Hello Everyone!
Transfers have come and gone and I am now a district leaders' companion in the IU university ward in Bloomington Indiana. We are walking distance from IU which is a ridiculously large. My companion is Elder Coles from Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the district leader over the university ward and the campus missionaries. From what President hinted at pretty bluntly and what some zone leaders have told me is that this transfer is training for me to take his spot next transfer. So we will see what happens there! It is so weird going from senior comp to junior comp, it is like taking a vacation. I feel like I am being trained again, it is so great!
So I just have to say the contrast from Plymouth (my previous area which is clear up north in the boonies) to Bloomington (at the southern end of the state and is a big college town) is huge. I feel completely out of my element here. Everything has flip flopped and it took me a few days to adjust to. Here are some differences.
In Plymouth, almost all people have an interest in religion or at least believe in a higher power, in Bloomington most people we have talked to are either Atheist or Agnostic and more people than I would like don't believe in God and don't care to know there is a higher power.
In Plymouth, most people are lower class and don't have a higher education, in Bloomington almost everyone has a degree or several and thinks that their opinion is truth and there are some sketchy opinions down here...
In Plymouth, the elders and sisters are all pretty far geographically from each other and are all generally hard workers, and In Bloomington we are all like 3 miles apart and the elders and sisters flirt with each other and they deal with lots of lazy and disobedient missionaries down here (by the way, President Cleveland fixed that this transfer with the disobedient missionaries so that is for the most part taken care of).
In Plymouth, there is so small of a population that it is mostly white Hoosiers and they were for the most part all Christians, In Bloomington it is very diverse with all different kinds of ethnicity, religions, and races (including tons of Chinese, Jews, and Muslims).
In Plymouth, the missionaries get pretty out of shape because we all drive everywhere and don't play sports at all (no single adult activities, no sports groups that meet, our branch didn't even have a basketball hoop), in Bloomington not only do we go to the gym every morning to work out but we also have different sporting events every night of the week besides Sunday... I am definitely getting into shape down here :)
In Plymouth, our branch was tiny with lots of older families and old people and the ward missionary work was moving faster than I have ever seen, and in Bloominton we have a huge ward with tons of young families and our bishopric got called 5 weeks ago and when the bishop was called he said if he had to choose to go back to Vietnam or be a bishop he would choose Vietnam.
Haha... get the difference? :) I sure love it though, and I am definitely not bashing on Bloomington. The ward is great here and things are already looking up in our area. We were able to teach 18 lessons in 3 days so things are definitely moving forward and we are striving to do our best. I am going to love it here and am excited to see the Lord work miracles in this great town of Bloomington.
Quote of the week:
Our Ward Mission Leader is super funny, he is in school and has several younger kids. At dinner his little girl Anna (who is about 4) only wanted the dark croutons and not the light ones and when she started to fuss a little bit about it Brother Crocker (our ward mission leader) said " Quit being a racist and eat the white ones!"
Hope you all are doing good, I sure love all of you and want to thank you for all you do.
Sincerely,
Elder Young
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