Detroit!

So, I'm serving in Ann Arbor, mostly on the college campus!

Let's see, I left off on Saturday, midway through the day. We finished laundry and packed and went to the other class.

Sunday: The food today was not very good. All very dry. We studied and went to devotionals and all that. We went to a departure devotional in the evening that basically went like this: "stand up if you're going to such and such a mission." That went on for a while, then they said, "You're all awesome missionaries and you'll do great!" and then we went home. We finalized packing and did some cleaning. We finally got to sleep at 11 PM.

Monday: Longest day of my life. Elder Jensen and I woke up at 1 AM, packed and made sure we had everything. Which took a surprisingly large amount of time. We made it to the bus at 2:30 AM and headed off at 3 AM (because somebody forgot to wake up). At this point, I had not had breakfast. We made it to the airport about 4 AM but the baggage check-ins didn't open until 4:30. So we waited around and I ate two pop-tarts. Finally, we checked our bags and got through security. Then I called home, which was really nice, but I could tell Mom and Dad were very tired. Still happy to talk to me but it was only 4 in the morning for them. I had to get off because there were only 3 pay phones and many Elders who wanted to use them. I bought myself an apple juice to drink with my Dramamine. I slept for 2 of the 3 hours of the flight. I woke up in Dallas. We had to book it over to the gate because it was in a different building of the airport. Two of our Sisters went off to use the pay phones (we didn't know this). So when we got to the gate, the Sisters weren't there and the airport was closing the gate. We got worried. They did make it but only just barely. The Dramamine had worn off quite a bit by then, so I wasn't able to sleep and I was close to throwing up, but I didn't. We touched down at 2:30 PM in Detroit and were met by the mission president at 3. He had some poor sandwiches for us (which I still ate because I was starving). Then we went to the mission home and were interviewed, signed some stuff and ate some homemade lasagna (which was much appreciated). Then Elder Jensen and I went out with Elders and went tracting. It was quite fun. I got rejected a couple times but I also talked to some interesting people. We crashed in their apartment. They were nice enough to let us use their beds and they slept on the floor. As soon as I hit that pillow, I was out. And I did not wake up until 6:30 the next morning.

Tuesday: Woke up, got ready and headed to the chapel in Livonia. I found out who my trainer is and we had a transfer meeting. My trainer is Elder Shepherd and he's awesome. He's from Utah and he's into sound engineering. I'm really glad though because he's actually older than me. I would have hated to be trained by someone younger than me. So we were dropped off at our apartment. I was very glad because I got time to unpack (which I was surprised about). I had a frozen burrito and a bagel for lunch and we talked for quite a while, just talking about the mission. Apparently, there's a lot of Asians and a lot of people who don't speak English. Then we went out and now we're emailing. I think we'll have a dinner appointment and a district meeting but I have no clue.

Happily serving,
-Elder Michael Carlson