We have not posted very much on our mission to Nevada mostly because we don’t seem to do much besides visiting people and teaching the gospel. We know these are very important things, but they are very hard to write about without revealing personal information. (At least, that’s our excuse and we are sticking to it!)
We do find it hard to believe that our mission will conclude in less than four months! We have even talked to the couple that will replace us. The Meyers received their mission call a couple of weeks ago and they called us right away to ask a million questions. We weren’t sure when we talked to them that they would be replacing us in Ely, but we have found out since that they will be. They are 60 y/o, from Gilbert AZ, he was an electrical engineer and they seem like really nice people! They will arrive in Nevada in mid-April, so we will overlap for a few weeks. That will make living arrangements interesting, but we know it will all work out somehow…
One of the fun things about Ely is all the unique lifestyles we come across and get to learn about! Lots of miners, lots of prison workers, and one of the people we are working with and getting to know is a government trapper. He’s on retainer with the state, plus he gets to sell the pelts. He told us the current market is $100-$1000 per pelt, with large bobcats being on the upper end. The picture shows some of his pelts being prepped on the back porch, and he said he has about 70 others so far. It’s fascinating to talk to someone who knows so much about something we (and probably most people) know so little about! He’s on the road 4 or 5 days a week setting and checking traps, while his wife works for the school district in special education. They also have a son and two grandkids living with them, so it’s a busy place (and difficult to find a good teaching situation…). He’s the nicest guy in the world, and has been less-active for years, even while serving actively in scouting for years.
Another ‘fun’ thing about Ely is working with people’s schedules. For example, mine workers at the big mine work 4 12-hour shifts, then 5 days off, then switch to nights for 5 12s, then 4 days off, then switch shifts and start over again. Even the office workers work non-standard shifts, like the geologist we are working with works 9 straight 10-hour shifts, then 6 days off, then repeat! Prison workers also mostly work 12-hour shifts. It makes it hard to have what we consider normal lives, although it’s normal for them. We assume the strange work schedules are a prime reason the activity rate in the stake is only 30%.
Another interesting thing about Ely is that so many people are connected in some way. Ely isn’t a suburb, but its own unique town three hours away from any other larger cities in any direction. Here’s a good example that just happened to us yesterday: We went to the car wash to wash off the mud and grime from our trip to Elko (see below). There was a line of ten vehicles (one car wash in town, nice sunny day), so we waited in line for an hour (only one wash station) with the stereo playing. When we got to 2nd in line our car wouldn’t start – battery dead! (I knew the battery would need to be replaced soon, as it was 5+ years old.) Two guys in vehicles behind us got out and helped me push our car out of the way, and one said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back with some jumper cables!” He drove off, leaving the line after waiting nearly as long as us, went to the sheriff’s office a few blocks away and came back with jumper cables and gave us a jump. (He told us he was a member of the church and recognized our name tags when I got out of the car.) What a nice guy!!
So we dropped by the one auto parts store just after closing time, and they opened up and sold me a battery, then we went home to replace the battery. While I started working on the battery, Diane called the trapper guy’s wife to tell her we wouldn’t be able to stop by later as planned. She said, “I know! The guy who helped you was my son-in-law, and he already called me to tell me the story!” We were amazed, but that’s not all. I needed a wrench, so I went over to the elder’s quorum president a few blocks from home to borrow one. While he was getting the wrench, I told the story to his adult kids, and one young woman said, “Oh, Chris Brewer (the guy who helped) is my brother-in-law.” One other thing—the sheriff who loaned the jumper cables is the son of a man we’ve been working with. Pretty amazing! Quoting Diane’s Facebook post, “We will go to church today with a dirty car, but with warm hearts!”
We got a new assignment to check elders’ and sisters’ apartments in Elko (3 hrs away), so we went there Thursday and Friday this week. It was fun to meet elders and sisters that we don’t know and see where they live! We gave them several days warning, and they did a pretty good job of cleaning. Missionaries are good people! When we finished, we were in Spring Creek, about 15 miles south of Elko. We filled up the tank there, then told the GPS to “Go Home”, assuming it would take us back the same way, but you know how assumptions go… It showed two routes within 10 minutes trip time of each other, so we chose one, only to find that it took us on nearly an hour of dirt (now mud, due to recent snow) roads on another route through the mountains. It was spectacular scenery, but thank goodness for all-wheel drive and new tires!! (I thought I did a pretty good job of hiding my concern about getting stuck from Diane, but she may have seen through it…) We were never so thankful (well, maybe one time in Idaho) to see a paved road again! Hence the waiting in line the next day for a car wash…
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| 'Snow Moon" just rising last night |
We do love our mission! Life goes on, and we find ourselves getting tired a little sooner than we used to, but we feel so darn useful when we are helping people become closer to Christ. That is the purpose of our mission, and we love it even during the challenges!
