Off to Wally World!

Hey Everybody!

I am being transferred to Bentonville, Arkansas. Apparently it is home to Wal-Mart headquarters, and it is a big town, unlike Harrison. All week I was half excited to possibly be transferred until Friday night.

A few times a week, Elder Aubry and I go to the McDonald's by Wal-Mart to get ice cream. We usually do this at the end of the day on our way home. As it turns out, if you go to McDonald's at the same time frequently enough, and order the same thing all the time, you sort of get to know the people working the drive thru. Well, after about 6 weeks of seeing this same girl three or so times a week, I finally decided we might as well invite her to church since we're all basically best friends now. I wrote out a pass along card with our names, phone number, and church address and starting time and all that stuff. When we got to the window we paid, and before I could really say anything, she asked what we do (it is a little strange to see two twenty-somethings in white shirts and ties getting ice cream here in Harrison) we told her that we're missionaries and when we told her what church we went to she said, "Oh! I'm a member of that church. I think my name is still on the roles even." Then a car pulled up and she couldn't talk anymore so we gave her the card, she gave us her phone number and we got our ice cream.

In short, I no longer believe in coincidences.

So along with McDonald's girl, we have something like 3 other people here in Harrison that have a really good teaching potential, not to mention Shelly Renner who we've been teaching as well. When Saturday night came around I was really hoping for one more transfer, but I'm going where the Lord wants me to! Plus, I just learned today that Bentonville has a Panda Express. I'll drown my sorrows in Orange Chicken.

This week has been really busy, and very enjoyable. It's hard to believe that I've been here for six months now. I can't believe how quickly time goes. Einstein was right on with that time relativity stuff.

Wow, I actually have a little bit of time today, so I can tell another story or something!

Let's see.

Oh yes. So Brother Pedersen, an eccentric, but extremely nice man in our ward took us out to dinner on Tuesday. He is the family history missionary for our ward and does a spectacular job. When we got to the restaurant, he was sure that the waitress had been one of his former students, and so spent a good five minutes or so trying to figure out where he knew her from. Then he ordered "dihydrogen monoxide." and the poor waitress tried to go get him club soda, probably thinking "carbon dioxide" So she gets back and Brother Pedersen jokes with her some more, so she started calling him Grandpa! I have never been in a restaurant where it was okay to call an old man grandpa. That's definitely something I love about the south, people are much more....well, I don't know if friendly is necessarily the right word, but warm? I dunno. It's funny. Then when she brought the to go order for his wife she said, "Okay gramps, here's grandma's food."  I laughed. People are funny.

I love yo guys and I'll get you the Bentonville address next week! In the meantime, don't send anything to Harrison because we have a post card for a guy in our zone that we still haven't given him because missionaries are terrible at forwarding mail.

Love you!

Elder Christopher Drake