24 New Missionaries Arriving | Hispanic Resource Centers | Steve & Sue Ellen

Hi Family & Friends,

Question: What is new in Las Vegas?
Elder Doxey: Lots of new things, everyday. I forgot to tell you a couple weeks ago I got a new companion...Elder Webb, from Eagle Mountain, Utah. He is a great missionary, and we are working well together.

Patacones

This week we have been visiting with a church member from the Dominican Republic who is not active. She speaks fluent Spanish of course, and made us patacones, so that is awesome. She is a really great person and should come back to church one day, but made it clear she is not coming back anytime soon. She left the church for THE DUMBEST REASON...she got offended by a person at church. We'll keep checking in on her, but that's not a good reason to not come to church.

Question: Where are you allowed to teach people, with Covid restrictions?
Elder Doxey: We still cannot go in homes, so we teach outside, usually in the park. We spend a lot of time figuring out how to teach people on Facebook, and connect with people that way. I think teaching face to face in the park is more effective.

We are making a decent effort though Facebook though. We actually have a budget for Facebook Ads in our area, so we are completely in charge of that budget, and how it is spent (and leads followed up on) effectively. 

Question: What other forms of Covid friendly outreach are going on?
Elder Doxey: We have a pretty big effort going on, where the Church is involved. For now we call it the "Hispanic Resource Center Project." This is in the early stages of development, and I am just learning about it. The Church is creating 5-6 "Hispanic Resource Centers" in the Las Vegas area...think LDS Family Services next to a D.I. but without the D.I.

From what I understand, these will be a regular place where we can teach English classes to those who want to learn English, and they can also get career development advice from others that work there, connections to job resources, meet people, etc.

We also gave out some pass along cards to some people at Walmart. The pass along cards in Spanish are especially good. When my comp and I teach we always try to use some kind of visual aid, whether it is videos, pictures, diagrams, object lessons. If not, people just zone out. 

I also went on exchanges with Elders Shipley and Clark this week. Both of these Elders go home soon, and are teaching some good people. They have a good zone.  Zones are so different. If is a really good opportunity to go around from zone to zone. 

Question: So, it is your P-day, what are you doing?
Elder Doxey: Today our Zone got together with another zone to the south of us to get some exercise by playing frisbee football. I know a lot of the missionaries in that zone really well. (NOTE: At this point we talked with some of those missionaries, one Elder who spoke perfect Spanish, another sister missionary--Sister Black--whose friend from Lone Peak High School died in a hiking accident this past week in Germany where she was serving a mission).

We had a 5K planned for the whole mission a couple week ago on P-day, and if you can believe it we had to cancel it because it was going to be about 50 degrees outside! Well, we finally were able to schedule it on our last P-day.  The plan was to get the missionaries moving and not cooped up with Covid fear, and of course for some exercise.  I'm dead tired. It feels like I ran it twice.

Question: What do your AP duties have you doing this week?
Elder Doxey: We pick up one more missionary at the airport this week, and then 23 more next week. The mission is really filling up. Lots of training to do. I will say, one perk of being assigned a rental car is that they do not have a speed governor on them...anyone not assigned a rental car gets a church-owned car, and those have speed governors, but we still drive around very cautiously. The rental car models we get are determined by whatever the rental agency has available.

Lately they have put us in all kinds of nice cars. Right now we are in a 2020 Ford Explorer Limited with air conditioned seats, turbo boost...it's hype. Before that, we were in a Toyota RAV4 XLE, and before that a Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk (all are a bit different than the pangas or cayucos we used to get around in San Blas). As far as training efforts I am preparing for, this week we have a huge Mission Leadership Conference (a training meeting) on Wednesday. I have a lot of prepare for that meeting--definitely on my mind.

I learned a bit more about how we are rotating through all these brand new cars.  Apparently, the Church buys them brand new, we drive them up to a point where they “have a few miles on them” then the dealership buys them back and sells them for top dollar. 

2020 Explorer Limited

For the Church, it ends up being cheaper than renting cars; for the dealer it is cheaper than letter brand new cars sit on their lot. Win-win. Some of the Area 70s make these decisions.  The rental cars we have in the mission can be driven farther than the non-rental cars (they do not count as mission miles). It is tricky to manage all this, but it does save the church some money and works out well for those needing cars.

Question: Anything else noteworthy this week?
Elder Doxey: On Monday we had dinner with the Stake President, President McClellan. He is a great man.  One other thing that is really random and awesome is that this past week I was working in another area (on divisions) with a companionship. They had a dinner appointment with a member family while we were still on the divisions, so I went to the family's home like we normally would. So, there I was, in a "random area, visiting a random home for dinner." 

I walk in, and there is Aunt Sue Ellen and Uncle Steve with my cousin Dustin & Elise's kids (their grandkids)! Elise Call's brother's home is where we were supposed to eat, but at the last minute they could not take us because of a scheduling conflict. Steve and Sue Ellen were available to "feed the missionaries" so they had come over to help Elise's brother and were just as shocked as I was when we walked in the door! They took us out to eat. It was soooo nice of them!

Gotta go. Love you all.

-Elder Doxey