Welcome To Oakridge

This was my first week officially outside of Medford, and it has been a large change from what I was doing before.  All day Monday was spent riding the transfer van up to Eugene where I met my new companion, Elder Briceno, and then we took another hour long ride to our area, Oakridge.  Oakridge is a small town of three thousand people, along with an even smaller town near that called Westfur.  It is located in the middle of the mountains in a forest next to a river.  The area is very beautiful and is what I imagined Oregon to be like when I entered the mission.  The branch has about twenty to thirty active members, with a huge amount of less active members.

My first real day in Oakridge was spent meeting several of our investigators and helping them out.  We first met a woman named Poppy who we did service for by preparing her home against all of the rain that started this weekend.  We then had lunch with another investigator named Mitzi who has traveled the world, and then met several other people.  On Wednesday and Thursday, we had a bunch of miscellaneous meetings and lessons with people, as well as trying to visit some of the less active members and see how we could help them come to church.  On Friday we had our district meeting where we got to travel a hour down to Springfield.  We also continued to meet with several people that night.

On Saturday we had personal interviews with President Russell that went well, and were then followed up with helping Poppy prepare a little bit further, and struggling to find people to visit in the dark.  On Sunday we had church where we got to participate in the primary program by giving short two minute talks as well as singing with the kids "I hope they call me on a mission".  Finally, yesterday we had a mission meeting called specialized training.  We met with another zone and I got to see several of the other Elders I came out with, and then had a large meeting about finding and other various subjects.  Following the meeting, we came back and tried contacting in heavy rain while it was dark.  Not many people wanted to meet with us, but we did have one miracle happen.  As we were contacting, we had a good feeling about one house where a young man named Cash let us straight in and teach him about the Book of Mormon.  He is an inactive member who has gone off the radar for years, but now he wants to learn more about the church again which is awesome.

Overall it has been a pretty busy week with a lot of introductions and trying to learn the new area, but I am excited for the potential that is here.

Until then, thanks for reading!
Elder Baxter

Carlton with Elder Briceno

At the Branch Meeting House