Reassigned in Amish Paradise

What's up what's up! Crazy week for sure! For starters, my new area is straight up Amish country! There is horse and buggies everywhere and even the stores like Walmart have horse and buggy parking! It's super crazy probably 50% of the population of our area is Amish or Mennonite. 

My new companion is Elder Mink from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He's a sweet dude, we are working hard and having a good time! Our companionship title is the Street Rangers yahmean
So here's the biggest craziest news of the week. There's a big change happening in the mission on July 1st. The Lancaster and Chambersburg zones are being put in to the Baltimore mission...I am in the Lancaster zone which means yes, as of July 1st I will officially be serving in the Maryland Baltimore Mission and will no longer be serving in the good ol PPM. It's pretty crazy I know. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but the Lord needs me there. President Johnson prayerfully decided which missionaries would be transferred in to those zones, and I am one of those. It is interesting actually, when I first read my call letter 8 months ago, the part that talks about how my assignment may be adjusted always stood out to me and I didn't know why, but now I do! That was the spirit telling me to expect the unexpected haha.

So yeah this is really crazy like we straight up got reassigned and I'm not in the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh mission anymore it's crazy. Lots of crazy stuff! I just keep thinking how weird it is that the Baltimore Maryland mission is my mission now. It's crazy. I have all sorts of mixed feelings about it but whatever happens I know it's part of Heavenly Father's plan for me. It is sad but exciting. I'm going to miss a lot of people in the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh mission, but I'm excited to see where the Baltimore mission takes me.

This week we were trying several different creative finding tactics to find people to teach, because it's pretty hard around here considering the amount of Amish and Mennonite people. The Amish and Mennonites are sort of closed off to us when we talk to them, even if we don't talk about the gospel and are just trying to have a conversation. We tried to befriend some Amish teenagers the other day and they weren't really having it so yeah. But anyways one of the things we did this week is we went to this Amish market/auction thing in a town called Bird-In-Hand (funny town name right). Now I know that sounds like a dumb idea because of what I said about Amish people not talking to us, but there was tons of tourists and some locals at this market. So we went and brought a bunch of pass along cards and talked to a decent amount of people, without it being weird like we were poaching in Amish territory haha. We even met a less active guy from North Dakota! We offered to have the missionaries in his area to stop by his house but he said they already do so that was cool haha.
We saw our investigator Mac on Saturday and he is way awesome! He is set with a baptismal date for July 23rd. He shared with us his testimony of the Book of Mormon and how he came to know that it's true. He really likens the scriptures to himself it's so awesome! And he remembered everything they taught about the restoration! Right down to proper authority and how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon out of ancient Egyptian from the plates! He is so solid it's sick! He has such a great understanding of everything we are super excited to continue to teach him!
I'm excited to be in this area and I'm excited to be in a new mission! Thanks for all of your love and support everyone you guys rule!

- Elder Poulsen