Elder Parker Banks

            Holy cow this week was insane. This is always the craziest week ever with transfers coming up but it is always really fun. Tuesday is when all the fun starts with the new missionaries coming in. We sat at the airport forever! There was 9 sister visa waiters that were supposed to come in then like 30 minutes later the 4 staying in St Louis were coming in. After sitting there for about 30 minutes we realized that we were in the wrong gate. So we walked across the airport and found 9 super lost and confused sisters who were supposed to be in Denmark but instead were lost in St Louis haha. They handled it great though. Then while Elder Melton and Elder Bean waited for the rest of the missionaries me and elder Facer took the sisters to "A Taste of Denmark" to get some food and they talked to a guy in Danish while they were there so they were pretty excited. The rest of the day was pretty much just hanging out with them and getting them ready to go into the field the next day. 

 

            The next day we went to transfer meeting and it was the best one ever. The ones in the past have been super funny but super loud and not reverent at all. We stressed to the mission this transfer to be quiet in the chapel and it was great. We had a guy share his conversion story and it was amazing. Probably the coolest part for me was the departing testimony of a missionary named Elder Jacobs. Elder Jacobs is from our mission and has been here for 3 months doing a trial mission. He is fantastic and at the end of last transfer he got his "real" mission call to Reno Nevada. He bore his testimony about how much he has loved serving here and most importantly how much he loved his trainer Elder Sims. They were an amazing companionship that we got to spend the night with a few weeks ago and it was so cool. I am so glad that he is out serving where he is supposed to be now. 

           

On Saturday we got to do something that was really cool. A couple weeks ago I talked about going up to Columbia and being with Elder Barney and Elder Weight and we found a guy named Corey. He was friends with Burton and it was a huge miracle. Elder Weight and Elder Barney both got transferred a couple days ago and Corey’s baptism was this weekend. Corey really loved Elder Weight especially but he got transferred about 3 hours away from his old area. We felt that it was really important for him to go though so we ended up driving up there with him and I got to see Corey get baptized. I wasn’t there for much of the teaching but it was super cool to get to see the beginning and the end of the missionary process with this guy. I was really thankful for the opportunity. 

 

            This week is going to be busy and exciting. We leave tonight to go to Springfield and Champaign for exchanges then we have MLC on Friday and then another exchange with Cape on Saturday. These next few weeks are going to be insanely busy but they are going to be really fun.  We have about 4 weeks of work to do in 2 weeks and the time is going to fly. Happy Memorial Day. I love you all.

 

-Elder Banks

 

Pictures:

Elder Banks and Elder Bullock

Parker being Parker

Book of Mormon Musical

The two Elder Banks'

Cool missionary shot