10-24-11

Hey Everyone!
So they sent me to the Centerville Branch. It covers Centerville, Washington Park, and guess.... East St. Louis. Yes we are in East St. Louis. They sent me to the most dangerous place in the mission. Well except for one area that is supposed to be just as bad in STL or worse. The day we left the MTC we woke up at 5 and left at 6 in the morning. It was a great feeling getting out of there. Tuesday around 2 when we landed we went straight to go over the Missouri RIiver because it was close to where we were at. Then we went to the temple and we were told a couple stories and stuff. Then we went to the mission home. It is in a super nice area and the house is huge. When we got there they fed us. Then we watched the boring saftey video. Then The president starting doing interviews. He did not finish all of them so before it was time to go out to dinner. He took us to this Mongolian Grill. It was so good. We ate a lot there. I sat next to the presidents wife. She is so funny. And we started talking about BYU and said That she would txt us all the game updates for all the byu games. So I got the score of the game already:) But I love the President and his wife so much. They made us feel just like we were at home. In my mission we have 4 assistants. 2 in the office and 2 normal ones. They were all really awesome guys. I talked a lot to a couple of them. One of them were driving us around everywhere for the two days. But after dinner that night we went back to the home and had a testimony meeting. It was amazing. Then after that he finished the interviews and we had cake and ice cream. I had no clue the Cards were in the World Series... Well until we got here. I was excited for that. Hopefully they win it all just because We are in St. Louis. We have 6 missionaries in our mission who are supposed to go to the Netherlands but are held up because Visas. SO they are here until they get them. So I am one of the ones who has two comps. Our trainer is Elder Horlacher. He is from Vegas. He is a very good cook. Oh by the way because the area we are in is so poor we never get fed by members... I think for the whole month of Nov. we have one dinner for sure that a member will be feeding us. The Branch President fed us lunch the day we got here after transfer meeting. It was way nice of him. But my area is all bus and walking. We are not supposed to ride bikes here. Im sure you all know the answer of why we can not... hahahahah. But my other comp. Is Elder Maughn. He is going to the Netherlands. It sounds like he may be flying out tomorrow. He is from Logan Utah. It is kinda chilly here. Not to cold though. First day here was awesome because we got on the bus all these people started talking to us saying hey Jesus Boys! Go save some lifes! There are a lot of people who loves us here and love talking to us. It is nice. Our first lesson we taught to investigators and was asked by my comp. to challenge them to Baptism. So I did and now we have 3 people in a family who all have a date:) Nov. 6 I hope it does not fall through. Because they were to be baptized before but it fell through. Oh and Also we White washed this area. But our trainer has served in the area before so thank goodness to that or else we would not be having a fun time. There are maybe 30 members in the branch. And of those 30 about half of the people are imports and do not even live within Branch boundaries. But the branch could not survive without these people. It is nice because we have a senior couple in the branch too. They spend most of there time at the bishops storehouse though. So because the area is so dangerous we do not even live within our area. We live up in the west part of Belville. So we have to ride the bus 30 mins. everyday to our area. Our area is huge though. It goes all the way from the edge of Fairview Heights to the River. So I see the arch everyday. That is cool though. It is so sad to see how people live here and that they hardly have anything. It just makes me way grateful for all that I have. It is really humbling. So Usually when it is after 8 we try to get a ride back to our appartment to avoid the bus and it is just so much quicker to get back. But contacting is best on the bus. Somtimes we ride it just to find people on it. There is a sister in our ward. Sister Lehr who is the only single lady who is allowed to give rides the misisonaries by herself. She got special permission from President Clark. So she has a badge and everything. She is very old but she is so nice. She took us to walmart and other places we have to go to. But I am in total culture shock here though. But I am already starting to love the people:) One big goal is for us to try to get the members going to the temple. That is something that both me and my comps have felt very strongly on. In my mission we are allowed to go to the temple once every transfer so we will be taking a trip with them all I believe! But I got to get going though. I hope to hear from you all soon! I sent a few letters out and I do not if they ever got to anyone. I hope they did... But have a great week!!!
Love, Elder Derek Turner
Serving in Zion