Words from Elder Chandon Herring in Washinton DC

Well hello to all how was your week good good mine went well. This week was transfer week so it was really good and also really bad. Sad to see so many good missionaries go home. But we have some New incredible ones.

Tuesday... Today is my favorite day of the transfer where we pick up the new arrivals. We get to meet them at the airport for the first time and see the bewildered look on their faces. It's almost like your deer in the headlights but they try so hard. We had a lot of little logistical things to do first. But we made it to the airport on time and picked up the missionaries and rushed them to the Mission HOME as soon as we could. What's normally about a 30 minute drive turned into two hours because traffic is superb on the beltway. It's sad I went straight from the airport to the Mission HOME and all the new arrivals took the metro to The temple where they unloaded, went to the visitor center, took pictures with the Cookes, reloaded up, and drove to the Mission HOME, us beating them by only 7 to 10 minutes. But there's just not time for us to get everything done that we need to. And we set a record this was the earliest we got the new arrivals to bed and us to bed as well so absolutely no complaints on our part.

Wednesday... The transfer day I looked forward to at the beginning of my mission but was really sad to see it finally come. Today was the day that my father died along with two other super good missionaries Elder Humphrey and Elder Elliot. The testimony meeting was superb and we all learned from these departing missionaries. It was fun with the damage control that we had to do after the transfer meeting as people try to figure out stuff. it's fine because they can figure it out on their own we just kind of gently guide them to read the package of instructions that we gave them :-) but when they're all gone we know we're good and head off to the airport. At the airport president has started a new tradition where you eat at Ben's chili bowl and it's pretty good.

Thursday... Today was 100% administrative stuff. What we did was stare at a computer screen update things and yeah. It was really sad because we had a missionary going home to Hong Kong and he missed his flight in New York where he was supposed to change planes. We can completely understand how that happened because he had to change terminals on the tram in the super tight layover time at an airport that he has never been to before. Other than that there's nothing to exciting.

Friday... Today was awesome. We began the day and spent most of it at the leadership training meeting where we discuss and prepare the training plans for the transfer. It went super well we have very young leadership but they are well-prepared and are going to do a fantastic job. We're very excited to see what they are able to accomplish. After that we went down with President and Sister Cooke to a Suitland high priest meeting. We join them for dinner and it was wonderful to see the incredible people that are part of the Suitland stake. I swear if we had to replace the entire quorum of the 12 apostles we could do that from Suitland. The Cooke's talked about member missionary work and then they asked Elder Ord and I to talk about our experience with member missionaries. It was a very very good meeting and I'm getting better at talking to a group of people. Still scares the heck out of me but I can do it! Sister Cooke did such a wonderful job as well as president.

Saturday... Sadly today was another administrative day but I noticed how President is using preach my gospel and the Scriptures a lot more. Normally he would use like a verse here and there but now he's using quite a few everywhere. It's a good example for me and wanting to use them more. I challenged you to do the same :-)

Sunday... Sunday was good as always we had church m our perfect ward and then we went to check on a less active who didn't come who we are planning on. She was having a lot of struggles and we were able to give her a blessing it was a really cool experience. She's so humble from this experience and is just trusting the Lord will take her where she needs to go. We then had dinner with the Cooke family and it was delicious :-) we ended the night with why I believe The speaker was President Harrison of the Washington DC stake. He is going to be released next week when President Nelson comes. We think he'll be an area 70. He's that awesome :-) and then our bishop will take his place as president :-) I told you our ward is perfect :-) well that's it for my week I love you all so much hope you have a good one as well! Love you!

-Elder Herring