21 October 2013

Big news for yall today! I arrived in WEST COLUMBIA SOUTH CAROLINA this past Wednesday. If you notice on your map of South Carolina you'll see that West Columbia is rather close to Gaston. So close in fact that we meet in the same building of the Congaree ward! (that's the name of the ward that I was in in Gaston :D) I was excited beyond belief. I'm serving up here as a zone leader in what is now the West Columbia South zone. It used to just be the West Columbia zone until all the sisters came and the mission split. But the areas in my zone are Gaston (sister's area now) & Cayce (both Congaree ward), West Columbia Elders (us) West Columbia Sisters (both in the West Columbia ward), Columbia YSA (sisters), Orangeburg Elders & Sisters, Traveling Spanish Elders and Columbia Spanish Elders. My new companion is my first companion that's not from Utah! Elder Saunders, who came out with me. It's so much fun getting to spend time together serving with him and also being back in the West Columbia area. Elder Saunders and I, our first day in the mission field, the West Columbia zone leaders took us out to go tracting in their area. After tracting for a bit, we stopped in to see these two recent converts of theirs Jazmine and her sister. It's so cool now because they give us a ton of referrals and they remember meeting us day one of the missions. It's so much fun being back here! We're also teaching this family that Elder Saunders tracted into that day last year. It's awesome! It just feels like home being back here. Apparently people have been talking about Elder Memmott and I's Halloween costumes with the trunk-or-treat coming up so soon. It looks like I got back into the area just in time haha. I'm not sure if you remember our old costume but I'll try to include a picture in this email. This ward is fantastic. It was so tough leaving Spartanburg because of all the wonderful Micronesian families that Elder Lee and I were working with. They're so cool and I'm going to miss them so much. Fortunately though, I've come into this area where just as much success is happening. It's making the transfer a little bit easier. This ward is so missionary minded. It's awesome. This past Sunday we were invited into the Primary to talk to the kids about being member missionaries and inviting their friends to the upcoming Trunk-or-Treat. It was so adorable. Those kids just make me smile :) Elder Saunders and I are super blessed here and I'm just excited beyond belief to be back here. A couple of the people we're working with here in the SCCM (we abbreviate it the South Carolina Columbia Mission :P) and more specifically in West Columbia are Warren and Cru Tu (pronounced Crew Two, he's from Burma). I'm going to meet all the other solid investigators here this week so I'm pretty excited about that. Things are just stellar :D. I love being a missionary so much. We're living with the Columbia Spanish Elders, Elder Judd, and Elder Silva. Elder Judd was serving in Charleston where he met a Brother Bankey. Apparently Brother Bankey was up in Syracuse, New York a few years ago where he met his favorite missionary, a black elder, who served in the army, and is now preparing to be a dentist and also happened to be named Elder Nair. Small, small world. But yeah let Solomon know that one of the Elders I'm living with was just serving in Brother Bankey's home ward. I love how cool stuff happens like that. I love yall. Hope everything continues to go well. I'm sure I'll get many more ideas about member missionary work here in this missionary-minded ward. They have so many cool ones that I'm looking forward to learning more and more about. Keep up the great work and keep being great examples! Just remember that no effort is wasted. You never know what's going to happen a year down the road. Cru Tu, decided to stop meeting with the missionaries after Elder Saunders tracted into him a year ago but just a few weeks ago he got online and requested that the missionaries come back and visit him. Not in a million years could we have guessed that that would happen. God's hand is truly in this work. I love it :D Love yall, Elder Nair