Elliot's May 23 email and pictures

Here's the latest email from Elliot, along with some new pictures after the jump.

Hey!

Tell Alyssa congrats on everything! That's super exciting. I couldn't hear the singing on these library computers, but it looks like it was awesome. [Alyssa is wrapping up her senior year at Hart High.  On Friday, she sang a solo at the spring concert.  She graduates Wednesday and heads to BYU in August.]

We did get a lot of rain and crazy thunder and lightning and everything! We were okay, it actually never was raining while we were out, but we were under a few tornado watches and stuff. Oklahoma is exciting!

My new companion, Elder Derrick Nield (from Smithfield, UT) is awesome. We've been having a good time and the work's going pretty well. He's definitely adjusted to the routine of missionary work quickly. We're getting referrals and working hard!  [I found some pictures of Elder Nield from his high school basketball days here.  And here is a link to his page on missionsite.net.]

We had a tougher week. We took one of the recent converts in the ward to a set of 3 appointments we had set up, all of which fell through. It was a mega bummer. But I've learned that when something seems to go wrong, 5 things go right. We headed up to Noble after, and finding we had about an hour of free time, went tracting. We prayed to know where we should go, and looking at a map of the town, felt inspired to go to a block on the complete opposite side of town from where we were. But, of course, God knows better than we do, so we went. We tracted a street and didn't find anyone wanting to hear from us, so we walked back towards the car, and saw a guy working on his car around the corner from where we were parked. We offered to lend a hand (even though I don't know how in the world to work on cars), and he politely declined. We got to talking though. He was from Guatemala, had talked to missionaries there a few times, but never got a chance to learn much. The Spirit was strong though. He was very receptive, took a Book of Mormon, and we have plans to go back and visit later. Finding those that you're supposed to is the greatest feeling in the mission, I think. Later on we had a lesson with one of our investigators who said she really didn't feel ready to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ in her life, though she was quick to recognize us as representatives of the Lord. It was hard, seeing her unwilling to read, pray, attend church and do the things that would make her life so much better, but that's how it goes. We left feeling we did all we could, but a bit disheartened, understandably. Just then a member calls us a gives us this awesome referral. The guy had been going through a real tough time. His house burned down, and all that wasn't destroyed got stolen. He expressed to the member that he was unsatisfied with his current church, and the member promptly invited him to come to ours. He did. After church yesterday, he said that he felt right at home as soon as he entered the building, and he knew that's where the Lord wanted him. He wants to come next week with his family. We're visiting them tonight, and are going to invite them to be baptized. 

I guess that's why the mission, this inspired work, leaves me so happy in the end. It seems like no matter what, the good outweighs the bad in the end. It's tough, humid, sticky, slow, but awesome.

I love you!

Elder Elliot Adair

Rose rock from Oklahoma

As we mentioned in a recent story on Elliot's blog, Noble, Oklahoma, claims the title of "Rose Rock Capital of the World."  The story included some pictures of rose rock (barite) that we gathered from the internet.  But we'd never seen rose rock, or even heard of it, before Elliot landed in his new area.  Then two nights ago, Elliot's mother and I served as chaperones at the Mormon Prom at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.  We were wandering through the Gem and Mineral Hall and began to wonder if we might see some rose rock.  Sure enough, we found a display of rose rock from Edmond, Oklahoma.  Here's a couple of pictures we took.

Elliot's new area: Noble-Purcell, Oklahoma

In his last email, Elliot told us that he was being transferred from Clinton, Oklahoma, to Noble-Purcell, Oklahoma, as part of the regular process of missionaries being transferred within their mission area, as I previously described on the blog.  I did a little checking to see what I could find about Elliot's new area and will share some of that here. 

Noble and Purcell are two separate towns south of Oklahoma City.  Noble is about 28 miles south of OKC, with Purcell another 11 miles further south.  Noble has 5,260 residents (as of the 2000 census), and Purcell has 5,571.  Both border the Canadian River and fall along the I-35/Highway 77 corridor. 

After the jump, check out some pictures, videos, and fun facts about Noble and Purcell, Oklahoma.

New pictures of Elliot and other OKC missionaries

I ran across the blog of another missionary in the Oklahoma City mission, Elder Philip Woolley.  Elder Woolley is currently in Elk City.  That's in the same district as Clinton, where Elliot was assigned until today's tranfer to Noble-Purcell.  Elder Woolley was companions with Elder Phillips, who was Elliot's MTC companion.  I found a couple of pictures of Elliot from Elder Woolley's blog.  It's great to see some new pictures of Elliot and other OKC missionaries.  You can see them after the jump.

Elliot's March 28 email and pictures

Here's the latest message from Elliot, along with some pictures.  He's getting transferred to a new area (more on that later) as a senior companion.  You can see the pictures after the jump.

Hola!

So I'm getting transferred! I'm gonna head to the Noble-Purcell area as senior companion. It should be an interesting new challenge but I'm looking forward to it. My new companion will be Elder Endicott. My companion right now, Elder Stephen McCord Kimber, is going to be training out in Clinton, which would be a very exciting greenie area. I love Clinton. It's so fun and the members are way awesome, but a change of pace will be nice. Besides I hear the work is going really well in Noble! It'll be hard to head out I think, but it's fun to get into new areas.

We've been teaching a lot lately and having a lot of fun doing it. A lot of our investigators are progressing well, especially "Bob," who I told you about last week. Apparently he's about to go camping for a few weeks though, so that could make things interesting. One funny thing that happened this past week was that we went and taught a family in "The Flats," the allegedly ghetto part of town. There were like 7 kids all 10 and under while we were trying to teach, which was a little crazy. After a few minutes the kids got a hold of paper and markers and all started to draw. Next thing you know they had given us a total of 38 drawings which we then went and put on the wall of our apartment! It was so fun. And the lesson went really well too I would say. It was just so funny because they were drawing us, trying to draw crosses, and gave us at least 5 pictures that say "I love Jesus." It was awesome. I'm loving the work and those I'm working around so everything's going good!

I gotta be heading out here in a minute, but I'm gonna attach a few pictures first! I got a new roll developed.

I love you all and hope everything's great! Except that all of a sudden OK decided to get cold and stormy. Oh well.

Love,

Elder Elliot Adair