Elder Call Muses over Personal and Mission Geneology; Gets Pulled Over by Police Officer

30 November 2009

Dear Dad,

Thank you for your email and for the excerpts from your journal. I really wish I would do a better job of keeping a journal. I just kick myself every time I think about it. I started a little journal where I write about each investigator that I have helped progress to baptism. I need to catch up though, because I started it after I had been out several months. I write about their conversion. It is kind of fun.

I also have a little journal that Elder Poppleton named "Journal of Relations." Being in Idaho I have met many people that we are related to. So if we can figure out how we are related I put a little chart in this book and then on the back of that page I write about them. I figured it would be kind of cool to have. I think I have met about 40 people that have told me they are descended from Cyril Call, (mostly Anson). Most were in Pocatello, several in Idaho Falls/Ammon, and only a couple up here in St. Anthony. I think that is because there used to be a town called Chesterfield, Idaho. It is just outside of the mission, just east of Pocatello. It was founded by Chester Call (b. 1841 in Nauvoo to Anson and Mary Flint Call). Chesterfield is now a ghost town and a bunch of the people that lived there (most were related to the Call's) moved to either Bancroft or Pocatello. So their families are all in that area now.

I looked in the phonebook and there were a ton of Calls in Idaho Falls, but not in my area.

I also know that there are a lot of people that we are related to, they just don't realize it. Sorry, you know me. When I start talking about family history I go on and on.

So that is really funny that John is acting more and more like me. I think we are WAY different. But we are probably more similar than I think.

I am excited to be Elder Walker's first companion. He is a great missionary. Like I said his middle name is Rigby. And we met one family that is related to him. I am sure there are others. I don't know how unusual it is to be called to senior companion and trainer at once, but I know it has happened before. It is a little scary, especially since President sent me a letter that said I could have a large impact on the rest of Elder Walker's life.

In this mission we do a mission genealogy. The person you train is your son and the person he trains his your grandson. So Elder Pieper(one of the APs when I came out) trained Elder Burton and Elder Cameron (also one of the APs when I came out). Elder Burton trained Elder Bridgewaters and Elder Call. Elder Cameron trained Elder Dangerfield (one of my Zone leaders). I am training Elder Walker, Elder Burton's first grandson. Elder Dangerfield trained Elder Canales, Verdune, and Moller. Elder Moller is training this transfer also and he told me that he has three nephews. That is Elder Pieper's posterity. It is a large posterity for the mission. He had a couple mission brothers and they have large posterities also. Elder Cameron told Elder Burton (who is serving as a zone leader in Pocatello) at the transfer site that I was training and that made Elder Burton so excited that he found Elder Walker at the site and got his picture taken with him. Poor Elder Walker, Elder Burton is so crazy and I remember what he was like at the transfer site my first day in the mission also. I was kind of scared! I will probably never see Elder Burton again on the mission because he goes home in February. We will be at different Zone conferences this transfer because he is serving in the south and I am in the north. So unless one of us gets transferred at the end of the month then we won't see each other.

I have to tell you that I got pulled over the other day for the first time in my life! It was about 8:00 at night and we had just tried to contact a referral and got back in the car. We had gone through all our plans for the day and we still had an hour left. So we sat in the car for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. We decided to go to a church building (just around the block) and pray about it. We were parked on the side of the road and I looked and no one was coming (it was in a quiet neighborhood) and I pulled out. Drove about 10 feet and Elder Walker said, "Um, you’re getting pulled over." My first thought was, "Shoot, I didn't use my turn signal to pull out. I bet he was just waiting for that."

I pulled over and the police man walked up.

"What were you doing?"

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't use my turn signal."

"Why were sitting out in front of that house?"

"We were just looking at our plans, trying to figure out what to do."

"That's my father's house. I was just wondering why you were sitting in the car outside his house. You guys have a good evening."

Other than that, things are going great.

Love,

Elder Call