Week 24 in Farmers Branch, TX

I heard you guys have had some crazy weather up there in Utah. On Saturday and Sunday they had a heavy tornado warning and a hail warning. Nothing Happened. There were more crazy lightning storms though. It is crazy because the storms are all in one cloud and the rest of the sky is clear.

Cool Story: last p-day as we were leaving the church after playing sports these two guys come to the church door. They looked just older than us. We opened the door and they told us that they have a girlfriend who is mormon and wanted to know about the church. We got exited and led them into a class room to help teach them. They had some questions and we started to explain the restoration to them. Then one of them just starts asking all sorts of questions. (Note: they both said that they don't know much about the Bible.) Then he just starts going off of scriptures and wants us to explain. Then he started asking about the three kingdoms and what they are and other stuff like that. We try to explain and he is hearing but not listening. We were there for two hours talking to this guy and his friend is just sitting in the chair next to him quietly trying to end the conversation. We had tried to end a couple of times but every time another question would be asked. After all that happened they wouldn't accept a book of mormon and we just left our number with them and they left. The one who wanted to leave, because he was apparently suposed to be babysitting, seemed pretty interested and actually listened. He was also the one who said "his friend is mormon and he wanted to learn more." the other guy just wanted to tear apart everything we taught.   We have two theories of why they were there. 1. we believe that one of them took a Mormon bashing class in college and wanted to show off to his friend. 2. the guy that really wanted to leave, actually had a friend and genuine intrest to learn more but his friend (who we believe took a Mormon Bashing class in College) didn't want him to be sucked into being a mormon and came to "speak the truth".

Anyway after all that we didn't have a ride. There were two other missionaries with us when they came in and those missionaries called someone to give all four of us a ride home (these other missionaries are english) but the ride came right at the beginning of us teaching these two guys and the other missionaries left! They left two spanish missionaries to teach a possible English investigator. So we had to find another ride. It is funny because my companion and I are the only missionaries in the district who ride a bike and our area is the farthest from the church.

We Did Have an investigator come to church yesterday. it was so exiting. we have been teaching them for forever. Elder S***** started teaching them in January. They are the D***** Family. We have a baptism date. We are hopeing that they get baptized.

P.S. yes, i have almost eaten all of the Easter candy. I am on the cookies you sent me.

Well that is it for the week. Hope that your week was great.

Pictures of a lightening storm

New Haircut

Week 23 in Farmers Branch, TX

     This week was a bit slow. Nothing exiting like climbing a tree, getting chased by dogs, or getting hit by a car happened this week, it was a bit lame. We have been in finding mode all this week. There are a ton of Hispanics, but no one wants to hear us. It gets frustrating at times. Luckily I have a great companion and we have fun while we are out. My companion is the District leader and Saturday we went on exchanges with the elders in Carrollton 3rd north, or in other words my old area. At first I was getting exited because it was a car area, but they told us that they have basically wasted all of their miles for the month and they have to walk. I couldn't ride a bike down there because the elder I was on exchanges with dislocated his shoulder and he was told by Sister D***** that he couldn't ride a bike so we walked. So anyone want to make a guess on how many miles I walked. (Hint: it is more then 20) I was wearing my Bornes and my feet were just killing me by the end of the day. I am still kind of sore today. I am debating on buying comfort insoles but I wanted to ask you if I should. I did give my feet an ice bath. It felt so good and I rolled them out on a golf ball. I believe that that helped it out a lot.  anyone want to guess how many lessons we had (Hint: we had 7 scheduled appointments) (Bonus Hint: the number you are looking for is less than 0) My feet hurt so much after that day, I could barley walk that night. Then Easter was a better day. We didn't have dinner scheduled because Hispanics don't celebrate Easter and this ward doesn't like to feed missionaries, but luckily as we were leaving we were stopped by the young men's president of the ward invited us over for dinner with their family. Very grateful for that. It was a great dinner and a great end to an Easter.
     So in my area we are in the top right corner and all of the work is in the bottom left corner. It is 5 miles from our apartment, but we have a bike and it is thousands of times better than walking. Every day it seems like we are coming home at 9:45 because an appointment ran late and we book it on the way home. I am getting some serious exercise. Still fat, but at least I am getting exercise. 
     We had to do a lesson at church as well. It is the second time we have had to teach here. The other elders have taught the other weeks and when I was here on my first transfer we taught three times there the same class.  I got your package but not Christy's. I will ask the other elders today if they have it and if they could check in the main office. Thank you for the package. we did notice that baseball football and soccer ball eggs. 
     We do cook at our apartment when we have time. Mostly it has been spaghetti or grilled ham and cheese. We have been wanting to make the thanksgiving meal you sent, but we don't have a casserole pan. 
Hope that you all had a great Easter and have a great week.

 love you    
 

Elder S******* with 2 investigators playing Mexican Train

Glad Elder S******* is keeping Jesse in line :)

Jesse's District

Jesse's Zone

Week 22 in Farmers Branch, TX

OK, so I know that you all are dying to hear what happened with the tree indecent so here it is:
 Two p-days ago we went to see a potential investigator in an apartment complex. She was not there so we were leaving to go to another potential appointment. This is like at 7. As we are leaving my companion sees some Mexican kids throwing a football around wrong so he wanted to show them how to throw it correctly. He threw it around a couple of times and then he said on the last throw he was going to throw it really high. It came down and no one caught it and the kids were begging him to throw it one more time so he did and as it was coming down it lands into  a tree and it got stuck. All the kids are mad at him and telling him that he needs to buy a new ball. He told them that he would get it down. Just then another Mexican kid comes around the corner with a soccer ball. My companion thought that he could hit the football out of the tree with that. and guess what? It gets stuck into the tree. Great and what does he do then? He tells me to go into the tree and shake.  I do it. The tree is a Y shape and was hard to get to that spot to shake the tree. So right now I am 15 feet above the ground shaking the tree. It still wont fall. At this point there are Hispanic moms setting up chairs on their balcony and laughing at us (mainly at me) and taking video of us and posting it on face book. Now at this point another Mexican kid comes with a baseball and Elder S*****, who played baseball and was on the all star Utah team, thought that he could throw it and hit the balls out. He goes onto the balcony of the apartment and starts throwing the ball.  He can't hit it and he is ten feet from the ball. Everyone is laughing at us.  15+ throws later you can guess what happens..... the baseball gets stuck. I am still in the tree. So he tells me to get down and i can't. At this point I am stuck. So he climbs the tree and helps me down and he tries to shake the tree. Still nothing. So he goes a bit farther and is standing on a branch and holding onto another branch.  He is jumping up and down to shake the tree and the baseball is shaken free. He goes a bit farther and is shaking the tree like crazy. The branches are literally swaying 5 feet both directions and the football falls free, but the soccer ball is still stuck. He walks out the the very edge of the tree and has to pick up the ball and throw it down. But that isn't all because he can't get down now. I have to climb back up the tree and help him down. Then I get down.  At this time it is 9:00 o'clock.  We head home totally exhausted. I was terrified. I don't know why I agreed to go up there. I am so glad I was able to get down.

Now this week, we were shooting for 77 hours and after p-day we were shooting for 75 hours.  We would have made it too, if it were not for the fact that we had no investigators to church and we couldn't count that as line in the water time.  After a long week we still did 70 hours this week and we found 9 new people to teach. So it was really great. 

Also this week was the first week I was chased by a dog. We rode by this ally and this big black dog just comes sprinting at us. We were able to out run it and we were safe. Then the next day, another dog starts chasing us as we were heading back home.  Once again we were able to out run it. 

oh BWT i am staying here another transfer.

It is good to hear that the team is still doing good. Do you think that the girls will take state again? Maybe not because they are in 5A.  I love Garlick. He is funny. How is Haag doing as the head coach?  Tell the girls team good luck.  It is cool that Mikaela won a medal. 

There is a less active family we are working with and they have a dog that looks exactly like Oscar except it is brown. 

I got my bike fixed and it works like a charm. i had to borrow another missionaries bike for the day while mine was getting fixed and it was a piece of junk. He got it free from another missionary who is home right now and he thrashed it. The brakes are shot in the back so I couldn't use those and the front breaks barely worked. The missionary doesn't want to pay to fix it because is is getting Elder W***** new bike (my companions last companion who went home) he spent 700 dollars on this bike and just left it. The bike he left was a Dimondback he spent extra money to get a net racing seat and hydrologic breaks and he just left it here. I rode it once earlier in the transfer. It is so uncomfortable, but i am so happy my bike is fixed.

and that was my week.

Week 21 In Farmers Branch, Texas

So this week is going to be really busy. We were challenged by our zone leaders to do a 70+hour week. So we decided to go above and beyond and do a 77 hour week. This is like 20 hours more than we have been doing. These hours are called 'line in the water time'. It is how many hours we are out of the apartment and being seen. We will have to cut lunches and dinners and we will have to cut some study time out to do this. It is going to be a rough week. Also we are not taking a p-day so we are working today. Don't have much time to email so remind me next week to tell you about the tree indecent. Conference was great and I loved it a lot. Have a great week.

 I have time to send one more email. I took my bike in and payed for it to be fixed this Friday. It was only 77 dollars.  I forgot to mention that I got a hair cut last week. Third one on my mission. Love you.

 Not sure what is happening in these pictures.  I guess we will have to wait until next week to hear what happened.  Thought I would mention that Jesse has a slight fear of heights :)