Albany, Louisiana

Lots of new and exciting changes this week. It was hard to say goodbye

to all the people in Morgan City, but I think that both Morgan city and

myself needed a change. I am now in Albany, Louisiana. My new comp

is Elder Bennett. We both were trained by Elder Davidson, so its funny to

He is from Canada, a suburb of Ontario. He goes home at the end of this 

transfer. So I have about 4 1/2 weeks to get to know the area and to know 

how to be a zone leader! Should be a interesting few weeks, but I’m 

looking forward to it!

I really like Albany. It reminds me a lot of Many, small country town

with a small ward, but awesome members. It’s a nice change from Morgan

City. We play basketball every Thursday night and football every

Saturday morning. I think Ill fit in just fine! We are just working a lot with

less-active and part-member families. Almost all of the main families in our 

ward have at least one or two non-members, so we are going to be working 

closely with all of them. The leadership of the ward is really good and they

are really missionary-minded, which is such a nice relief. The stake 

president lives in our area too and he is all for missionary work. So he helps 

us out a lot.

So far being a zone leader isn't much different from being a district

leader. But I think that’s about to change pretty quick. We have to go

on exchanges with all the district leaders in our zone and then also

all the missionaries that are training. So that makes 7 exchanges in

the next 4 1/2 weeks! Should be pretty crazy, we will hardly be in our

own area and hardly with each other. But I’m happy because it will give

me a good opportunity to get to know a lot of the missionaries in our

zone. We have 28 missionaries in our zone so I have a lot of people to

get to know!

In closing I’d like to share what I learned in church this week. We had

a high councilmen come and speak in our ward. He spoke on how D&C 4

can apply to all of us, not just missionaries. He talked about how if

we try to apply and live the principles mentioned, then we will be

more aware of surrounding missionary opportunities for us and also it

will just help us maintain and increase our own personal testimonies.

I wish you could have heard it because I really enjoyed it. My favorite

thing about missionary work is knowing that when I go home, I get to

use all these cool things I’m learning and all of my fun and crazy

experiences. All of it won’t just stop when I get released, I have a

lifetime of "normal" life to build off of what I learned in two years!

But I still have tons of time left, 9 1/2 months to be exact…just

in case anyone was wondering.