Abilene week 5

Texas is a beautiful place!

The sky is huge and the clouds are some of the best ones you'll ever see.  I took this picture from the highway one day because I just couldn't resist it.  Hope ya'll like it!

Remember how it had never rained here since I arrived?

 Well this week it rained 3 days in a row! Crazy stuff! Luckily it stopped just in time for bike day.  Anyway since it never rains here there is no drainage system at all.

All of the water just basically sits on the street until it dries out from the sun or runs off into a field and drains into the ground.  It rained Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and a little bit on Wednesday.  As you can imagine, Tuesday the streets were very flooded and here are some pictures of us driving around on the road.

Elder King and Elder Moffitt icing cupcakes

 This week you would actually be very impressed with my food making skills.  Elder King and I made cupcakes.  Yes....they were out of the box, but it's something!

For other meals, I made a chicken sandwich, grilled cheese, stir fried vegetables, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese and some regular chicken nuggets.  Yup.....I took it to the max level this week! No peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  I know that list isn't too impressive, but compared to some missionaries it really is quite extensive.

Got the package!

How did you know I didn't have a good green tie? I loved the one you sent.  It is super cool!  And I loved all the DI ties too!  I am wearing the tan one as I write this email.  Thrift shop ties are the way to go! Missionaries LOVE new ties!

Nadias birthday party!

Nadia had her 18th birthday this week, and she invited us to the party! Since we can't proselyte after 7 anyway, we didn't feel bad about going to it. The food as always was delicious. I love Mexican food, but I am seriously going to get fat. Hey cool story: You know those corn things they always have in Nacho Libre? Yeah, well they made those at the party and I had one. Usually they say they like to cover the corn with Mayo and then put all those spices on it, but I did mine with butter instead of Mayo. They said either way is still fine. I don't know if I could have handled that much mayo. It was absolutely delicious by the way. 

  

It was a pretty rough week. So when to our surprise when Carlos showed up at sacrament meeting with his 1 and half year old daughter we were both smiling from ear to ear. I went over and sat by Carlos, and we were actually able to have a decently good conversation by ourselves in Spanish for like 10 minutes. Blessings!  We are still not sure what to do with him. It's hard to make appointments, because he usually doesn't know his work schedule until that day. Hopefully we can talk to him again this week and really figure out where he is coming from with his beliefs in Jesus Christ. He is a great guy, and maybe this time he will accept a baptismal invitation.

I don't know if I have told you about Allie and Sal yet. Allie is a less active who just really got excited about church again. Sal, her husband is not a member and has basically no religious background, quite a surprise for someone living in Texas. My first week here when I went to their house they made rootbeer floats for us! Awesome. Last week when we were visiting them their dog was sitting next to me on the couch and it started making some weird noises. I looked over and it threw up like half a foot away from me. Then it immediately starting eating its puke. Nobody else saw, but I started laughing. Then everyone was like wha....? Oh my gosh!

We were able to meet twice with Cristobal, a 61 year old Mexican less active man. We have been meeting with him almost every week since we got here. We always sit in his backyard on some couches that he has under a little covered cement patio behind the house. 

Jacob is doing great with his no smoking! He had to restart on Thursday because he had smoked. But since then he has been smoke free! Almost 5 days now! We are praying so hard for him! If he can beat smoking, which I know he can, then I think he will get baptized. He is trying so hard to improve his life. He's got a lot working against him  but he's got even more going for him, so just keep praying for him.

We were not able to meet Eliseo at all this week. We called him almost every day, and stopped by his house a couple times too. To our surprise, his less active wife, Nita showed up to church on Sunday. I sat with her and her niece, Mamas, during the dinner after church was over and really got to make a good connection with them. Slowly ,slowly, we'll get there.

Kayla we found out this week may never come back. Her grandma doesn't have custody of her (that's why she was living down here for a while), so she may never come back to Abilene again. She is currently with her parents in some town 2 hours from here. We found out where it is and gave the information to the missionaries there, so hopefully they can do some good work. Kayla's mom is a member, but no one else in her family is, so good luck to the missionaries out where she is now.

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of my apartment, but I still have one more week for that, so hopefully I can remember to do so. I love ya family! Tell grandma thanks so much for the goodies in the package! It made my day. I hope you're enjoying Utah too. Despite the hard time I always give Utah, living there going to BYU were some of the best times I've ever had.