Elder Thomas Farr: Thousands of Pounds of Cheese and a Bruised Leg

Ça a été une bonne semaine mes amis!

It's been a jam-packed week my friends! To start, last Tuesday I got to have my first exchange! We swapped comps with the Somersworth Elders and I got to spend most of the day with Elder Wright. He's an awesome guy and we had such a blast. The times where all four of us were together was just about the most fun I've had on my mission so far. I love these Elders.

On Thursday we had our long-anticipated distribution day with the Sanford Backpack Program. Two or three times a week, Elder Greene and I work with the program to put together and distribute bags of food to kids at the local high school and middle school. We usually put together around 200 bags for the high school and around 50 for the middle school. But this week, a giant truck from Salt Lake came in with 75,000 pounds of food. Other contributors brought the total up to over 90,000 pounds! We had about 1,000 large boxes of various kinds of food.

Elder Greene and I signed up to help out for the whole day rather than just one or two shifts which ended up being from 7:45-6:45! So from 7:45-3 we loaded the boxes with all of the different kinds of food (outside in the freezing weather (aka not great for an Arizona boy)) and then from 3-6 we distributed the boxes to the line of cars that came through pretty steadily for those 3+ hours. Then, after the cars had all come through, we had more butter and cheese left over than expected so we spent those 45 minutes loading the remainder into the Backpack Program's vans.

By the end of the project, the sun had been down for about an hour and I was so cold and sore that I could hardly make my way back to the car. When we got home, I wrote a very shacky journal entry and knocked right out. I can confidently say that I have never been more physically exhausted in my life. But it was a really cool experience to endeavor on something so big. And, I made the news!

On Saturday, a couple of great things happened! First is that I finally, after months of cancelation and unfortunate scheduling, was able to join another in-field French class! This was my first time having any conversation in French in a couple of months and it was great! In these classes, they put you in different breakout rooms and have you talk about whatever you want with different missionaries for 10ish minutes at a time. The coolest thing happened in the first breakout where, when I said I was from Mesa, the Elder I was talking to turned back to his companion and asked if he knew me. When the companion came into view, it was none other than Elder Braeden Smith, a guy I went to school with! What are the chances that I would run into someone, in an online class, that I knew from my tiny school with a graduating class of about 100 each year.

After that class, Elder Greene and I had a lesson with our friend Mike. I've been leading a lot of the lessons lately including this one and I had the awesome opportunity to invite Mike to be baptized. He readily accepted! It was such an awesome experience to personally extend that invitation for the first time. Mike is such an awesome friend.

Yesterday, Colby, a friend who joined the church a few days before I got to the area, was set apart to be a ward missionary! Colby has been as rock-solid of a convert as anyone could ask for. Since his baptism, he has shown up to church every week and he's now blessed the sacrament multiple times too! We can't wait to start getting him in on calls so he can share his awesome testimony!

Funny story: on Saturday, I was backing Elder Greene up to make sure he wouldn't hit a nearby car in the parking lot. One miscommunication led to another and I ended up getting my leg pinned, and a little squished, between the two cars. I've got a pretty gnarly bruise on my leg and a bit of a limp. But I walked (or limped) away from it okay and now I've got a good story out of it! And my leg kept both the cars safe so there's no damage there. I look kinda like a pirate when I walk which is pretty fun. I'm having a good time with it.

Anyway, it's been a real good week mes amis and I can't wait to tell y'all all about the next one!

Passez une bonne semaine et bonne Saint-Valentin (tardif)!