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After several months of living in Montana, Kyra and Greta have decided to embrace the “Western lifestyle”. That means they bought some cowboy hats, which they wear around town. Last night at the Bigfork Rodeo, I’m sure they fit right in with the crowd.

I love it! They’re both so beautiful and fun.

I was scrolling Reddit just now, looking for some nice nature photos to use as computer desktop backgrounds. I stumbled across this amazing shot of Peyto Lake in Alberta:

Literally a dozen photos later, I saw this shot, by a different photographer:

The contrast between the two startled me. I’m sure that standing in this spot, looking out over the wilderness, is breathtaking. The latter photo above looks amazing. But compared with the former, it seems dull and drab.

Sometimes I feel like my photography– despite years of effort– is like the second photo. I remember being in places and feeling awestruck by them, but my pictures don’t always reflect it. I enjoy doing post-processing work, although I feel like I need to stay true to the actual scene. For example, the first photo here seems over-processed, and I don’t want to take it that far. I guess I just need to find the right balance.

Luckily photography can be a lifelong pursuit, and I still have a lot of life in me. One of these days…

Missionary life is divided into chunks of time called “transfers” which last six weeks each. At the end of a transfer, many of the missionaries serving in an area are shuffled around and reassigned to new areas and new companions. In the past, I’d hear missionaries talk about upcoming transfer days and how nervous they were about what would happen. Will I stay in this area for another six weeks? If not, where will I go? Who will I be with? There’s often speculation and good-natured joking.

Only now, when I’m serving a mission, do I really appreciate the anxiety of transfers. Of course Pepper and I aren’t going anywhere– we’ll serve in the same area for our entire mission, and I’m confident I won’t be assigned to a different companion. But our little “district” (three sets of missionaries) got transfer news today, and they’re all being split up. We posed for one last selfie together.

Although it’s sad to see my new friends leave, they’re not really going all that far. I’ll see them in a few weeks when all the missionaries get together for a conference. And I’m excited to meet their replacements, the missionaries being transferred into the district.

So now we’ve finished our first transfer. Many more to come.

When it’s 115 degrees outside and the sun is beating town, you look for the shade.

Even if it means you’re on the far end of the parking lot, a quarter mile from the store doors.

Looking around the lot, all the trees had cars clustered under them, hiding from the heat. We’re learning.

They say it’s a small world, but even more so in the church. And even more so on a mission! For example, here we are a couple weeks ago with our friend Sister Holliday, who’d just become a missionary that morning.

She’s in Oregon serving a mission now, and she told us she has a friend serving a mission in Montana… who knows us.

And today I found out that Elder Hahn, who’s from Wyoming and serving a mission here in California with me, is a good friend of my nephew Ty, who’s serving a mission in Texas.

It seems that no matter where you are on a mission, you know someone who knows someone who knows you. Fun stuff.

Another week of mission life has come and gone. We’re gradually finding our place here, figuring out how we should be serving in this little corner of California. Unlike junior missionaries, who receive substantial training and continuous guidance, we’ve realized senior missionaries don’t get much of either, and are essentially dropped into an area and trusted to do what’s needed. That’s given us a great opportunity (and responsibility) to work hard.

One of the great joys of our work here is spending time with the younger missionaries. There are ten of them serving here in the valley, and not only are they hard workers, they’re doing everything in the hot days where the temperature is regularly hitting 110 now. Although I didn’t take pictures of everything we did, here are some samples of our time together.

We played a very serious game of Skull King. (This is the moment before the traditional Yo ho ho declaration of bids.)

In our district council meeting, Elder Bushman shared his award-winning pickup line.

We spend a day or two each week working at the food bank, loading cars with donated food.

Elder Skousen knows the secret: when it’s 95 degrees at 7:30 in the morning, you choose to load watermelons. Why? Because they’re chilled!

The missionaries use some computers at the church to write emails to family, practice their Spanish skills, and fill out reports. However, the computers are ancient and were running a years-out-of-date Windows operating system that was limping along. I spent a couple hours rebuilding the computers with Linux, and now they hum along nicely. I might’ve inadvertently signed up for a year of being the “tech support guy” but I’m glad I could improve the tools they’re using in their work.

We attended a mission conference in San Diego, which is always a nice opportunity to enjoy a 75-degree afternoon. Sisters Johnson and Bodily carpooled with us, and we had a grand time with them.

Elder Bruderer and I fixed his toilet, which has been spouting water for weeks. He’s heading home in a few days, after serving faithfully for two years, but didn’t want to leave a broken toilet for the missionary who will be taking his place. Good man.

As the week wound to a close, we had a special opportunity to spend a little time with the sisters. During our conversation, I commented “It’s the Spirit, man!” We laughed, and agreed it sounded like something you’d see on a bumper sticker. So…

These fine men and women are an inspiration to me and Pepper. We’ve only known them a few weeks but already they’re family. The Spirit is absolutely with them.

Every now and then, we “meet up” with the kids on Google Meet to have a video call and play some online board games. Today we all took advantage of Meet’s special effects and donned sunglasses and mustaches.

After a bit, we chose to play Bang, which is a social deduction game with a Spaghetti Western theme. Naturally we had to wear cowboy hats!

It was a riot. The family who plays together stays together. Yeehaw!

Over the last few years, Pepper and I have become quite enamored with our standing desks. It’s awesome to be able to sit for a while, then stretch a bit and stand. We love that they’re motorized and can adjust to various heights.

Here in our new digs, we don’t have the luxury of custom-designed built-in standing desks, so we have to make do. We’ve been using a couple of folding tables, and they’ve been… fine. But not great. Thinking back to my ghetto desk thirteen years ago, we headed over to Home Depot and bought four cinder blocks. Bam, a standing desk for less than eight bucks!

Although she doesn’t mind standing all the time, I prefer the option to switch, so I bought an adjustable desk on Amazon. It arrived today and I built it in about twenty minutes. For the cheap price, it’s actually pretty sturdy and well-built.

A bit at a time, we’re putting together the comforts of home in our new home.

I feel like in our world today, people are condemned for changing their minds. Given new insights, or a well-reasoned argument, shouldn’t it be acceptable– and in fact lauded– when someone decides to change their view? Shouldn’t we be able to say humbly “I misunderstood” or “I was misinformed” or even “I was wrong”? Yet here we are, in the age of the internet, where everything we write and say is recorded for all time: where past statements and opinions are held up to scrutiny when we say something different now. Where changing our minds is perceived as weakness, insecurity, or indecision.

Although I’m not saying I feel oppressed or mocked for changing my mind, I’ve been studying and learning a lot of late, and I must admit my views of certain things are shifting. It’s a good exercise, and one I hope brings me to a better place of understanding. Moreover, I hope I can avoid judging others for shifting their perspective, and instead celebrate with them as they find a new way to look at something.

I stumbled upon this wisdom from one of our Founding Fathers:

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

— Benjamin Franklin

My watch congratulates me whenever I walk six thousand steps in a day. Today, for the first time, I topped twenty thousand.