The Temple and Zone Conferences

 This week has been way out of routine. I've had my entire schedule full with a variety of different activities. I'm just gonna do a day by day of them since that seems the easiest:

Tuesday: Drove down to Montgomery because one of the spanish Elders in my area needed a new recommend from the Mission President. This was a 3 hour journey and Montgomery is a super sketchy part of Alabama. After we got the reccomend, we went tracting (or door to door) for 3 hours in 39 degree weather. It sucked a lot, my toes were frozen. The extra humidity makes that coldness sink into your bones, it's not a pleasant feeling. But of course, it was good for me....

Wednesday: Temple trip in Birmingham, Alabama which is the only temple in the whole state. This was in the same direction as Montgomery so we just stayed the night with some other Elders. This temple is super fricken tiny and the temple staff was so shocked with how many people we had going at once. It was a really dope and spiritual experience, it felt even more spiritual  because I was able to put my investigators and my mother on the prayer roll. Felt more meaningful that way.

Thursday: Service project consisting of painting 5 different rooms at a Women's shelter. Let me tell ya, my arms are in pain and aching. The muscles you have to use while painting were ones I don't use all that much so I'm still very sore. But hey, I learned a decently useful life skill I guess. We were there for about 8 hours so you could imagine how fat the nap I took was afterwards (our mission allows those sometimes).

Friday: Zone Conference, it was super long. Its basically just a bunch of training and new information to keep us safe and doing our purpose. My mission president, President Allred, is a very powerful and intimidating speaker. There's no WAY I was gonna try and snooze while he was speaking, he's just that type of guy. He stares right into your soul as he talks about being exactly obedient because he knows who's lacking. Super spiritual experience, I met a lot of cool people who already knew me because my last name spreads like wildfire. Let's just hope I'm what they were expecting for a person with that dope of a last name. 

Saturday: Went to Lamberts again, that one restaurant that chucks rolls at you that I mentioned before? There was a bunch of people from the Navy there and they know who we were. Other than that, just taught Kristina who we have on baptism date. She's looking very promising, I don't see any hiccups happening before the date approaches. 

Sunday: We had church and also taught Kristina again. It's funny because as I was teaching, I was in the middle of a super spiritual thought, you know, doing my thing. Bonnie, Kristina's friend, was on her phone and a news headline popped up. She interrupted whatever I was saying and said "Sorry, but I think this might apply to you young guys. Kobe Bryant just died with his daughter in a helicopter crash." Yeah, gut punch. I loved the dude growing up. I didn't cry because I'm a man or whatever, but that sucked for sure. I kind of just checked out from reality for a good 30 seconds lingering on the thought of it. I then had to continue teaching which was really awkward because I was ticked off. I eventually sucked up my emotions and continued and clutched up in the end but very unfortunate timing indeed to learn on of my basketball idols growing up died so suddenly and tragically. 

Anyway, that's my week. It was packed full with a bunch of random activites, they don't happen like this very often. I'm starting to notice a lot of change in myself and how I behave. I'm becoming a little more ballzy or confident when it comes to talking to people and not accepting no for an answer. Slowly and slowly, precept upon precept, I'm becoming what Heavenly Father knows I can become.

Love y'all

--
Elder Jackson Batman

First Baptism Date Is A Go

What's going on guys. As the title suggests; we got our first baptism date. *Queue the mariachi band and all that celebratory garbage*... Anyway, yeah, we got someone. This woman's name is Sister K, she's 54 years old and loves her bible. She's studied for years on end the Holy Bible and had some killer questions when we taught her the Plan of Salvation. Out of all religions she's experimented with in her lifetime, the LDS church seems to be the one that makes the most sense to her. It's actually really funny because she basically asked us if she could get baptized, we didn't even invite her. She was just like "Yeah yeah... so what does it take for me to be baptized?" An easy convert, but still a convert nonetheless. Other things that happened this week? I got a little list I'll just put right down here: 

-A and H, visited them in a trailer park. Seemed curious but not really interested in our church. Had materials to roll up blunts all over the table. Their trailer stunk of cigarettes so bad it sort of stained our clothes with that odor, definitely took them off when we got home immediately. 

-Got threatened to have the police called on us two different times. They're both the same sort of story. We were just knocking on doors doing our 9:00-5:00 trying to sell people everlasting joy that's priceless, and this guy says that we can't sell products door to door. We told him we actually don't sell anything, we're just proselyting. He threatened to go get his boy who is a country sheriff, we kind of just told him "It's fine man, do what you gotta do." Oh, and its important to mention this guy had a Bud Light can in hand, but you probably could've just assumed that. The cops never were called by the way. 

-Went to a restaurant called "Lambert's" where they literally throw rolls at you from across the room. They also pass around a variety of different southern snacks like fried ocra, boiled cabbage, fried onions and potatoes, and a whole lot of other things. Some of them were good, like the ocra is kind of like the taste of a tater tot that's really a pepper?? I don't know. The restaurant is just an experience you have to have when you're in Alabama. 

-We do volunteer work at the Salvation Army and an Animal Shelter. At the Salvation Army we just pin tags on clothes and mark the size. Every once in a while we get lucky and have to help the ladies who work there lift a heavy dresser, but that's pretty rare and out of routine. The Animal Shelter on the other hand, that's super fun. We don't really provide a real service besides giving the dogs a little play session for about 20 minutes. Some dogs are super nice and fun, others just jump up and down constantly in their own poop. Yeah, we don't really pick those dogs when we choose which to play with. 

-We went tracting for the first time. Going door to door trying our best to get people to let us teach them and it's not successful at all. People just don't want to talk to us and are rude about it. Most of them just assume we are Jehovah Witnesses and don't even let us speak to explain ourselves. They just say "I don't wanna associate wit' you J'dubyas!" We still try to tract as much as we have time in order to show our dedication to the Lord, but as of right now in my mission, it sucks.

-Barber Jack is for sure in session. I cut my companion's hair and all the Spanish Elder's hair who live next door. It allows me to serve my fellow man because I don't charge them money, but I need to figure out some favors they can do for me in exchange. I'll get creative with it. 

Well that's my week in a nutshell, it's starting to feel a lot more real recently. I'm getting better each day, but learning the language of the spirit is something I'm not used to. I'll get better at this, baby steps for sure. 

Til next week,

--
Elder Jackson Batman

Sweet Home Alabama

 What's going on guys, I'm finally here in Foley, Alabama starting my mission journey for real. But, before I get into my first few experiences with the new area, I'll talk about my last week in the MTC real fast. It's been a while since that happened so I'm just gonna do bullet points of what I remember that was funny/interesting:

-A bunch of people in my district got business cards made that had their names, emails, and pictures of them and they would just hand them out to any attractive girl they saw walking around. I thought it was pretty dumb and against our entire purpose as missionaries, but now that I think back on it, it was genius. Some of these guys really miss talking to white girls and flirting so this was their way to cope with it. More power to them.

-Fast and testimony meeting. Man that meeting sucked rocks. I didn't really take fasting very seriously growing up, I probably did it 3 times in the last 5 years and it was the same sort of thing with a lot of people in my district. We all didn't fast often enough, so when we are forced to fast because they closed down the cafeteria for breakfast and lunch, we were dying. Not only do they close down the cafeteria, but they also have to substitute those eating times with something else so they just give us more class. It was just a bad situation to begin with, but the actual testimony meeting part of it was really good. The spirit was very strong and we all could feel it. That is... until one of the missionaries sang. I know this is kinda mean to say, but this guy was super stuck up and full of himself and it made this whole singing disaster SO much more funny. I mentioned in the last email that David Archuleta came and sang to us for a Christmas devotional; my trio said he could harmonize with him. Yeah okay buddy, we'll see about that. So he begins singing in fast and testimony meeting and absolutely wiffs the high note in "Peace in Christ" and everyone immediately starts biting their jackets because they don't want to laugh. It was so funny and I feel really bad for writing about this. But then again... do I? No one ended up laughing fortunately, but it was so hard not to. And of course he thought he did amazing, but whatever, self love and all that. Moving on...
I don't really have a lot more to say about the last week of the MTC because it was just a lot of class and saying goodbye. I'm just gonna move on to the mission field.

The mission field has been nothing compared to what I expected it to be. I thought it was always busy, there's always people to talk to, and you're constantly on the go. It's not like that at all, at least in my first week. There's so much spare time to study the scriptures and talk to your companion. That's been very nice because I don't like always being busy all the time. I like freetime to myself where I can relax and lie down. Anyway, my area consists of rich white old people and poor black people. There isn't an in between. 

My mind is really tired right now and I can't think of a lot of stories about what happened. All you gotta know is that I'm doing just fine and that this area, with time, is going to be so much fun for me. I'll have a lot more stories next week, I apologize for my laziness right now. 

Love you guys

2nd week in mish

   Yeah, I'm still in the MTC as of right now, but in no way is that a bad thing. I'm surprising myself with how much I'm having fun and enjoying myself right now, I guess the schedule isn't all that bad after all. Obviously there's a few parts of the MTC that fricken suck. Here's a short list I've compiled: -The breakfast is so wack. It's the same serving of scrambled eggs and soggy hash browns, but then it's the sausage. They try and give us some "variety" in our breakfast and all they mean by that is they change the shape of the sausage from logs to patties, then back to logs. So yeah, breakfast kinda blows. -My feet hurt all the dang time. Dress shoes are cool and all, but they are not as freeing as that of a sneaker or something. It doesn't help that I rolled my ankle playing football the other day, but dress shoes kinda suck.  -Workshops, OH MY do I hate workshops. Workshops aren't just like regular class, they are a waste of an hour and a half talking about the use of bookmarks in Gospel Library app. My companion and I fall asleep almost every time. These were just a few things, but there are for sure more. I know last time I talked about what happened day-by-day but I don't really feel like doing that right now so I'll just give you a little run down.  -Whole lotta class. Sitting in a modern-style classroom learning new teaching methods. I enjoy class most of the time, especially when it's taught by Sister Olsen because she is an absolute Goddess, an angel from Heaven. Fun story about her real quick, we did a role-play in class where she had me as an investigator and she was teaching me. She invited me to church at the end of her fake lesson and asked what way she can contact me. I just said "Can I get your number?" BOOM. Classroom went ballistic, "Elder Batman you legend." She's blushing, I'm blushing. Obviously it was a joke and she thought it was hilarious too, but it was real awkward after that for a little bit. -TRCs. Basically just teaching paid investigators the first discussion in Preach My Gospel and praying to God it goes well. It's still nerve racking even now after I've already done like four of them, they haven't gotten that much easier yet. A few of the lessons I actually killed it and the spirit was on fire, but I gotta work on making sure that happens every time.  -Devotionals. New Years was this week so we got spoken to by a member of the seventy. I don't really remember his name, but his talk was phenomenal. It was about repentance and the real reason we need to do it. I don't feel like going into details so I'll just leave it at that. I think I already mentioned in last week's email that Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke to us and ‪David Archuleta‬ sang to us, but if you didn't know now you do. -Funny dorm stuff. My district is super dope so we do a lot of funny things together and have really odd conversations. We started this new initiation which is basically confess of all past sins and transgressions and then you're in. Wasn't my idea and it was super awkward at first, but we came to realize VERY quickly that every one on our floor is human and not perfect. There are some real players in the MTC and that's all I'll say to that. My roommates and I are really bad at getting to bed ‪at 10:30‬ like we are supposed to. I mean, we are in bed but we talk till like ‪12:00‬ or ‪1:00 AM‬ and its really fun and allows us to learn more about each other so I've really enjoyed it. Oh, and on New Years we did stay up for it and some guy got a bunch of poppers from Dollar Tree or something so we just threw those in the air and that was it. Also we had party hats and little blower things, so that was lit. I don't know, there's a lot of funny things that go on, I just can't think of all them while sitting in this computer lab. Maybe next week I'll remember, we'll see. Anyway, MTC has been a great experience and I'm only a week away from getting shipped out to Alabama like an Amazon package. Definitely a little nervous because I'm not super confident in my teaching ability but I don't think anyone is so I'll be alright.  Love you all, Elder Jackson Q. Batman