Transfers - 2/9/15

Baton Rouge North District (Elder Lehr looks really short - Love the temple in the background)

Free Speech Alley at LSU

(Former) Elder Evans from the Sierra Leone mission saw this picture of Elder Lehr hanging on the wall at the UVU Institute. We sent this to Elder Lehr via email. It totally made his day! He loved Sierra Leone.

So I am now a zone leader in Baton Rouge. So I'll be pretty descriptive of it here. Our chapel is the Stake Center which is on the same lot as the temple so I literally see the temple all the time because it's in my area which is such a blessing. I haven't been to the temple in 16 months and I am so excited to go again soon. Actually tomorrow I am helping out with the youth so I get to do baptisms for the dead there.

Baton Rouge: So to compare it to Many. I have seen more people in one day than there are people in Many. Also there are a ton more shops and restaurants and something about the mission culture here is they like to eat out. So basically if I'm not careful all my money will be gone week 1. So I am now no longer eating out and just cooking for myself. My area is very beautiful. Lots of nice houses and there are only a few ghetto areas in our area. There are tons of really old oak trees that are beautiful. LSU is in our area so we take the ones that are married while we have some missionaries that work with the singles ward. Which is good cause I don't want all those single women after me ;) The worst thing here is the traffic. Well kinda. The traffic is super horrid here. Which means that me as the passenger sometimes gets a little shut eye at stop lights and stuff. So that's the good news. The bad news is it takes us 30 minutes to go like 8 miles.

Companion: My companion is Elder Wittig and he is from Las Vegas. He has been out for 23 months so this is his last transfer. We get along really well. I've learned a lot from him so far. He has been working out. Me and him are going to be doing p90x so I can start my 8 months till sexy. So prepare for a lean mean Elder Lehr! haha

Investigators: We have a few investigators. One who is pretty much an Eternigator. He has been investigating for like 5 years now. He pretty much knows the church is true but I think he is waiting for some family members to pass before he changes his religion. He really loves missionaries and likes to feed us so I'm happy with that. We got a new investigator from the AP's. She is about 63 and was a teacher but now is retired and broke and is kinda a nervous wreck. She was praying for help and then we showed up. She is really humble and a great Christian person and is ready to work so we are helping her find a job through ldsjobs.org and she is also super into family history. She seems pretty solid. Those are our main investigators. The other big work we try do to here is try to help get the young men on missions. We have 1 that was less active but now really wants to work with us and prepare for a mission so that's sweet.

The Truck. So the AP's got switched trucks with the Natchitoches sisters so now the AP's have the Frontier that we used to drive in Many. I finally got my TIWI card so when we were on exchange with the AP's they let me drive the truck just a little. That made me happy.

I miss Many and I love that place but I'm ready to work hard here and love it here.

Love Elder Lehr

P.S. Something kinda interesting here is apparently Louisiana is the hardest mission in the US with an average baptism rate of 1 baptism per missionary their whole mission. That makes me kinda excited that I got sent to a pretty hard mission. 

Also something kinda interesting is Elder Netzley (Elder Sabey's trainee) is a visa waiter. He is originally going to Brazil to speak Portuguese. So it's in our genes to have super foreign missions. I'm from Sierra Leone, to Louisiana by a Canadian, to Brazil. He will get to Brazil and be all like "yeah my grandpa on mission went to Sierra Leone." That's pretty nuts.