Abilene Week 4

Elder Moffitt, Nadia and Elder King

 Saturday was a big day. It was suppose to be the day of my first baptism here in the field. The baptism was scheduled for 3:00 in the afternoon, but at 8:00 in the morning we get a text from Nadia's mom to cancel the baptism. What?!? Elder King calls her back but he can't understand anything she's saying because it's already difficult to understand Spanish on the phone but then you add the crying and it's straight impossible. So he calls Nadia and she doesn't really want to talk but says we can come over. We head over to her house right away, but she won't come out of her room to talk to us for like 10 minutes. We just wait and eventually she comes out.

I don't want to get into the details, we talked to her for like an hour and she finally decided that she would be baptized. Whew! You can't believe how hard I was praying during that whole thing. The best part is that Nadia still got baptized. She asked me to give a talk on the holy ghost for her service. The service was quite funny. It was in Spanglish. Half the songs, talk, and prayers were in English and the other half were in Spanish because she spoke both, her parents only spoke Spanish, and lots of the people that came to support her only spoke English. This is a very interesting place down here. This last week we taught 6 "spanish lessons" but only 2 of them were actually in Spanish. The other 4 were to people going to the Spanish branch who spoke English and Spanish and preferred to talk in English. It is much more difficult to learn Spanish when you are not really immersed in it and only speak it a couple hours a day. Some days we don't even speak Spanish at all.

Last week Elder King and I went and visited a very scary looking place. We drove 20 minutes out of town to get there (you only have to drive 10 minutes before you are literally in the middle of nowhere by the way). We pulled up to the driveway, which wound through the Texas underbrush of like 10 ft tall trees. The driveway was about 100 feet long going through gravel. On the sides of us were tons of old, creepy things like that truck I took a picture of. There were also (we counted) 5 cages with dogs lining the driveway. As we drove slowly in the dogs just stared at us, slowly turning their heads as we drove by. This was straight out of a horror movie, no joke. But we had to visit the house because it was a referral from church headquarters (one of the only referrals we have received since I've been here). Anyway, he wasn't there, but cool story.

Texas Landscape

 You can get an idea of how flat and empty it is out here.  Unlike Virginia, there aren't even hills or trees to cover the landscape.  It's just very barren, but that's OK.  I like looking at the big blue sky.  And yesterday was the first time I have seen it rain since I got here.  It has rained like twice at night before, but yesterday was the first time it rained when we were out and about.

A Longhorn on the side of the road

 When I got out to take the picture of this Longhorn we saw Elder King drove off down the rode.  It was pretty funny.  He came back after like a minute to pick me up.

Forgot sunscreen today.....ouch!

So last time we rode bikes I didn't put on any sunscreen and I was fine. Not this time... As you can see I got a little burned. That's fine though. It's hard to get too tan when you're in a car for most of the time. Thursdays at least we have the opportunity to get a little sun. And it's something that all the Mexicans like laughing at, so it's all good.

Look what street I  found!

Rewind to Friday. I don't know if I have told you about Jacob before. He is our only serious English investigator we have right now. I love that guy. He has come a really long way. This week we're trying to help him quit smoking. He has been having a really difficult time receiving an answer to know if the Book of Mormon is true or not, and Elder King and I think that because he is not living the word of wisdom right now it is really difficult for the spirit to testify to him. So, Word of Wisdom time it was. We have this awesome 7 day program that is guaranteed to work 100 percent if you do every single step in the program. We went over it with him and have been contacting him every day since to see how he is doing with it. He has been able to quit a lot of other stuff before in his life, but smoking is the last one he wasn't able to let go of. Saturday, no smoking. Sunday, no smoking. Today will be a big test for him, but we're praying really hard he'll be able to make it. We have faith. The Lord always provides a way for us to overcome any temptation we are faced with.

Now, we'll fast forward to Sunday. Sunday morning we had 3 baptismal dates set. Sunday night we had 0. Ray (our other English investigator) had to come to church to keep his date. He didn't make it, so we had to cancel the date. He knows the Book of Mormon is true. He says he knows everything we teach him is true.  This week is make it or break it with him. We need to know he is really committed or we're going to have to drop him. Eliseo (he's the guy we actually taught 2 lessons in Spanish to) didn't come to church either. We have way too many things to teach him before the 20th, when his date was, so we had to cancel his baptism as well. Kayla, our nine year old golden investigator, had to cancel her date. Apparently she will be staying with her mom a lot longer than anticipated so she won't be back for next Saturday. This week was a little humbling. Never think you are doing good. That's when the Lord is like oh yeah? Boom. Here, I think you're hungry. Have a slice of humble pie. It is quite filling. That's ok. I think with some hard work and the strong help of the spirit all of these people can be baptized.

This Blue Bell stuff is seriously dangerous....I hope I don't get fat!

It's hard not to when every house you ever go over to wants to feed you dessert. I love it so much! But I hate it at the same time

 Anyway, I am praying for all of you too!  Meagan and Courtney, this is a very important time of your life right now.  I know it doesn't really feel like it because you think you're so young.  But seriously, it seems like everyone I talk to who has some big problem, it all started when they were a teenager.  Stay strong!  Love you all!