Q&A, talking with everyone from Baptists to Muslims, teaching a Bengal, and a Spring Break ghost town

So this week Bryon and I both asked a lot of questions and I thought I'd just include those sections of our emails (Mom in pink & Dad in blue) with Trent's responses:

Hey Son!
So fun to get the news last week!  And quite different from the work in Paper Mill.  So of course I have a million questions  : )
Hey family! What's new!
Well, I'll get right to answering questions =]

So, I'm guessing you don't get fed by members any more?  Does that mean you have to shop for and prepare your own food most of the time?
We get fed by members occasionally. But not often. But that's fine; it'll give me a chance to get rid of some extra weight ;) And yes, I do a lot of preparing my own food. Don't ask what... ;)

Who are the Portuguese-speaking missionaries in Paper Mill now?  So do they have the apartment to themselves?

The Portuguese speaking missionaries are the following:
-Elder Mundt (This is his last transfer) and Elder Goodman (he was called english speaking originally, but President King changed his assignment. He's pretty new, but not straight out of the MTC, so that's good)
-Elder Emmett (previous comp, Brazilian Visa Waiter from Guatemala) and Elder Leatham (Brazilian visa waiter from Las Vegas).
And that's it. Interesting, huh? And yes, they have an apartment all to themselves, because the Paper Mill English Elders were replaced by Sisters who are doing a great job, from what I hear.

Where does the campus branch meet?
The Athens University Branch meets on campus at the Institute building.

Do you have to have permission from the university to proselyte on campus?
Yep, we have permission. We literally walk around campus, stopping people to talk to them. We always try to set up return appointments at the institute building (1450 S Lumpkin Street, Athens GA, just in case you were wondering), but often the students are busy/reluctant, etc.

Are you using your bike now?

Nope, not using my bike yet. Although it HAS been used, as one of the Elders from the Athen's First Ward who was in need of a bike (as his had a flat) asked me if he could borrow it for the day. So the bike is being used in the work of the Lord! Good for it!

What is it like proselyting mostly to people your own age?

It's pretty interesting proselyting to people mostly my age. You have to imagine, these are people coming into college with drive, thinking they're going to change the world (which is great). We end up getting in a lot of interesting discussions as a result. I've had talks with the following types of denominations/beliefs/etc:

• baptists (by grace we're saved)
• catholics (authority passed down through Peter)
• non-denominational (no authority needed, just do what Jesus says)
• atheist (no god)
• agnostic (can't say if there is or isn't a god)
• pentecostal (crazy gift of tonges, etc.)
• calvinist (pre-destination/God created people to be destroyed if they don't serve him)
• methodist (the bible is literally God's word and perfect and can't be added to or taken away from)
• jewish (read the old testament, you'll get the idea ;] )
• hindu (reincarnation, etc)
• muslim (Jesus a prophet, but not the Savior)

and really just about anything else you can think of. But it's a huge testimony builder. Everything else is SO confusing! I think one of the most interesting things I've heard was from a catholic trying to explain the trinity. He ended his description with this: "In the end, God is mysterious, and we're really not supposed to understand. That's what faith is for." SAD.

Dad's questions:

Good morning Elder. We hope you had good week. Like Mom, I also have lots of questions, having polled fan base and compiled a list of questions to assist you in providing a more complete perspective on your service at UGA:

1.       How is the university different (in feel and look) from BYU? How are they the same besides being universities with lots of students?   From a Google Maps perspective, the UGA campus seems much bigger than BYU’s. Is that correct?
It's pretty dang different. It's bigger than BYU for sure. Not by a ton, but not by a little bit either. There are roads all throughout the University, and there's a free school bus system provided (which is why we have no car and no bikes =]). The buses are all driven by the students, which is pretty cool.

This piqued my curiosity, so I checked both schools websites:

BYU 

311 buildings on  560-acres

Enrollment Fall 2010, ± 33,000 undergrad/grad students 

UGA 

388 buildings on 615 acres 

Enrollment Fall 2009 34,885 undergrad/grad students

Also, I looked up the UGA transport he mentions and wow!, it looks great (see below)

2.       What is your week like? Please describe a normal day.

Well, we wake up/prepare 6:30, personal study 8, comp study 9, leave 10ish. We'll eat lunch around 12 or 1, eat dinner around 5 or 6 and be back home about 9. Fill the day with random teaching appointments at the institute building we've set up earlier in the week (usually 1 or 2), short lessons with members of the branch where we work for referrals, etc. (usually 1 or 2), and fill the rest of the day with walking around different parts of campus doing contacts with students. They're pretty long days, pretty much filled with 100% work all the time (which is awesome, because that doesn't always happen in normal areas).


3.       How many students are there in the UGA branch?
There are usually 50 branch members who attend church every Sunday, but there's quite a few more total in the branch (in-/less-active).

4.       Tell us more about Elder Williams (e.g. number in his family, interests, likes, etc.). Beyond being from San Diego, CA, we know nothing about him.
Elder Williams grew up playing baseball, but blew out his knee at the beginning of High School, and went through pretty extensive physical therapy. He plays racquetball instead now. He has a hard time falling asleep at night. He's got 2 sisters and a brother.  He wants to work for the San Diego Padres (that's his dream, at least). Tell me anything else specific you want to know about him =]

OK, so I’m going to limit the number of questions so that you have time to respond to them in depth and aren’t limiting your responses to mono-syllabics. 

Well, sounds like things are going great at home, and BYU's doing pretty well considering the crazy stuff with Davis (I hear all about how BYU's doing--the branch members talk about it all the time).

Just thought I'd let you know, we taught a lesson to someone who plays for the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL. We didn't know it at the time, but he was HUGE, so we assumed he played for Georgia's team. I won't include his name for his own privacy reasons, but I guess we'll find out next week if he's interested or not. =]

So this week is probably going to be pretty rough, considering Campus is a ghost town (spring break). So we're looking to get in lots of service for the branch members and a couple less active members in hopes it sparks something in them (referral, the spirit, etc.) But it's great to be here! 

Love you guys!

Elder Fenton McGregor




Just for fun, some UGA stats (from Wikipedia):

The University of Georgia (UGA) is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States. UGA offers seventy-nine degree programs in a wide range of disciplines and enrolls about 26,000 undergraduate and about 9,000 graduate students from the United States and around the world every year.
UGA student athletes compete intercollegiately as the Bulldogs. As a member of the Southeastern Conference, the Bulldogs have won thirty-seven national championships and 130 conference championships.

Besides academics, research, and athletics, UGA is also well known for its campus in the acclaimed college town of Athens,^[5] with dominant architectural themes of Federal—the older buildings—and Classical and Antebellum style. Situated on a 615-acre main campus, UGA has a workforce of more than 9,800, an annual budget of about $1 billion, and a physical plant valued at some $500 million, making it one of the largest employers in Georgia and a major contributor to the state's economic and cultural vitality.^[6]