latest from Zach!!!

Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 10:21 AM
To: Huffman, Lisa
Subject: Wow! What a week!


Wow, this week has been crazy! I guess it's been 2 weeks since my last email, but my last week at the MTC wasn't all that exciting.

The flight to NC was fun. There were 11 missionaries total on the flight. It was 4 hours from Salt Lake to Atlanta, and I talked to the guy next to me for most of the trip. Then from Atlanta to Raleigh was 2 hours and I talked to a really nice guy from Georgia.
When we got off the flight we met President and Sister Cotterell. They're really nice and I knew from the moment I saw them I'd love being with them. The assistants to the President were there, too, and they helped us load our luggage into the cars and drove us to the mission home.
Elder Espinosa was one of the Spanish Speaking assistants and he talked to us a lot about the area. He said he knew all the missionaries that were set apart to train us but he didn't know yet who would be paired with who. He said he trained one of them and said that that missionary was probably one of the best in the field. He then started telling us about the areas and how one of the areas was just being opened for Spanish work and that who ever gets sent there will have a lot of success.
We then got to the mission home and had dinner and President Cotterell pulled us all aside one by one and had our first interview. I got to know him a lot better in those few minutes and it got me pumped for the rest of my mission. We then wrote letters for home and then went to sleep on the basement floor of the mission home.
The next morning they cooked us breakfast and pulled us one by one again. President Cotterell told us who our companion would be and what area we'd be serving. I was the last to be called in. He told me I'd be serving in Wilmington, which was the area being opened to the Spanish Work that Elder Espinosa was talking about in the car. He then told me that my companion would be Elder Jasperson, which is also the same Elder that Espinosa trained, so I got both the best trainer and the most coveted area in all of NC!
After that they took us to the Mission Office (which I thought was the same as the mission home, but it's not). They gave us a brief orientation and the only thing I remember was them saying to stay away from the Recluse Spiders, haha. We then went back to the mission home to meet our companions. Elder Jasperson greeted me with a hug and I knew we'd be good friends. After some boring stuff we left to go to the church for our first Transfer meeting. I met me zone leaders, Elder Baker and Elder Pepinos there. Elder Baker is a real jolly guy with a big smile and Elder Pepinos stands about 5' 3" but his spirit is huge.
After the meeting I got to "meet" my bike. I haven't ridden it yet (Elder Jasperson's is still in his old area). Elder Baker then drove us to our area which is 4 hours from Raleigh. He got pulled over for speeding, haha.
Since we're opening the area we don't have many resources, including an apartment. We're staying with a couple English speaking elders (Elder Robertson and Elder Jensen) until August 1st. We're also using another companionship's car until we either get our own car or Elder Jasperson's bike.
Opening an area is really hard, though, and Elder Jasperson keeps telling me it's the hardest thing I'll do on my mission. That made me feel better because it's super hard, haha.

We go tracting all day because we don't have any scheduled appointments or an Area book to go by since there hasn't been Spanish missionaries for almost a year. We've met some really cool people but none have made a lot of progress. Other than that I'm just trying to figure things out, haha. Elder Jasperson is really good at helping me understand what I'm doing but I'm still trying to figure out how.

Not a whole lot else has happened. Since it's just tracting I can't really report on anything. Thanks for all your support and keep writing!