Week 52 in Sherman, TX

Transfer News. I am staying here in Sherman. My new companion is named Elder G. He is originally from Mexico, but he moved to San Antonio and has lived there for the past 13 years. He has 22 months on his mission and only has one more transfer after this one.

This past week has been kind of slow, mainly because of the cold. We woke up to snow today. We have been visiting a lot of members this week. Having them get to know the new elder. 

Christmas is coming up. We did a deep clean of the apartment and we found a 6 foot Christmas tree and so we pulled it out and decorated it. It is the most wonderful time of the year! 

Love you all and have a great week.

 

 

Week 51 in Sherman, TX

Don't know what to really say about this last week. It was long and short at the same time. It kept me thinking of what I am going to do my last week. My companion went and said goodbye to everyone. He has everything packed up and today will be full of visiting people and saying goodbye. I have enjoyed my time with elder W and I have leaned lots from him.

We found a board game called Mormon-opoly (monopoly Mormon style) and we have played it with the other Sherman elders who lived just down the street. It gets pretty competitive. 

President is doing something different this time with transfers. we wont find out if we are getting transferred until Monday night and we have to be at the church in Dallas to meet on Tuesday morning and there we will find out who we will get. It is a bit different. 

Can't wait to find out who I will get next.

Week 50 in Sherman, Texas

OK, so the Halloween party was kind of a bummer. first off it was in McKinney which is about 45 minutes away from here. then we get there and there and the zone leaders forgot to tell is that we needed to provide our own pumpkins. So no one was able to do the contest. We had to have a spiritual thought, which was good, but half of the zone decided that they had other plans and just didn't come. So there was only like 8 of us there and we just played volleyball. Earlier that day we had all of our planed appointments fall through and Sherman didn't have school that day so people started trick or treating really early this year and that means we couldn't go tracting. It was a good thing that the other elders in our area had the same thing happen to them. They live about a mile away from our apartment. My companion got a pinata for his birthday and never got the opportunity to break it. So we bought some candy and busted it up at the church. That had to have been the highlight of my week. He demolished that thing and candy went everywhere. We did it inside the church. We hung it up on the basketball hoop with a bunch of old ties from my companion. When the candy went flying some of it got stuck in the lights and up on the walls.

As for my investigators, not much has happened with them. They have all been really busy and we have had troubles getting an appointment with them. 

My companion has started his packing. He has a ton of boxes that he is sending home. So far he has only packed his books and he has 4 and a half large flat rate boxes full. There is still more stuff he has to send home. It is getting me a bit trunky. 

So i got my new camera. It is so awesome.  I love it. I am starting to think about Christmas and i have started shopping for you guys. Could you refill my account this week. There are already some items that i have picked out for you.

It is exciting to hear about Emilee coming home. Next week that will be my companion. I also want to take him out to dinner if i can. Just one last thing before he goes next week. 

Send me some pictures of your pumpkins. 

I love the costumes this year. No offense to Taylor, but the nacho one was my favorite one. 

I hope that you all had a great Halloween this year and hope that you will have a great week.

Week 49 in Sherman, TX

This week our ward did its fall festival. It was really fun. There is a member that owns a bunch of land and we went down there. He also has his pilots licence and a plane and a hanger in his property and a runway. He had a great idea, inspired by the Meet the Mormons movie he decided to do a candy bombing. It was really neat. Then there was a bonfire where the wood was stacked like ten feet tall. The ward had a good time and they invited a lot of their friends. We got to talk to them all. Nothing came from it but at least their friends got to see that we are not as weird and some would believe.

My area is huge. If you look on a map go to McKinney and right above their city limits we start our area. Then go through Van Austing up to Sherman go through Denison and keep on going through the Oklahoma border and go through Durrant and that is our area. We don't bike at all. 

 

There is going to be a pumpkin carving contest for the mission during Halloween because we are not aloud to go out that night, the mission will be having a big party instead. Wish me luck. 

Not much else is new. 

Thank you for all the support and have a great week.

Week 48 in Sherman, TX

This week we had a couple new people that came to church. It was pretty sweet. One girl we are teaching we brought the bishops daughter to help us teach her last Friday. We helped teach the restoration and we invited her to church. We had been inviting her to church for the past couple of weeks but she has flaked out every time. This week we found out why. Her dad lives in Michigan and she lives with her aunt down here. Her father doesn't want her to go anywhere without a chaperone. then a miracle happened. Her dad called her aunt during the lesson and the aunt explained the situation and she gave the phone o the bishops daughter. She talked to him for a little bit and then the dad said that she can go to the church this Sunday and she was able to make it and she loved it.

We are also teaching this part member family. The wife is a member and the husband is a Christian. He is really smart and he loves to talk with us. He came to church and he has been participating in the lessons there and I think that he really enjoys it. We have had a couple of cool lessons with him. Driving home from a lesson with them on a farm road number road. We hit a skunk and the smell stuck with the car for the next day. 

A couple of weeks ago my companion showed me a ghost pepper hot sauce at the store. On the label it said," this can also be used as a industrial cleaner" and last Thursday I found out that the mango habenero wings at buffalo wild wings can do the exact same thing. They were good and I know that I will be clean for the next good while.

Hope that you all had a good week love you.

 

 

Week 47 in Sherman, Texas

this week was somewhat disappointing. we had a ton of people flake out on us. on Tuesday and Wednesday we had 5 lessons each day drop. it was pretty hard, but through all of the hard there was a speck of good. well a bit more than a speck. we set a baptismal date with an actually solid person. He went to general conference and has been reading on his own. it has been so amazing with him. it is set for November 8th. it will be the last Saturday in the transfer. and my companion is hoping to baptize one more person before he leaves.

Halloween is coming up and we wanted to take a picture somewhere scary. and off the side of the highway there is a abandoned orphanage from like the 30's or something. and we went a took a picture with it. it is all gated off and NO we didn't go inside. we were good missionaries and we stayed outside the fence. but it looks pretty freaky. that was probably the most exiting thing of the week besides the baptism date. 

 

we have had 2 rainy days this week and it dropped the temperature down to the 50's. i was wearing my jacket.  it is supposed to rain again to day and some members are telling us that there is a possibility of a tornado. cool. 

oh and one more thing that happened was my companion got his Trunky papers (his flight plan). he knows exactly when he will be going home and the exact time he lands in Jersey. that just blew his mind. we are still working hard but he keeps reminding me that he can count the number of weeks on his hands and that he knows how far away that plane is. 

also another thing. i got to see the meet the mormons movie. it was awesome. i loved all of the stories and it was so great. cant wait to see it again. i love you guys so much and hope that you all had a great week.

 

 

Week 46 in Sherman, Texas

This week has been awesome. there is so much work to do here. and i especially  love the car. we are teaching a ton of people. My companion has a goal to baptize three people by the end of the transfer or in other words by the time he goes home. we are on our way to that goal. the area is interesting though. i guess it is what i get for being out in the middle of nowhere Texas.

we have had a big miracle this last week. we got a phone call on Thursday. and we answered and the guy that called us first said that he is not crazy. then went on to explain a dream he had where he heard a horn that woke him up and there standing in front of him was an angel who said his name was Moroni. and he told him to read the plates of gold. the guy then told us that he had never heard the name Moroni and asked us if it meant anything to us. then he asked what are the gold plates. we told him we could come over and explain it to him. so we went and shared the restoration. and he said that we answered a ton of his questions. then after he walked us out to our car and he asked us another question. he said that he cant drink coffee or smoke anymore. it makes him sick. he has been clean for 3 weeks now. then asked us if it means anything to us. wow right? the guy seems pretty honest. he has a medical job and has a girlfriend and a kid. he came to general conference but left after we gave him a church tour before conference even began. he said that he could feel something so strong there and it made him a little uncomfortable.  he is a great guy though. 

Elder W is a great companion. he wants to work so hard his last transfer. we are keeping busy and we get along great. 

well it is a bi-lingual area because there are little Spanish speakers here. i haven't had a lesson in Spanish yet but i have been able to speak it. 

i have all my pictures i have taken backed up on two different devices. other than my camera. that same thing happened to another missionary a couple of months ago in Famers Branch. except their house didn't get broken into. he had his bag stolen and all 2 years of his mission was gone! but don't worry. and i have 2 memory cards here. one from the beginning of the mission with 4 gigs and the other one you sent me for my mp3 with 16. just keep that one safe for me at home. sorry i haven't sent much pictures home. the computers wouldn't let me send and i think that these computers are the same way. there are even some pictures that you send me that i cant open up on certain computers. it is just stupid, but i will try to send you some.

i get to see the movie on Tuesday.  we have to go all the way to mesquite to see it. everyone in the whole mission has to go there.  it was originally going to be at 9:30 and we were going to try to get a member to take us, but then we got a text and president wants to do a meeting before hand  at 7:30. that means we have to leave the apartment before 6. so we are just going to drive there. it really sucks for people in East Texas who have to drive 4 hours to get there. and their members cant see it.  i am excited for the movie. it will be so awesome.

hope you had a great conference. i absolutely loved it. the Saturday secession was the best. i loved it.

All the changes they made were so cool. it was really neat to listen to all the native speakers in their native language. love you all. bye.

 

Week 45 in Mesquite, TX

TRANSFERRED

So here is the big news I am going to go to Sherman. I will be with Elder W. This will be his last transfer and he is so trunky. I WILL BE IN A CAR!!!!!!! cant wait to finally be in a car again. The area is in the country and is not quite considered East Texas. It will be a bi-lingual area and I will actually get to use my Spanish. Can't wait. I am super sad that I am leaving Mesquite and this has been my favorite area so far. No offense to people reading from my other areas. 

So a little about my new companion is I that I found out that he loves to work out. so I am back going to get buff.

 

So this week we had a giant meeting about stuff. Half the mission came in. It was really packed.

We learned about a movie that the church is making called Meet the Mormons. It will be in theaters and we will be able to see a special viewing for it. Can't wait to see it. 

Yep i got the package. I love my GPS. I will use it because I got a car. YAY. 

You are changing up the house so much. I wont be able to recognize it. I hope that the table turns out ok. 

love you so much.

New adventure will be starting. Can't wait for it. 

Love you all. 

bye.

 

Zone Meeting/Training

The Relief Society made lunch for all these amazing missionaries!

 

Week 44 in Mesquite,TX

So let me say that this week was one of the most boring weeks of my life. Everyone got sick and we got close to nothing done. It started on Monday when three people in my district got sick and then on Tuesday another got sick then my companion got sick Thursday night and Friday all day. We stayed home and it was so boring.  The only saving grace of the week was my HUMP DAY! It was awesome. There is a member that cuts our hair and her secretary at her salon is named M. She loves the missionaries and heard about the shirt burning and so she invited me to do it at her house. M M is her full name and she is not a Mormon. So we burned my shirt and I burned my six month tie too. I hadn't done that yet. Oh and BTW did A. send you the part about the M-150 I put in my tie before I burned it and about the part where i jumped over it? it was a fun night.

I cant believe it is almost Halloween already. Time has flown by. The tie I wore on hump day is just an orange color and design. I got that one at a garage sale. I am glad you had fun with the girls and you got a lot done this week. Wow I wont even recognize the kitchen anymore. You have done a great job. How have you kept Oscar away? That must have been tough.
 

This week we heard that the church is making a new movie called Meet the Mormons and it will be playing in theaters and we will be able to see it. Not in the theaters. They will have a preview for us to see it in a church. That will be pretty cool.
 

Thanks for sending the GPS. I will use and abuse that thing. It is really needed on the mission. Thank you for updating it.

Oh and on a sad note. L hasn't responded to us. I think it is because of her parents. It is too bad, but we need to respect their choices. Maybe now wasn't her time.

It would be cool to get someone else I know down here. I know two people down here Sister P M who says hi and Elder T L.  So if i could get someone else down here that would be really awesome.

i love the pictures and the picture holder. i already filled it up with other pictures i printed off. i have more pictures i am going to print off and buy another album and fill it up. thank you for everything. i love you and i got to go. bye.

This week is transfers and i don't know if i am staying or my companion is going to stay of if we are both going to be transferred out and have them bring in English missionaries. I want to stay. I love this ward. 

I hope that you all had a great week this week. 

Love you all.

Letter sent to us this week:
Dear Family,
Just a friendly reminder that it is 100 days til Christmas!!  Thank you for the hump day package.  I love the T-Shirt.  Taylor your drawing of a camel is awesome.  One of my favorite things though is the picture album.  It is awesome.  I love to see you all and all of my old friends and neighbors.  Dad you have gotten really skinny it is amazing how much you all have changed.  I hardly recognize anyone.  I love the picture of Oscar with the sign.  Coaches still look the same.  Thank you for the object lessons and the salsa.  I will need to buy some chips to eat it with.  It didn't spill.  Thank goodness and I love the tie.  I am so excited that I finally have some Spanish music!  Hope you like the card.  It is yet another thing that I have found here.  I hope that all my apartments are like this.  Just want to say that I miss you all a a lot and that I love you all so much.

Week 43 in Mesquite, TX

So this past week was pretty good. If you remember from last week I got that phone call from a former investigator named L. We met with her at a members house this week and it happened to be on the same day as another exchange with the zone leaders. So one of the zone leaders and I had the privilege to teach her. We went over the restoration and she remembers a lot but is is all jumbled up in her head. So we skipped around a lot to explain other things. She is a really awesome person. 

We taught her at a members home. L showed up like 15 min early and got to talk to them. they got along really nicely. It was a great lesson. The only problem is that she didn't come to church. She said that she would but then she didnt.

that is great Mikaela did so great. Hopefully she will break 20. I know she can do it.  Was it the same course as last year?  or have they changed it up again? it sounds like the team is getting good again. Are they going to contend for state again?

Taylor said that you will be taking them to the reservoir today. have fun. hope that the weather is nice. The past couple of days here have been a bit cold. We had a day in the low 70s. It felt super nice. I am being blessed with great weather on my mission.

Wow Emily is almost done isn't she? It has really been a year and a half has it? so Wayne and Shari will go to see her. I bet that island is pretty cool. 

You have only been to the temple 2 times this past year. I have been about 5 times already. You really need to step up your game. 

I will be looking for my package this week. I cant believe it has almost been a year. I need to celebrate. I know just how to celebrate the occasion. I will burn a shirt. At 6 months it is a tie (which i didnt do yet) at one year it is a shirt. and at a year and a half it is pants and at 2 years it is a suit.

yep those ones (pants) I am burning. Elder H had my same size and he grew out of them. so he left them for me and i have like 6 pairs of pants. 

 

My bag is about the same as it was when i last talked to you. i have had to sew a couple of parts. and i have been carrying a lot less stuff. Before i had my Spanish scriptures and two Spanish Book of Mormons in my bag. Now i only carry two Book of Mormons to hand out and a tiny bible. It takes a lot of weight off my shoulder.   

 

I haven't used that waterproofing you gave me at all. I still have the full bottle. My shoes are doing pretty fine. Cant wait to open my package on Wednesday. 

 

Another cool story was we were just riding our bikes around last Friday and there was this yard sale. We stopped and had a look around and asked the guy if he had any ties for sale and he told us to hold on one sec and he would bring them out. He brought out a 3 foot laundry basket full of ties. There were hundreds of ties there and I was able to get a couple of them to add to my collection.

oh BTW did you get my card i sent? it was another one i found in the apartment.

 

well i hope that you all had a great week. love you.

 

 

Missionaries leave behind interesting things!

 

Week 42 in Mesquite, TX

This week has been a lot like the last one, not much going on. It is like a roller coaster. One week you are full of appointments and the next you are bored out of your minds knocking and contacting.

I went on an exchange with the district leader Elder D this last Friday. It was fun being with him. He was once companions with Elder H. We spent almost the entire time talking about and making fun of elder H. No offense to him, but it is really easy to do.

I also got a random phone call from a girl on Friday. She said that she lived in East Texas and had been taking the lessons there. She had to move back to her parents house in Mesquite. She had found our phone number somehow and called me and asked for me by name. Cool huh. We will start teaching her on Tuesday. It is so cool that something like this happens. The Lord always blesses you after your hard work.

I LOVE THE PICTURES!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH.

So Dad told you to write short did he. He wrote me a pretty long email. Oh well. 

I can't wait to see all of the changes you have done to the house. I love you and thanks for the pictures once again.

 

Here is a picture of my new protein. It cost $20 as compared to $40 dollars and it has 29 servings as compared to 8. 

Also I heard that you had some problems with receiving my garbage chair 3 picture so here it is.

Can you look up for me object lessons that I can use in my missionary lessons. I want to use some new ones. If you could help me that would be great. thank you

 

Well sorry I don't have any more funny stories for y'all this week. I hope that you have a great week. love ya

 

 

 

Week 41 in Mesquite, Texas

So hi everyone!
How has your week been? I can sum up the week in two words, we tracted. Pretty exciting. Oh and BTW we baptized. Just a little important fact. His name is J O and he had been investigating for 5 years. It was really Neat. One of the first sister missionaries that first taught him came and was able to see him be baptized. He was really excited. The spirit was really strong there. This is what it makes it all worth it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA coach Barnes. Did you ask him if he was wearing his headlight or did he forget it? You should really get on him about it.

It is too bad about Wayne's mom. It must be really tough for him. I hope all goes well.

I need to write Grandma it has been a while. I have just been a bit busy and stressed.

How big are your pumpkins? The members here have been cooking veggies from their garden. It reminds me a lot of home. We have been offering to help with the gardening. It is sad, I miss gardening. 

Derek just emailed me. He sounds super exited to go. I hope that he does well.  

 

Oh and BTW Page  says hi. She is in my zone now.  

And one more question, can you bombard me with pictures of you guys next week. Like old pictures that you have on the computer. I have a small mp3 and I have all the pictures that you have ever sent me on it and I love looking through it. Thank you.

 

Love y'all lots.
Have a great week.

Week 40 in Mesquite, Texas

This week has been a bit hard. We have basically taught all of our new members the new member lessons. So we are going back into finding mode. More knocking doors. Knocking doors is a bit interesting with Elder M, because even though he can speak English his accent is sometimes very hard to understand for some people. He wants to teach in Spanish but our work is pure English and I can tell it bothers him sometimes. It is also a lot different than Spanish work because you can go a whole day without a single lesson and in Spanish work someone will let you in. He also doesn't speak much when we did have lessons so I have had to step up and take the lead in teaching which is kind of hard sometimes. I still stutter a lot during the lesson, but this transfer will help me improve my teaching.  I get to speak a lot of Spanish to my companion so I will learn to speak better.

Elder M has been in the mission for 7 months. He lived in Jersey all through high school and know English OK. It is hard sometimes for others to understand him. He really wants to be doing Spanish work and he is kind of bummed right now. This might sound funny but I don't know what is faster to do with him, walk everywhere or bike. It frustrates me sometimes but I need to be more patient with him.

J is still set for the 30th. He is so excited for it. Elder H is comeing back for the baptism.

I am glad that Mikaela is getting some practice with her car before mine. and i am glad to hear that she can drive forward. Now all I need to worry about is her getting fender benders in the parking lots backing out, but it won't do as much damage to my car.

So they assigned me to teach the Gospel Doctrine class next week. It is lesson 32. The last lesson I had to do was last week in elders quorum and they told me at 7 the night before just right before transfers. I stumbled so much through the lesson and I spaced out for like 2 min. If it weren't for the elders quorum president I would have ended like 20 min early. I was so embarrassed.

We have begun a hunt to track down all the less actives and unknowns in our ward. It will be a lot of work but hopefully something will come out of it. Other than that not much exciting things have happened other than my companion almost burning the apartment to the ground. He was making some popcorn in a pot and he put oil in the pot. When the popcorn was done he left the pot on and after a while it caught on fire. I ran over and turned the stove off and put a lid on the pot and then Elder M took the pot and was going to pour it in the sink and pour water in it but i stopped him in time. The lid was too big for the pot and it took a couple of seconds before the fire burned out. The worst part was that the apartment was filled with smoke. We had to let it air out for like an hour. It was a good thing it was a planning day. 

Well that was my funny story for the week. Hope your week was great and have a great week.

 

New companion

Transfers

 

 

Week 39 in Mesquite, Texas

So transfer calls happened last saturday and I have sad news, Elder H is leaving me. I will be getting Elder M. He is from Peru. I have served around him in Carrollton. I am exited.

So last saturday we had a baptism, S K. The room was pack full of people. She wanted to be baptized before elder H left and we did it right in time. It was a great experience to see and the spirit was really strong there. This month I will have at least 1 more baptism. His name is J and his date is on the 30th.

 

You will love this one, we have more garbage chairs in our apartment. I forgot to take pictures but I will next time. One is an office chair and one is a small leather chair.

 

This last week not much has happened. We have been working hard on our new map and on our ward directory to get everything planned. I have a few more things that I need to do and then we will start teaching everyone.

I hope everyone had a great week.

love ya.

Baptism

Another dumpster chair.

Week 38 in Mesquite Texas

If there was a hashtag for the week it would be #dumbdecision115.

So this week we had a baptismal interview for a investigator named S. She had been comming to church for a couple of months. Some of her friends are members and they invited her and she has been coming ever since. So last Wednesday we had a lesson with her and it was over lessons 4 and 5 of Preach My Gospel and at the end she asked when can I get baptized?  We told her whenever you want. She asked Elder H when is he going to leave because she wants to get baptized before he leaves. We told her we dont know when he is leaving we get calls the Saturday the 16th and she said that she wants to get baptized on Saturday the 16th. So we needed to have her interviewed on Friday. So we had the interview and SHE PASSED! So my next baptism will be this Saturday. Yay

Also we had a zone meeting on Wednesday and they want us working with the ward members more and spend less time knocking doors. So we are going to start focusing more on that. So that night we had a meeting with the bishop and he wants us going through the ward list and cleaning it out and meeting every member. So we wanted to map out every member on a map and so we made a map. We already had a small map on the wall but we wanted it to be bigger so we went to office max and made the map bigger. Then we cut it in half and made the map even bigger. It is now 36 square feet. Then we got it laminated and put it on our wall and all of the missionaries are jealous of our map. #dumbdecision115 (it ended up costing $115)

 

Tell Mikaela to keep trying hard and she will learn. I am just jealous of how skinny she is. I have gotten kind of chubby here. I weighed myself and I weigh 167! A lot more than I weighed before. I have been working and out and taking protein.  I have more muscle.

Elijah was a cool prophet. I like the story of him with the priests. Did you tell the story of Elisha and the Shebears?

The library here is kind of busy and they wont give more time I will see what I can do, but I need to go.

 Oh, by the way lamination is Expensive. #dumbdecision115

Well I hope that you all had a great week.

#dumbdecision$115

 

Week 37 in Mesquite, TX

Sorry it has taken me so long to write today. It has been a bit busy. We went to a museum in Dallas called the Pro Museum. It was really cool. They had Fossils there and other interactive things. We went with other missionaries who got tickets for free from a member. There was an exibit there where we could do a 100 foot dash with some athletes and some animals. I raced Jarell Barker and lost. sad. I was just piont 10 seconds from him. Then we went to Hard Rock Cafe and ate there and took some pictures with the guitars there. And now we are e-mailing at SMU. It has been a pretty busy day.

Not much has happened this week. No more crazy costumes and animals. The weather has been really nice. We set the record for the second coldest day in July. The sad news is that it is supposed to start getting hotter this week. They say that we will reach 100 by the end of the week.

We  have been knocking alot of doors this week and a lot of our appointments have dropped. Hopefully this week will be busier.

Hope that you guys had a great week.

Dumpster Chairs

Flash!!!

Trip to museum

Week 36 in Mesquite, Texas

Wow so this week was fun. To start out we started teaching a girl named S. She has a couple friends in the church and she comes almost every week and wants to get baptized. Elder H started teaching her and her husband last transfer but her and her husband work alot. so they never had time to have the lessons, but S. wants to be baptized so bad she wants us to come over and teach her while her husband works because he works forever. the husband wants to be there but he is always working. we taught S. twice this week and the second time we taught her we taught her  the gospel of Jesus Christ and at the end she asked us "so how many more lessons before my baptism?" we told her the lessons she has left and she said "we have time, teach me more." so we went over tithing, word of wisdom and chastity. That took about 5 minutes. After she let us go outside and see her horses and miniature horses and chickens and bunnies.

Next, one of the bishops counselors had a cool story. So while he was at work his Secretary gave him his mail and in the mail was an Ensign and she asked him "I didn't know that you were LDS" and he said yes and asked her how she knows about the church. she replied "my daughter is LDS and so is her husband." she has even fed the missionaries before. her daughter is really less active but we had a lesson with them and they were really exited to come to church again. They couldnt come this week because of work but they said that they will come next week for sure.

Next story. So while we were knocking doors we knock into this lady named C. She answered the door and shouted "oh wow its the missionaries, it is sooooooo good to meet you! I have a friend who is mormon and she served a mission in canada. i love her. Tell me about Joseph Smith. i have heard the story but i dont remember it." WOW. we started to tell her but she cut us off mid sentence and said "thats amazing. i have a friend her name is L. she lives over there and she is 95. lets go over there. she will love you guys!" so we went over and C knocked on the door and L answered and said hi. C introduced us and said that we have a message to share. L said no thank you because she had another guest trying to sell her some electricity plan. C said thats ok we will be quick and pushed us through the door. we sat down and C started to talk to L and C just kept talking and talking. the salesperson decided to come back another time. so an hour later we finally finished a lesson with them and they were not interested. but we had another appointment so we left them with our phone number and left. two days later we were knocking and we started on a street thinking that it was a diffrent street. but lo and behold guess who we found, C. it was the same street. she started talking to us. and then she told us about another person she knows who is mormon who lives down the street and said that we should visit her. she said that she would call them. so we headed over to the house and we knocked. a lady named L answered and we intorduced ourselves. she told us that she was baptized in mexico and she hasnt been to church in a while because of her husband. she then told us that most of her family is inactive except for her brother who lives in "FARMERS BRANCH". i asked her who it was and it turns out it was the cool gospel principles teacher. wow right small world. she was more open after that and we gave her as a refreral to the spanish elders. amazing right.

Another thing we did was help one of the spanish members with her Ice cream  shop that she just opened. we helped her with the Grand opening. brought costumes and gave them to us. and said to stand out front and wave. she had Micky mouse and Mini and Elmo. so we fliped coins to see who would be who. Elder M a 6 foot 5 200 pound Polynesian got Elmo, Elder H got Mickey and I was stuck with Mini. so that was fun. it was about 100 degrees outside and i was drenched afterward. it was fun though. all the little kids were scared of Elmo because he was a giant. it was so funny.

hope you had a great week.

Week 35 in Mesquite, TX

OK, so this week was not quite as exiting as last weeks but there were a couple of things that happened. first off my companion threw me under the bus. At our first ward council meeting last Sunday (my first Sunday here) my companion told the bishop that i would be willing to give a talk if he needed one in the future. Then on Wednesday we had a meeting with the bishop to discuss the ward and the bishop assigned me a talk. He said that i would fill the time for the youth speaker. Then he told me that my talk would be during a farewell for H. H. and there were a ton of people there. So i talked about time and gardening. How the Lord often refers to his work as a garden and how it is hard to tell sometimes if the fruits or vegetables are ready yet. I compared it to a man who was waiting for his tomatoes to grow and how there were no tomatoes growing, but after he started watering it and digging around it he realized that what he thought was a tomato plant was really a potato plant. and he was able to bring forth much fruit, and stuff like that. Then the man was waiting for big red bell peppers on a Jalapeno plant and he was waiting for his watermelons to grow and ripen from their orange color to bright green. and how he was confused and asked the farmer Old-Mc-Farmer-Heavenly Father for help. and how Heavenly Father told that those watermelons were actually pumpkins. So sometimes we think that people are not ready when they really are ready and we just need to ask and invite. I was glad that my talk was first because after was this really great musical number by H. H. family and it had most of the audience in tears and H talk was amazing. He talked about being an example. He did a great job.

Now on the the more funny part of the week. So we are teaching new member lessons to a girl named M. She was baptized about a month and a half ago . But anyway we do a lesson with these small rubber bears with a light inside when you hit it. We do the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, endure to the end) and we start by saying that you are clean then we draw on him every time he sins. After that we say he meets the missionaries and gets baptized and throw him into the backpack and pull out a new bear and say he is clean. Then we hit him and we say that he has the light of Christ or the holy ghost and then give it to them. What happened that was funny was that M. is a little sensitive and we drew on him and started to tear up. then my companion thought it would be funny to start to cut it up. and he cut an ear and leg off. and M. is now horrified. After we put the bear in the backpack and pulled up the new bear she said" that is not the same bear!" we ignored that and tried to continue with the holy ghost my companion hit the bear and the light didn't glow. We realized that it was broken. Then he said that he needs to get baptized again and put it back into the back pack pulled the light out from the other one and ripped a hole in the new one and shoved the light in there. He pulled it back out and the bear was deflated and the face had sunk in. It looked terrible. But when we hit it it would not turn on. so my companion reaches his hand in the bear and grabs the light and throws it on the ground and it lights up. then he shoves it back in. and M terrified says"your ruining it"  then we finish the lesson. after she wanted to see the other bear and she wanted us to fix it. so we cleaned the dead bear and she made me melt the leg back on. and that didn't turn out to well. i ended up setting it on fire. after i blew it out the leg had melted off the body and now it looks like a burnt amputy. lesson gone terribly wrong.

My last story for the week was that I caught a chicken. We were doing service at a members house by fixing a fence and they had chickens. so naturally i just had to catch one and hold it. it was pretty exiting. i didn't have my camera so i don't have a picture but another missionary took pictures and i will get it from him and send them to you. 

well that is that. i know that the church is true and y'all have a great week.

 

Below are some pictures taken from some amazing people down in Texas and sent to us via text messaging and Facebook:

 

 

Week 34 in Mesquite, TX

Before I forget here is my new address: 2821 Franklin drive, Mesquite Texas 75150.

OK this week was great and I love my new companion and I love my new ward and I love my new apartment. First off, yesterday I got to go see the baptism of another investigator. Her name is F and her daughter J got baptized as well. It was so cool. After the Baptism, F bore her testimony and it was soooooo strong. She was crying and the spirit was sooooooo strong there. It is cool because I got to see the whole teaching process with her. I found her and taught her and got to see her be baptized. It was a great experience.

This area is so great. Last transfer they had 3 baptisms in an english ward!  Crazy right. So right now we are in teaching recent converts and finding mode. We do have one solid investigator named M. her husband is a member and she is Catholic. I have had one lesson with her and we taught the Plan of Salvation. She said that it made sense. Then after the lesson we asked her how she thought that she would recieve an answer to her prayers and she believed that it would come from a sign not from a good feeling. So we thought that it would be a while before she said yes. Then the next day we get a 9 page text from her. Usually that means that they are dropping us, but it said that she got her answer. She said that at 4 am she was going home from work and she had parked her car at the 4 story below ground parking lot and as she was comming up she saw a butterfly land on her windshield and ride with her until it reached freedom outside. As it flew away a picture of Jesus popped into her head and there she knew that the church was true. Awesome Right.

So now I am done with the spiritual side of my week. Let me tell you about the funny stuff. First my new apartment has a washer and a dryer so I dont have to spend money at the laundry mat. Also we found a recliner in the dumpster and we cleaned it up and it looks great and feels great in our apartment. My new companion Elder H is so great. We get along really well. On Friday was free Chick fulay or however you spell it. A member made us cow shirts and we got free chick ful ay.

So we did teach a lesson in Spanish last week and here is what happened. We taught the atonement of Jesus using a couple of pennies and some ketchup. We put the dirty pennies in the catchup and they turn clean. One thing I try to do while speaking spanish is try to change my accent to sound better. Here is what I said in spanish. all you spannish speakers will laugh. I said. vamos a poner estos penes en el catchup. los penes representa nosotros y el catchup representa el sangre de cristo. e el sangre de cristo va a limpiar nuestro penes. so in spanish a penny is penny. and i said pene (pen-A) which is penis. So I said in english that the penis is us and we will put the penis in the catchup or the blood of Christ and our penis will be clean. The Hermana there caught me right there and had to correct me. it was soooooooooooo embarrassing.

 

That is sad that Cookie grandpa died. The kids will all miss him at church. 

 

I am exited for Mikaela at camp I hope that she does well. I know that she will have a blast though. Who is all going that I know? 

That is amazing how good Taylor did coming off of a sickness. 

The bible has a lot of cool stuff in it doesn't it. You just have to know how to interpret it. That is why i am soooooooooooo glad that we have a prophet on the earth. If we didn't have him we would be just as confused as the rest of the world. I am also grateful for the Book of Mormon and how plain it is. I have found that all I need to teach is the Book of Mormon. I have stopped carrying the bible around. People know about the bible, but if you want them to learn the message of the bible you need the Book of Mormon to explain it. If someone is not going to except the Book of Mormon and the Spirit that it brings they won't except our message. But once you have that solid foundation with the Book of Mormon, the Bible makes so much more sense. 

I am glad that you are doing well in your class though. love you so much.

 

That was my week so far. I hope that yours was as great as mine.

Love you all.

Baptism

Free Chick-Fil-A night