We’ve had quite the week.  We have had a lot of crazy experiences.

On Monday, somebody had an idea that we would have a zone fast on preparation day.  So, for our zone activity we had a huge potluck meal to end our fast.

Tuesday morning we did some service for a member of our ward who will be going on a senior couple mission next month.  That was followed by weekly planning and some other visits that we needed to make.

Wednesday, Elder turner had a doctor’s appointment followed by a super awesome church tour and lesson with our investigator Bill.

Thursday was district meeting which was fun.  We talked about how invitation leads people to people to act.  We had a super awesome dinner with our ward mission leader.

On Friday, we did service at a local park raking a bunch of leaves.  Tis the season!  Following that we had a blitz in a nearby ward.  Plus, we did a mall booth as a way to talk to more people.

Saturday morning we made a lot of visits, and that was followed by us getting free bike tune ups from a member.  Mine didn’t take too long, but Elder Turner’s took a while.  When all was said and done, our bikes felt really nice and we had smooth riding.

Sunday at church was great.  The couple that is going on their mission gave their farewell talks, which were fantastic.  Sunday was one of the days I got a flat on our way to knock out so I had to carry my bike about 3 or 4 miles.  Ugh!  It was exhausting.

It took me longer to get this in the mail because I thought I would have gotten your letter by now, but I haven’t. (It turned out that Mom forgot to put the apartment # on the envelope so it came back to Wisconsin before being sent back to California.)

This has been a great week thus far.  Copper Hill is amazing, the people are wonderful, and my companion is super amazing.

The work is a bit slower up here in the Santa Clarita valley, but that is okay.  The nice thing about serving up here is that when we find people, they’re pretty solid people who are willing to act.

Bike is a lot more fun up here.  We’re pretty much always going up or down hill.  Not flat like when I was in Van Nuys with Elder Thompson.  I’m definitely gaining muscle in my legs.

We have a couple of investigators here. One is Bill, been taught now for about a month, and he’s been reading the Book of Mormon and praying.  His job is currently keeping him from coming to church.  The other is a new investigator named Gwen who is 14 and is a freshman in high school.

Elder Turner is a lot of fun.  We get along wonderfully.  We have both been Elder Agamata’s companion at some point.  It’s been nice to destress about being with him with Elder Turner.  He’s from Idaho.

Here’s a spiritual thought for everyone.  A man decided to sell his grand piano. Normally it would be valued at $10,000.  However, there was a rattle in it so he was selling it for $3,000.  The man had looked all over for it in the piano, and brought in several piano repairmen to find it, but they could not.  So, he sold his piano for $7,000 less than what it was worth.  The man who bought it and took it home eventually found the rattle, a cheap 2 cent marble that had cost the seller $7,000.  Don’t let 2 cent marbles get in the way of us being all that we can be in this life.

That story (although I paraphrased it a lot), was given by Brother Banry of the high council in sacrament meeting yesterday.

Love, Elder Allen Blodgett

Well, after approximately 4 months or so in the Tarzana Ward and 3 companions later, I’m getting transferred again.  This time I am going back on bike!  My new companion is Elder Turner and my new ward is Copper Hill!

It has been a fantastic few transfers, even though at times it did not seem like it.  I’ve learned a lot from the people here, my companions, etc.  I will admit that at least a little bit I’m glad I won’t be with Elder Agamata anymore so I can feel like I can take more of a lead in our area with my new companion.

I’m grateful for Elder Carroll for being a courageous companion who, while new, understood that something was off with the way we planned and voiced his opinion so that we all could have an equal input into our weekly and nightly planning sessions.  I’m grateful for Elder Agamata, who, somehow or another, has an ability to teach the Restoration message on every doorstep.  It has allowed me to be able to improve in my abilities of sharing this important, life changing message.  I’m grateful for Elder Thompson, who while quite trunky taught me the importance of working with the members.

This has been a bit of a slower week for us.  It always seems as if the week preceding and the week succeeding transfers is slow.  I can’t ever seem to explain why.  That said, we picked up a new investigator this week, who is a roommate of a member in the ward.  We taught him several times and he’s even come to church twice so far.

On Friday we had an amazing zone training meeting.  We had a lot of trainings on using the Book of Mormon in our teaching.

Saturday, the day of transfer calls, was busy, even though a lot of our appointments fell through.  We were able to teach a few people and bring a member along with us.  In the evening, out came the suitcases and I began packing, for the fifth time!

Sunday was church, both Elder Carroll and I gave prayers in sacrament meeting signifying our last Sunday in the ward.  We came home, had lunch and studies, packed a little, did knock out, and proceed to head up to Santa Clarita. We arrived at the mission home around 7:30pm and stayed there for a bit to talk with the assistants and the Henries.  We then came home and I packed some more.

So, with being on a bike, I’m going to need a few extra cash put on my card for bike repairs.  That’s not an approved MSF transaction.

It’s been another interesting week as a trio.  I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse, but we’ve once again picked up more investigators than we can seem to handle.  We have 30 investigators.  It is next to impossible to keep up with them.

Once again, I’m slightly of the opinion that I hope and I want to get transferred away from Elder Agamata again.  What happened is as follows.  We were having companionship study and we were discussing an investigator whom we wanted to extend a baptismal invitation to.  We were discussing it amongst ourselves when Elder Carroll and myself felt that we should extend a certain date, but Elder Agamata felt another date should be extended.  After careful pondering our three points of view remained the same.  Frustrated after feeling the spirit so strongly, I could not hold back the frustration and asked why he could not respect the revelation that his other two companions had received.

What is described here is not an isolated incident.  It happened approximately two weeks ago when I felt that we needed to change where we did knock out.  It also seems to happen a lot between Elder Agamata and Elder Carroll.  Elder Carroll may be new, but he is still entitled to receive revelation for our area, for our investigators, etc.  He is very good at asking us for feedback on how the lessons go, because he wants to improve.  I’m of the opinion that our lessons together have been great.  We’ve felt the Spirit and that our investigators have felt the Spirit.  That is all that matters.  We use our unique teaching skills so that we might be able to be conduits for the Spirit.  However, Elder Agamata doesn’t quite grasp that concept.  He is a very “my way or the highway” kind of person, and as such he never seems to like how any lesson goes because we didn’t teach it his way.  I have a strong testimony of the fact that we both learn from and teach our companions.  Sadly, I feel that after all I have learned from Elder Agamata, I get the impression that he doesn’t try to learn very much from me.  I think that it is what truly prevents us from working in unity and I really need to get out of this situation.

This week, during personal studies, I completed the November 2007 Ensign, minus the Relief Society session (ie for women).  This makes my first Ensign that I’ve ever read cover-to-cover, and magazine that I’ve ever read cover-to-cover.  This has truly helped to increase my testimony of having a living prophet.

We went on several exchanges this week, one with our district leader and one with our zone leader.  Those are always fun.

Pictures will come next week.
Love Elder Allen Blodgett

Transfers are next we3ek so it will be wise to send the letter to the office.

I received your letter and SD card. Just to let you know, we are allowed in our mission to take video.  I don’t know why it’s different here vs. other missions.  Thank you so much for doing this.  I hope you figured out how to use the cloud site.

Tuesday we had probably the most effective weekly planning session ever.  For once, it seemed as if Elder Agamata finally did not do it all, that we all had our chance to have input.  I think what made the difference was going to church to do weekly planning – and idea that the district leader gave t us last week when he came to do an emergency companionship inventory.

One Wednesday we caught up on the twelve week training program for Elder Carroll, plus we had an awesome pizza dinner with a member of our ward.

On Thursday we had an amazing district meeting.  We watched one of the Bible videos on the life of Jesus Christ.  Afterwards we went on an exchange with the district leaders. We found a new investigator couple during exchanges and set up a return appointment with them – they then called us (not the other way around) and pushed it back one week.

On Friday we went to Operation Gratitude and made a bunch of paracord bracelets. We found more investigators again in the evening.

Saturday was a busy day.  We have what you might consider a less-active investigator family that has a piano so we had an FHE with them.  We once again found several more investigators, one through a part member family.

Finally, yesterday was Sunday.  Church was great again.  I once again played piano in primary which is always fun.  We had splits for knockout and found several new investigators through it.  For myself and elder Carroll, the one investigator we found was through my need to use the bathroom and he proceeded to share the restoration message with the guy!  We then had a fireside about missionary work at the nearby Woodland Hills Ward.

Have a great week!  Remember this:  “The number one cause of death is birth.”

Love, Elder Allen J Blodgett

P.S.  Do you know a John Pennington?  I got a stack of CDs from him in the mail this week.  He has a book called “Mr. Mormon I Have a Question” and the CDs are the recordings of the book.  I don’t know if you ordered them for me or if someone else did or if he stumbled across my blog and randomly sent them to me.

It’s been a hectic week for us.  A lot of things have transpired.

This past Monday, I acquired paint (red, yellow, blue, white and black) and am now beginning to paint my pictures of temples.  I painted one for Elder Carroll this week and will be doing one for Elder Agamata next week.  I hope you got the SD card, please upload ALL of it to the cloud, and send it back EMPTY.

This week doing studies I finished the new testament.  This morning I started the old testament. I am currently going back through the Book of Mormon.  In addition to that, I am currently reading through the November 207 Ensign (Oct 2007 General Confernce) and read yesterday the talk that you quoted from President Hinckley about not getting offended.

On Tuesday we had interviews with President Henrie, which went well and weekly planning.

On Wednesday, we had exchanges with our zone leaders.  I stayed with Elder Carroll and Elder Mahlum.  We had a really awesome dinner at a Mongolian restaurant with a member which happened on the spur of a moment.

On Thursday we had a district lunch prepared by Elder Agamata and had district meeting immediately following that.

On Friday some interesting stuff happened.  For whatever reason or another, Elder Agamata and Elder Carroll do not seem to be getting along.  This particular day seemed to be a tipping point.  They had gotten into an argument immediately before companionship study.  I began to offer the prayer to apologize to the Lord for whatever may have happened between the other two-thirds of the companionship and pleaded for the Spirit to return.  As soon as the prayer was finished Elder Agamata left the room.  Long story short, the district leaders came and we had an emergency companionship inventory.

On Saturday, we had a service project at Operation Gratitude which was super fun.

Sunday, church was amazing.  Elder Carroll spoke about receiving a testimony and a member of the Stake Presidency spoke about the temple.  I once again played the piano in primary.  We had several lessons that day and all was well.

Love,
Elder Allen Blodgett

It’s been an interesting week this week.  Sadly, a lot of our investigators have either dropped us or we’ve had to drop them due to lack of response.  Again, thus saith the Lord God of Hosts, separate the wheat from the tares.

Tuesday is when this process started.  WE had several appointments set for immediately after weekly planning when the people we had selected were not there.  To our dismay, when we arrived home for evening planning, one of them called us rather mockingly telling us not to come back.

On Wednesday, the same situation occurred – had an appointment and they weren’t home, but thankfully we had time to go to Operation Gratitude to give service there.  Here is where the subject line comes in.  At our dinner because elder Agamata was celebrating his birthday, the Bishop made him no-bake cheesecake to help him celebrate.  I partook, but didn’t help me stay on my diet for the rest of the week.

On Thursday, the birthday of Elder Agamata, at a district meeting a cake was brought.  I had one slice there, but it got worse later.  The member we had dinner with made him a missionary cake complete with a tie and collar (frosting shaped like those things.)  I had another slice there.  But even that got worse!

Friday we had ten-day follow up for Elder Carroll, which was fine. It was a great meeting, plus Elder Thorpe is in our zone and is training a new missionary, so it was nice to give him a ride there.  Later that evening, we had no dinner and I was peer pressured by my companions to eat the rest of the cake.  AHH!  I was so sick.  I was in a food coma.  I probably shouldn’t have been driving but I had to since I am the designated driver.

Saturday we helped a new family move in to our ward, their home.  Plus we taught a really awesome investigator, Horace who is really excited to learn why there are so many churches.  And again, another appointment with an investigator who did not show up.

On Sunday, the cake was finally finished and my diet is back on!  Church was great and studies were too.  We had dinner with the member who referred Jose to us, plus Jose was there. He now has a baptismal date for September 2^nd, so hopefully things go well with that.

Love,

Elder Allen Blodgett

So, yes, our new companion is Elder Carroll.  He is from Tuscon, Arizona (my second companion from AZ – Elder Sharp is from there as well.)  He is fluent in Chinese, having learned it for the past 5 years in school.  Counting the MTC, I’m now at 11 companions!

Having Elder Carroll here has been a huge blessing.  As you are well aware, I’ve been stressed out being with Elder Agamata for a variety of reasons.  Many of those things appear to be mellowing out.

This week we’ve fulfilled the parable of the wheat and the tares.  We’ve dropped many of our investigators who we’ve been struggling to get a hold of for several weeks and a few who upon our visitation said they were not interested.  That will allow us to be able to focus our efforts (planning & teaching) those who are actually ready.

At this point my only “quips” are the following:  4 hours of studies and not having enough time to do service.  Pretty minor compared to companionship problems and no anything that I’m going to let myself down on for.

A somewhat scary situation that began several weeks ago and played out yesterday.  I’m hoping it doesn’t create havoc in the ward.  Several weeks ago, we noticed that one of the members in our ward, who we eath with regularly, lives outside of not only the ward boundaries (which is the same as our proselyting boundaries as we are the only set of missionaries in the ward) but also outside the stake boundaries (which in our mission is aligned with our zone boundaries).  As missionaries, the only thing we are able to do is to ask President for permission to leave our zone to eat dinner with the member and if he agrees, problem solved.  Sadly Elder Agamata in his quest for “exact obedience” whined and complained to Bishop and said the member should not be attending our ward, etc.  Using the example of boundaries, our handbook provides boundaries for what we should and should not do as missionaries.  We are under no obligation to tell the Bishop and the members of his ward who can or cannot attend the ward.  We are under no obligation to inform our investigators because that is our stewardship.  Sadly, somehow or another word to to this member and he became offended by the situation and informed the ward in Fast & Testimony meeting of the fact that he was leaving the ward, which in turn hurt a lot of feelings of other members.

Thankfully other than that strange turn of events, everything would appear to be fine.

P.S. don’t forget to send me the SD cards!

Love,
Elder Allen Blodgett

Well, this is odd, considering everything that has been going on in the past several weeks.  Much to my surprise, Elder Agamata and I are staying together.  However, my tradition of going to transfer meeting ever transfer continues.  Everyone may be thinking “A repeat of Elder Thompson and you moving wards?”  Nope!  We’re getting a third companion!  Yes, we’re going to be in a trio.  Our third companion is a visa waiter who has been called to England and has been called to be Mandarin speaking.  And yes, that means we are both training him!

Frankly I was shocked.  After all that I’ve been struggling with to be called as a trainer was surprising.

It’s been a good, busy week for us as it seems that every last week of the transfer goes this way.  We were able to teach Joe but we’ll have to pass him off to nearby missionaries and we picked up another investigator who lives outside of our area.  After attempting to tell Elder Agamata that we really need to pass them off to other missionaries, he finally agreed to ask President and he said that we did.  So, we’ll be passing off our two most solid investigators off to different missionaries.

So, I’ve done a lot of thinking on the computer situation and I think I’ve about figured it out.  So, here is what I need:  3 16GB SD (not micro SD or xD) cards.   These things are super cheap these days.  What I will do, is I will send a card home every week, then you can put the pictures on my cloud storage (URL and instructions provided).   Now, I’m going to make this a tad bit cheaper for you, I believe there is an SD card in my video camera which I sent home in my box from Salt Lake City.  Of chorus, when you get the card and the picture files uploaded, send it back EMPTY for my usage the next week. THANK YOU!

This week we were able to do some service.  We helped a new member of our ward move in.  That was really exciting as our ward recently lost several of its members either to moving or death. Just like when I was in Chatsworth, the ward here is older, most people here are empty nesters with a primary of about 20 children and youth even less than that.

I’ve completed several more temple pictures since I last updated y’all on this project.  I’ve drawn Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Saint George, and Copenhagen Denmark.  I’m not sure what I will do with them, but it’s fun.

It’s been a decent week here in Tarzana.  My depression-like feelings went away temporarily as my birthday helped me to be in a better mood, but they started to come back on Friday.  I’m going to focus on the good first, then we can go back to the bad feelings.

Last Monday for preparation day we had a really awesome zone activity playing softball.  I got quite a bit of sun, which helped my farmer’s tan a bit.  As always, it was nice to able to play a game with fellow zone members. We also taught our investigator to Mel on Monday night, plus a few times afterwards, but we’re going to have to drop him because of a lack of commitment (ie coming to church).

On Tuesday, we did weekly planning, which hasn’t improved at all.  It is still Elder Agamata “stealing the show,” or so to speak.  He doesn’t involve me and it’s frustrating me.  I don’t care who is the senior companion, senior vs junior is absolutely meaningless.  For example, a husband and wife make decisions TOGETHER – not just the husband, neither just the wife.  The same applies in planning as missionaries.  We need to make decisions (steps to take to help investigators progress, when to visit people, etc). TOGETHER.  I honestly think that a big part of this depression-like feelings are because of this and knowing that I’m not able to reach my full potential.  When I brought it up in companionship inventory, he immediately jumped to conclusions and claimed that he doesn’t involve me because I don’t study for investigators, which is not true.

Wednesday,  as I mentioned, was a good day.  It started off with the Sister Training Leaders dropping off a gift basket.  In it were some protein bars, pink velvet cake mix (what the difference is between pink and red, I know not), frosting, a pair of sunglasses, a balloon (see attached pictures) and an American flag (because it is a national holiday ya’know?)  During studies (now before you say that Elder Agamata is right that I don’t study for investigators, I only dealt with the cake for perhaps a total of 5 minutes of study time (getting it out of the oven, etc.)  I baked the cake.  After it cooled off, I cut it in half, made a two layer cake and frosted it.  We went to operation gratitude where we assembled several hundred care packages and then as a zone gathered in their break room for a small birthday party.  Lager on in the evening, we had cake from our Bishop’s wife.

On Thursday, we had exchanges and I stayed with our district leader and we had a awesome district meeting.

Friday is when things got rough again.  It seemed to be going just fine until about 8:15pm when we were trying to stop by a referral.  We had plugged in the address in my GPS and I was following it when ACCIDENTALLY, not purposefully I left our area (the GPS wanted me to turn down a different road to go back in, but subsequently left our area.)  It was all fine and dandy when I was collecting my mistake, Elder Agamata had to put in his two cents and told me that I was disobedient.  What ensued afterwards was neither of us are exactly proud of, but nevertheless it happened.  We got in a 5 minute long argument about disobedience vs mistakes.  Neither of us would accept the others point of view so we agreed to stop talking for the remainder of the trip.

Saturday, we had the opportunity to witness several baptisms.  I played the piano at both, which I consider to be a high honor.  There was what seemed to be a massive fire that was in Santa Clarita, the smoke from it almost covered half of the San Fernando valley.

And now, as to why I am emailing you today.  I simply cannot do this any longer.  I am sick of this situation.  I quit.  I don’t want to quit, but I simply cannot stay off a computer and I’m tired of being criticized for how I use them.  Again, it’s not that I’m disobedient, I simply am not perfect.  Between this and the planning thing and Elder Agamata assuming that I’m disobedient – I’m done.  I want it to be done.  I need to get out of this situation because I feel like my faith is diminishing because other people aren’t letting me live up to my full potential.  I know that you’re going to call President Henrie because I emailed you today, but this was the only way I could think of to get this situation under control.

With love and gratitude,
Elder Allen J Blodgett

P.S.  As you can see, I didn’t email.  I decided I needed to skip you and call President Henrie myself.