He was in Columbia when I was serving in Windsor Lake. He was fairly new at the time, but we had a blast together! I am stoked to be serving around him again! We are both pretty old in missionary age and know what's going on and how to do work. Our exchange was a blast! We spent some time looking for a lake in their area so we could do morning exercise on the shore, then study by the lake. That didn't work even a little bit...every little body of water here is privately owned. We did find one lake after walking through the woods towards what was a body of water on the map, but we couldn't find a clearing. We did somehow end up on a private little camp with a cabin, some boats chained up and a little cabin on it..that was the only clearing on the entire lake, and it was privately owned...thoughts were brought up, and things were considered...but we decided that we were probably better off to not trespass...haha,  so we headed home to do our studies. We had a good exchange, saw some people, laughed a lot, and had some pretty deep conversations. It makes me sad that he is from AZ because I would love to hang out with him after the mission, but that is a long drive...I am sure we'll still do it though :P

We had a mini district meeting at TacoBell for lunch one day this week. We had finished doing some stuff at the church with the Lugoff Elders (Dearden and Whittaker) Dearden and Connolly are trying to compose a piano/violin mixture of "I believe in Christ" and "Abide with me" to perform at a zone meeting. It was pretty cool to hear them start to make it! We finished there and we decided we wanted TacoBell, but that was back up in their area. We called our District leader (Elder Thompson) and asked if we could leave our area, and he said that was fine. He asked what it was for, I told him we were having lunch with Lugoff, and I asked if he and Griffin wanted to come. He said yes, and I said "Are you actually going to drive down though?" And he said "Probably not.." Missionaries have a certain amount of miles we have to stay under each month, if given the Luxury of a car, and they didn't want to use that many. I got off the phone, and we started biking. I love biking, it is really fun when you get to go really really fast! Anyway, us 4 convoyed it the mile or 2 up to TacoBell, chained our bikes to a tree, and went in to order. We try to eat at Taco Bell every P-day because we like it, and it is cheap on Mondays for the specials. The people there all know us, and they talk to us a lot while we are there. We are going to try to teach the ones that talk to us the most; we think they'd be really receptive! Anyway, while we sat down to wait for our food to be ready, the Elgin Elders pulled into the parking lot, so we moved to a table that was big enough for all of us, and proceeded to have so much fun. Goodness,  I love this district! It was a blast!

We went out teaching with a few members this week and it was pretty successful! We were happy about it! One particular thing that stuck out that I want to include in here, was when we were out with Brother Hunt who is our Elders Quorum President here in Camden, and we kinda got stumped where we had time left, but our plans and appointments had fallen through, so we stopped on the side of the road and we said a prayer to know where God needed us. After the prayer, we sat and just listened for the spirit for a moment. I started to think about an active family that is totally involved in the ward, but wasn't at church this week. We usually don't go visit active members on exchanges, or at all for that matter, unless we have a purpose in mind to go try to get referrals..so I didn't mention it, and kept thinking about the names we had prayed about. Then, Brother Hunt said that he was feeling like we should go visit that family. Even though I didn't say anything, he felt the same prompting and so did Elder Connolly. We figured that was probably where we needed to be, so we went and checked on them. Turns out their teen daughter had an injury, and wasn't able to make it to church, and they were going to be taking her to the hospital the following day. We were able to give her a Priesthood blessing while we were there, and sit and visit for a while. It was awesome. I love knowing I am exactly where God needs me to be, and not just where I want to be.

One last thing. I wish y'all could just witness some of the things we see out here... We are ending P-day and we are just finishing our shopping. We are unloading everything into the car and I hear tires screeching for just a second. So I turn and look, just in time to see some lady pop the curb and smash into the corner of Walmart...she freaks out, waves her arms for a moment, then gets out of her car and starts yelling at some guy in the parking lot as if it were his fault. When we drove by, they were facing eachother, holding each other’s hands and talking, while a crowd gathered around her car, which was still running and sirens wailed in the distance...yep, that was our night.
Love y'all!

Oh, yeah,

So, I have this slingshot..and I have been trying to get a squirrel so I can cook it for Elder Connolly, but I haven't have a ton of luck...

We talked to a guy who did bow fishing...then I started thinking of my slingshot and how I wondered if it would shoot an arrow...then I needed a way to steady the arrow....so then the key ring...then I made the dowel into an arrow...:)...put some fishing line on it. Then I sharpened a piece of a fork and glued and tied it in place...aaaand...tada!

Now I can go bow fishing, I am very proud of it :)