Lost in a Strange Land

Hey fam and everyone else!

So it's been a crazy week, and I'm waiting for things to slow down, but they aren't haha. I never realized how much I was used to the happenings in Spruce Grove, because I honestly feel like I just left home and started my mission again! Change is bittersweet for sure. But anyways, things are going really well!

Red Deer is a beautiful town! Of all the places I've been so far, Red Deer is the most like Oregon. It's SUPER green I love it! It's quite big though, easily bigger than Beaverton. I'm in the southwestern corner of the city, and it's not too big of an area, actually it's quite small. But not small enough that we don't get a car :) I've given up on driving for now haha. I'm much happier sitting in the passenger seat not worrying about the speed that I'm not aware of haha and constantly being on the lookout for photo radar trucks. I'm scarred for life. So today I was supposed to drive (normally we switch off weekly) but I decided I'd rather not so Elder Cone will drive this week :) We'll see how long he likes driving 24/7!

The ward is sweet I love it. It's about the size of our ward back home, and it reminds me of Southwood a lot. They asked me to come up and introduce myself/bear my testimony. Nothing I don't do every day anyway so it wasn't quite a Baptism by Fire :)

Elder Cone is pretty good so far. Like I said I was in the MTC with him so I know him pretty well. Which is probably a good thing! He's not very familiar with the area though haha so it's been a gong show but I love it! We're having fun. I wish I could tell you all about the work we're doing haha but honestly I don't know the names of any of the people we're working with nor have I met them hahaha did I mention I love getting transferred? :) Give me another week. I'm trying to push myself to learn the area and the names of the members quick because we won't get anything done until then!

It really is it's own mission here haha we have our group of 8 missionaries here in town and other than that I don't see or hear from anyone! No complaints though I'm just glad to be with other missionaries. So normally we ride bikes around our area to save on clicks, but our WML took back his back this week for vacation so we're either legging it or driving. But there's a sweet park with a bunch of fields across from our apartment so I run there every morning while Elder Cone does his own thing.

This old lady does our laundry for us haha it's so sweet! We just take it over on Friday and pick it up on Saturday. She makes us shampoo our collars beforehand though and we HAVE to give her 7 shirts every week. No less or else she buys us more. I know because she bought me 2 already hahaha.

Hey Mother Read I got the package just in time! Like it didn't come on Monday so I was freakin out a little bit because mail takes forever to come down here. But lo and behold there it was on Wednesday for transfer meeting! Our prayers were answered!

That's sweet the Trek's this week! You'll all love it that was one of my best memories in Young Men's. But I was with Kyle the whole time so that could be why :) Yeah Dad there was crazy rainfall here a couple of weeks ago, so there was some flooding. When we did the service we wore our service clothes, no way am I ripping up wet carpet in a suit :)

Welll other than that I'm doing really well, just trying to get into the swing of things. Hope your week goes well!

Love you guys,

Elder Read