Sam Champion Gets a Hinchman‏

Whatever I may have said in the past about long weeks.... scratch that. This was the longest week of my mission. It felt like every dad was a week.

Lets start from the beginning. "A very good place to start" right?

Monday was the day that we picked up our beloved greenies (and one burgundy-ie). That was a most delightful experience. They have so much going for them. I love them. They are so great. It was the most ridiculous thing though to pick them up. It was super hot and humid! We had 22 new missionaries to pick up!!! (we is Saeyang and I) We had three groups of missionaries coming in from two different airports LAG and JFK with 2 at LAG a half an hour apart and one the same time as JFK's arrivals. :S It was so awesome to pull up to the pick up and see Tanner walking up as the new Elder Spear. I felt a little scruffy especially in comparison to his bright zeal and fresh vigor. I was sweaty and stinky. But I gave him a hug anyway and we talked until everyone else showed up then I loaded the van. Then we took off to JFK and went to the parking garage where all the rest of the greenies were. We loaded up the rest of the van. We filled up the seatless van all the way to the sealing and from the front to touching the back doors. The van was as full of luggage as the excitement in the hearts of the greenies. It carried over into my heart. I am way excited that at the end of this transfer the last thing I will do will be to pick up greenies. It will be the boost I need to resume the old calling once my office time is up.

Well we took them to Rego Park and unloaded the luggage and filled the van with seats and then with missionaries and we drove to the mission home in Little Neck (Port Washington). It was way fun, and I ended up writing a large portion of Elder Spear's letter home to his parents while he showed a video of him eating cereal out of Melissa Freeman's dimples and Kyle yelling in the background. It was weird. He told me things about home and it was just plain weird. I realized how different I am. I still have the same sense of humor, I'm still the same soul, I still have the same personality. But I am a different person. Home doesn't feel like home. Elder spear questioned my love for New York because I had said in past letters and emails that I didn't like it here.... but this is where I belong. I don't want to ever stop being a missionary. I guess I'm becoming a New Yorker myself because I don't really care much about whats outside of new york. LOL. Of course i care about my loved ones and of course i miss the mountains and Ditto... anyway. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

Side note: many of you have received letters from me in the past. I'd like to say I'm terrible at writing letters. I just have emotional diarrhea on the page and mail it. I hardly ever reread it or organize it or rewrite it. Therefore I've sent things that I really didn't mean. and there is no way to take it back... so... to all of you I say that I am trying to repent of that. I have not really written letters this transfer at all and it has given me the chance to think about it. I'm gonna try really hard to write quality letters... so expect less of them. Sorry.

ok back to the email-update. We slept over with the greenies. Well, more accurately they slept down stairs and upstairs and Saeyang and I slept on the couches. Saeyang was on a love seat with wooden armrests. lol. So he had a terrible night. I felt bad for him.

the next day we made a beagle run and then had breakfast and then took all the greenies back to the mission office for transfer meeting and to meet their trainers and such. Did I say I love the greenies? well This is when the madness started. About a million people came up to me asking me for stuff while I ran around trying to prepare things for the meetings that would occur the rest of the day and for the changes that would soon take place... It stressed me out and much of my excitement from the greenie pick up was overcome by "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! everyone wants something!!!!!!!!"... I walked into transfer meeting late because we (Saeyang and I) experienced out last success together, we picked up Elder Cragun from the airport who just flew in from Bermuda. well I walked in to transfers and the only place left to sit was the very front seat in the chapel. I went up and sat next to Elder McFarlane (Saeyangs MTC comp who He didn't really like and who Ledbetter didn't like either) the whole time he muttered stuff under his breath and commented on everything that was said and that happened. Well they got to Zone 4 (my Zone) and called out "In the Office we've got Elder Morris! and..." this was the first time i've been the one to be called first, "Elder McFarlane". I was told my face looked terribly worried, McFarlane gave me a Gigantic Bear Hug. McFarlane is 6'3" and is double my weight. I was smothered. Everyone burst out laughing hysterically. I sat down and looked at elder black and Write and other missionaries with a "will I be ok???".

The requests didn't stop... I had to just tell everyone "have sister Baum write it down and we will fill it later" I had a constant "I have something dreadfully important to do; but what is it?" for the next 3 days. After Transfers things got even crazier. We (me and McFarlane) took Saeyang and his new comp to their new area because they were getting blinded in. Oh BTW, my Asian streak is over. That made me kinda sad but Its totally cool now. After we got back we were in a rush. We packed all the departing missionaries' luggage into the van as well as Elder Grimm's Luggage (the New Bramuda elder). The we took Grimm to the Air port. By this time I hadn't taken a shower in almost two days and worn the same clothing two days and one night and had not shaved since Sunday morning. I had a good beard started and smelled and felt like a subway railing. LOL. It was a breeze dropping off Grimm, and we had good fun talking about Lim (our common companion) and Richmond Hill (our common area; you see he replaced me there as Lim,s comp). When we got back to Rego the Departing Elders had already left to Port Washington so we had a little time to get some things in order before we left to stay the night with the dead missionaries. I was SO-O-O excited to take a shower and change but then I realized..... I had no clean underwear or cloths. :( you see I had no P-day so I never had the chance. :'( so I had to wait while my cloths washed before I took a shower. Then we got a call while I was waiting from the AP's, "Where are you guys? the missionaries need their stuff so they can have something to sleep in tonight?". They gave us until 8 to get out there, which meant we were short on time. So I told my tall goofy and blond new companion to do me a favor to save time. To make a long story short I ended up drinking a diet coke on the toilet naked for about 10 min. so I was clean; shaven and shorn. But eventually I was clothed and we made the way to presidents house to stay the night. I was flustered because of all the built up stress and we had a fiasco on our hands. Two elders in the mission had told us that their luggage was missing. So we took all the Departing missionaries luggage out of the van to sort through all of it. At the same time a family of a missionary who was being picked up decided they were more important then the rest of the missionaries in the mission and at presidents house and had to leave, so they made us move all the luggage that was on the driveway to the grass. Well, you guessed it, the sprinklers turned on and soaked all the luggage. Me and Elder McGuire seemed to be the only missionaries who seemed to care about what was going on. We were running around trying to save the luggage while the family slowly backed out of the driveway ignoring the mess on hand. well, they ran over some of the luggage and then left and eventually it was just me and McFarlane left to figure out things. The good news was we found one of the luggage's that wasn't supposed to be there but the bad news was everything was wet and that we still hadn't found the other lost luggage.

Moving on.

Wednesday. We woke up at 4 am to get the missionaries all together and leave on time to get them to the airport on time. Well, that morning Elder Khang got in the front seat of the van (where McFarlane wanted to sit) So there was a short prideful power struggle and president finally just told McFarlane to sit in the other van. This was the biging of the problems. This left us with no cell phone. It was me, and 3 Asians and all the luggage. We got to the airport on time and started unloading all the stuff on the curb side. Well all the other cars when to the parking garage. A lot of confusion and running around happened wile the neon vested flashlight wavers abused their authority and yelled a bunch at me. I wanted to hurt myself. Then I circled around and the missionaries came out and told us that they missed their flight! Delta wouldn't let them check their bags because they were there at 6:04 and they were supposed to check their bags at 6:00. Long story short they all left on the next flight (10 min later) but their luggage didn't go with them. wow. I was so frustrated. Luckily 4 of them didn't miss their flight. those were on American airlines. So much easier to check in and so much cleaner and the terminal is way nicer. Deltas Team treated us so rudely.

after that we took some missionaries to Nassau for a doctors appointment, when we got back we found that the apartment building next to the Church had caught on fire and the building was evacuated and we were providing the church as a relief center. So we spent the day with all the refugees. I was hugged by a disabled girl and she tried to kiss me. The greenie in Rego English speaking (Elder Swain,s comp) Elder Aldridge made fun of me and told me to pack my bags cause president was sending me home for hugging and kissing a girl on my mission. Ha-ha. Well, after our 18 hr day, we finally went to sleep.

Thursday I felt normal. I realized that I was in wonderful circumstances compared to those across the street. I was sad that it wasn't lightning and thunder for my birthday but at least it was a Thursday. Anyway, there was an all day leadership meeting at the office so I spent the day preparing food for them and filling TONS of orders. I've never filled so many orders or inventoried so much in one day before. It was really impressive. I'm glad my companion learned so fast. Well, I had managed not to tell anyone it was my birthday so no one said anything. But then Elder Mosman (I don't know how), knew it was my birthday and when everyone (all 70 elders) were down in the office he said "Hey Elder [so-in-so] did you know its Elder Morris' birthday?!?" Then they all sang to me! Ha-ha. It was great. A little embarrassing but it felt good. I think there were even parts being sung, thanks to Elder Swain. ha-ha. :) to top it off someone found for me a birthday package that was put on the wrong zone shelve. It was from Hilly and Davy! :) Thank you so-o-o-o much everyone who sent me cards and packages and emails, i really appreciated it. even the ones that i didn't get until today. :)

well I've been on a really long time so I've got to get off. But know I'm happy and healthy even though its been a really long week full of surprises and business.

Friday we had district meeting and moved the Ridgewood elders and I sweated from every part of my body especially my face.

Saturday we delivered 4 ac's, one to Staten, one to Midwood, one to Flushing, and one to Dyker. It took basically all day.

Its been pretty great, my companion has tons of movies memorized, so he quotes entire movies to me while we drive places. He doesn't miss a part. I can even put him on pause and restart an hour later and he doesn't hesitate. lol!

Today we went out to Riverhead. I've never been before. It looks like Idaho. It has the same trees and it has farms and cows and tractors and cabins... the only thing its missing is mountains. some places could have been McCall. Anyway we went out there to move the Riverhead Elders to their new pad. then we ate at Paneara. After that I had a but explosion in a gas station and I only just barely made it. It was scary. I had to sit on the seat without covering it, which was really gross. but better than pooing my pants.

OK I love you. Thank you for the roll you have played in my life.
--
-Elder Samuel Austin Morris