It has been a long time since I updated Elder Rice's blog. He is an area where he can't email his recorded journals home, and I keep forgetting to update the blog with what he says in his emails and letters. I do have a few voice recordings to put on here from before he was transferred from his last area--hopefully I can do that sometime coming up!
Anyway, he was transferred out to the middle of nowhere--in the desert. It is a place called Twentynine Palms, Ca--I think it was in October. There is a marine military base there, and that is most of the population. He was in Church one Sunday, and in came a guy that was from here. I forget his name, but he graduated with Elder Rice and was a friend of his. It was a big surprise, and he really enjoyed seeing someone from home. I guess the guy was a Marine stationed there.
Elder Rice is in a home share (where you live with members) in a double wide mobile home!!! He wrote home that it got up to 115 and above, but now he is saying it is long sleeve shirt weather in the 60's! His blood has definitely thinned. He had 3 baptisms last weekend and one on Tuesday of this week and a couple more to go around the first of the year. The Spirit has been working over time since he has been there! They didn't really have too much going when he got there, so he is excited to see the work progress. He has been made a district leader, which he described as pretty much like being a captain on the football team. You have to get your guys fired up and give pep talks. So, he is really enjoying that. He says he loves his mission and is having a great time, even in the middle of nowhere. He was able to go visit some relatives of mine that he had never met, so that was fun. He was on exchanges in Yucca Valley, which is where they live. He has gotten to go to Palm Springs on his P day and for a doctor's appointment--he liked it because they have a big airplane museum there.
He has a new companion as of Tuesday, as his old one was due to go home. He was in a threesome for a few days because he got his new companion just before the old one went home. Anyway, he is doing well, loves doing the work, and his health is doing good last time we talked about it. I try not to be the nagging mother, so I try not to ask him every week. He tells me if there is something he needs me to ask his doctor here, so I try not to nag him about it.
That is about all, except that he calls home day after tomorrow, which, of course, is Christmas!!!!!!! We can't wait!!!!! This is his last Thanksgiving and Christmas on his mission--next year he will be home, freezing to death, but he will be home. His mission really has gone by way fast. So, if any other missionary moms are reading this--take heart, it does go by faster than you think! I thought other moms were just trying to make me feel better when they said that, because how could it go by fast?? At first, it really was torture and seemed to drag, but now the weeks are flying by! The trick is not to look too far into the future. Just look forward to the next letter/email and then it is not as hard. Still...I can't wait for November 2011!
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