I’m starting to realize how much of my time out here isn’t as new and interesting as it use to be. Its funny how the things that are now normal occurrences use to be so exciting and new. With that being said, theres really not a whole lot thats happened this week, but there were still some of those uncommon and really cool moments that I’ll share.

I had two exchanges this week, one with Elder Montgomery (one of the zone leaders) and one with our district leader’s companion, Elder Sanders. Both were really fun and taught me a few things I definitely needed. Elder Montgomery’s been out for a while so it was nice to learn from him and ask some questions about a few things. At the end of the day we pulled a prank on the APs who were coming down for zone conference (more on that in a bit) and jump scared them at the door. 

Elder Sanders and I had a lot of fun not really knowing what we were doing. He’s only been out for about 4 months, and I’m just a month and a half “older” in the mission, so we spent most of the day living life a quarter mile at a time not knowing what to do next. Part of me wishes we had planned the day a bit more, but it was a good reminder that only God truly knows what he wants us to do with our time out here. Relying on Him and His guidance is the best way to do missionary work!

On Thursday we had zone conference which was a little different than most. In the rest of the mission multiple Spanish and English zones join together for zone conference at the mission office, but in Yuma we’re so far away that zone conference is just us. Because of how far we are, the APs came down the night before and stayed over in our house for two nights before driving back. During that time we got to hang out with them before and after zone conference and had fun playing games and chatting! It was a cool experience because it felt a little more tailored to our area and more personal. 

President and Sister Law had us start the conference by having 15 missionaries (one of which was me) recite The Living Christ together which really set the spirit of the meeting. After the conference we had lunch and made announcements where I was given my second award so far for having such a clean apartment back in Phoenix. 

The last cool experience from this week was going to some dunes out in California this morning! 

We woke up at 6 to drive over and see most of the sunrise which was a really cool experience. To add to the enjoyment, climbing up the sand made me feel like I was walking across the deserts of Arrakis so that was awesome!

I had a blast sliding down the dunes on a boogie board, digging in the sand, and taking some really cool pictures to remember the day by! 

Overall another simple week with some really fun experiences to make it worth remembering. I continue to love and miss you all (as always) and I look forward to sharing more of my mission with ya’ll! Have a wonderful week and I’ll catch you later!

Sincerely,
Elder Whitchurch
D&C 84:85

Fun Challenge:
I know I’ve been kind of bad about remembering funny stories to share, so for this email I’ll leave you with a challenge instead to find the two movie references I made in this week’s entry! Good luck!