Abilene week 10

Pday Mountain Biking

This morning we woke up at 5:00am to go mountain biking. In case you don't remember, I have been a couple times before with Elder Scott Harris, and I did not like it either time. So I was very reluctant to go (especially since I would be using an hour and a half of my precious sleep to be doing it), but I went anyway.

Similar to my previous experiences with mountain biking I did not enjoy it this morning either. There were some really beautiful sights, like the sun rising and lots of amazing wildlife. I also enjoyed lots of the trail, where it wasn't super rocky. But those parts with tons of rocks and big hills made it not worth it to me.

End of the trail

Elder Harris (yes, it's quite funny that I went biking with an Elder Harris here too) took like 50 pictures while we were standing in front of the sign at the end.  I deleted most of them, but I thought this last one was kind of funny with me laughing and trying to get him to stop taking pictures.

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Me trying to look majestically into the sunrise without cracking up!

Right at the beginning of the trail we were going down a pretty big hill and Elder May stopped suddenly and while I slammed on my brakes and swerved to avoid hitting him I found myself falling off the trail into a cactus.  Yes, I fell on a cactus.  And it was one of those cactus bushes, no naturally I had tons of cactus spines all over me. If it wasn't so painful, it would have been really comical.  Really, it was something right out of a cartoon.  But don't worry, I am fine now.  I have some scratches and bruises, but no permanent damage.  But, as you could probably guess, that lone is enough deterrent from me going again.

Road trip!

Wednesday, Elder Pasquale and Elder Hancock received a referral from a man who lives down in the little town of Winters, about a 40 minute or so road trip down from Abilene. Since they don't have a car, guess who got to go with them? Us! We had a few potential Spanish speakers and less active ward members we could try to visit while we were down there anyway. The referral turned out to literally be a mental guy. He went on a trip to Utah for a mental patient testing convention thing, and got referred while he was there. Elder Hancock said he fell asleep while they were teaching him. Since they knew they weren't going to get anywhere, they decided to have a little fun. He fell asleep while they were talking about the apostasy. Then a couple minutes later when he woke up Elder Hancock said, "and will you be baptized by that priesthood that Joseph Smith restored?" He said yes, but of course they will never be going back. Anyway, it was an awesome road trip. You know me. I love me some good road trips.

So uh....here is Winters!

 Nice town huh? We tried to find a member on the outskirts of the town and we drove 2 miles down this long driveway into the middle of nowhere.  The only building was this little old run down barn with a trailer inside.  No one was there, but it was kinda creepy with the good old Texas wind blowing the rickety gate open to the building for us.

Sweetwater

Remember mom.....where the "Rattlesnake Roundup" takes place.  You'd love it here!!!!!!

Tuscola

Tuscola is even smaller than Winters.  Check it out!  We had to get a picture so you could see how small it is.  This is truly rural Texas!

Rough day!

This is me coming up the stairs to home sweet (not) home after a long bike day.  We calculated it, and we rode over 20 miles that day.  Easy!  We did meet a really cool guy that day.  We knocked into this ex-preacher black guy and we ended up talking to him for about 10 minutes.  He was glad we stopped by and said maybe he would have us back some time.  By this point in the day I was completely out of water, so I asked him if I could have a glass of water.  He said his water was turned off but he gave us 3 dollars so we could buy some gatorade at the 7-11 right down the street. Awesome guy!

Mexican Cookies

A member of the Spanish branch gave us these cool Mexican cookies, so we thought we had better take a picture of their beautifulness!

Strawberry, banana bread

A wonderful tread we received from Elder Hancock this week.  He made us strawberry banana bread.  Ooooooh yeeaaaahhh. It was quite delicious!

We visited Jacob, and although he had stopped smoking and drinking he hasn't been to church for more than a month and he hardly ever reads the Book of Mormon anymore. So, we were forced to drop him this week. We are hoping it is for the better and by doing so he will see the lack of the Spirit without us bringing it into his life. And hopefully, he can get some of his own desire. Alexandria's baptismal date had to be cancelled. Apparently, we didn't have permission from her mom. Alexandria told us we did, but on Wednesday her mom told us otherwise. She said she wants her daughter to know a lot more before she gets baptized. Her mom, Melissa, is a less active member. Or, I should say IN-active. She wants nothing to do with it. Melissa said we can still keep teaching her daughter, and I slyly asked her if she would like to come to the lessons to support her daughter (of course I was hoping to re-kindle her testimony too), but she said no way jose. Then I asked her dad, Alfonzo (who is not a member), if he would like to come to his daughters lessons to support her. He said yes. Then we also started teaching her little sister Alizay too. So, hopefully, all of this can soften Melissa's heart and Alfonzo will want to be baptized too.

Cesar has made some huge steps this week. The members we brought to our lesson with them (Adam and Yessi, who are recent converts themselves) did a great job just being super nice and bearing their testimonies. Cesar has read the Book of Mormon with his wife Kathy. I challenged him to be baptized (part of me being trained is I challenge everyone). He wouldn't commit to a date, but he said yes at some point down the road. Then they came to stake conference yesterday. Cesar loved it! He was so happy afterwards and kept thanking me for inviting him and even gave me a hug. Then when I asked how Kathy liked it she said, "Sometimes I just felt like the speakers were talking directly at me. They were saying all the things I needed to hear." Awwwwww yessssssssss!!!!!!! Church this week was a grand success! I used to be afraid church would scare people away because it's long and it could be boring. But if you let it be, the Spirit will be there and it will be awesome.

We couldn't meet with Juan and Elva again this week... We were able to meet with Nicolas. We watched some cheesy church movie made in the 80s. I think it's called "Heavenly Father's Plan for Us" or something like that. I had never seen it before, but I just suggested that we watch a movie with him to Elder King. He agreed and picked that one, and it turned out to be perfect. He liked it, and for the first time Nicolas said a prayer with us. He never wants to say the prayer when we ask, and someone else always ends up doing it, but this time he did and it was so good! Anyway, I found out this week why I like Martha so much. Mom, I think she's almost like a Mexican version of you. Haha. I don't know why, but she just reminds me of you. It's great!

Abilene Week 9

Trees in Texas

 This one tree we found was so Texan it was growing a boot!

We ran into a house that had a bunch of skulls...pretty creepy, but pretty awesome at the same time. I wouldn't have even seen it, but luckily Elder Martin pointed it out so I could see it. I hope you enjoy this little slice of Texas for the week. 

Jacob has officially quit smoking and drinking, but now he won't come to church and doesn't really read his scriptures. So, he may have to be dropped. His progression is... well, it's kind of non-existent. Juan and Elva we couldn't meet with this week. Nicolas came to classes for the first time at church this week. He always comes to sacrament meeting, but he's never been to classes before. Well, now he has, and it seemed like he liked them too. It's hard to work with him right now because his wife Martha said we can't challenge him to be baptized anymore because it's just pushing him away. So when we had our last lesson and I felt the Spirit really strongly I asked him to come to the classes at church instead. And he did. And he is now reading the Book of Mormon with his family every day too. He knows it's all true. It's just all up to him now to make the decision to be baptized.

Our appointment with Alexandria (who has the nickname of Mamas. Don't ask me why) went superbly this week. We had 2 really. The first one we set some expectations of what we do as missionaries and then started teaching the restoration, but her crazy little brother was there driving the spirit away, so we had to come back a second time. This time it was sweet. She had read the whole restoration pamphlet before we got there. Then after I shared the first vision we sat there for a few seconds to just let the Spirit soak in. When we asked her what she felt she said, " Wow. That's amazing. I just feel so good." and you could see her beaming from ear to ear. It was sweet. Then she accepted our challenge to be baptized on the 31st of August! It's amazing to see how much of a different person she is than from a couple months ago. She was there when we were teaching Eliseo (that's her uncle) when I had just got here. We asked her then if she wanted to join in but she said no that's boring. Then when she came to church a couple times with Eliseo she sat in the back and just made jokes about it the whole time with her aunt. Now, she is super excited about it and wants to be baptized. It's so interesting to see how people are ready when they are ready. The Lord knows exactly when they'll be willing to listen, and even a couple weeks time will make a huge difference.

Now I would like to share a story of how my wanting to talk to everyone led us to a crazy old man's house. We were looking up inactive people this week and went to the house we thought they lived in. No one was home. I figured we can go next door and ask if they know where the person is (awesome icebreaker by the way for a gospel conversation with them too). A 73 year old man answers the door and we start talking to him. He is talking straight spanglish at us, switching up every other word. Here's an example of one of his sentences "the otras peoples dicen bad cosas. you sabe?" Seriously. No joke. Then we just talk to him in all Spanish and he gets all excited and lets us in his house. He pours us some juice and we start talking. I think he was trying to convert us or something. Anyway, he mentions how he's seen us walking around with our little book before. I say, "you mean this one?" pulling a Book of Mormon out of my backpack. He says yes, and that it's not true. What? How do you know that? Have you read it? He said no. But he said since it was written by a man it can't be from God. Well, we asked him if men wrote the Bible and he said well no that's different. He said there can't be any prophets today. We asked him don't you believe God is the same yesterday, today and forever? Well of course, he says. Then why wouldn't God call a prophet today? He said the Bible says there would be no more prophets. I say, really? Where? His eyes get all wide. He says he doesn't know, but it's in there somewhere.

Then he asks to see a Bible and the Book of Mormon. I give them to him (Keep in mind this whole conversation is in Spanish. Yes, I am getting somewhat decent thanks to the much help I receive from the Lord daily). So he has them both in his hand and asks, what's the name of this one? I say the Bible. He says, good. Now what's the name of this one? I say The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. He says no no no, what's the name of this one? And repeats it several times and keeps trying to cut me off before I say the "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" part (President Augustin told us to always refer to the Book of Mormon by it's full name, and I'm glad I did). I told him, look at the title. I am right. That's the name of the book. I think he was trying to prove that it was Mormon's book, not the book of God, but he didn't get me with that one. HAHA! Then he told us both how when he are thirty we would remember talking to him and know that he is right and that our church is wrong. I was thinking in my head, man you'll remember this day at the judgement  bar of God, but of course I didn't day that. After being there for about an hour we left. I very slyly left a Book of Mormon on his table so he didn't notice (Elder King had left a Book of Mormon at someone's house before too. It was at this old baptist lady's house who told us to never come back. She was too old to even see that he had left a Book of Mormon on her couch! It was pretty funny). Anyway, as soon as we got out of the door, Elder King looked at me and said book it to the car! He had noticed I left the Book of Mormon on his table, and we both wanted to get out of there before he noticed and gave it back to us. Haha, fun times.

Chef Moffitt

Still me and Elder Martin doing exchanges here. I cooked dinner for us both, which was pretty cool. Then he did all the dishes. What a nice guy. We did a pretty good job at talking Spanish with each other for most of the day, which was good too. Elder King and I aren't very good at doing that. I think whatever you start out doing that's what you feel more used to, and since we initially spoke English it is hard to break that trend. Elder Martin was really good at talking to everyone. Literally everyone we saw when we were out biking we just pulled over and talked to. That's another thing Elder King and I need to improve on it. But it works just going and talking to random people! We ended having a full on lesson with one lady and she told us if she wasn't outside, if we had just knocked on the door, then she wouldn't have talked to us. We ended  up finding 4 people we could go back and visit just from talking to everyone we saw that day. It'll be hard because I hate just talking to strangers, but I'll try it out.

Elder Moffitt and Elder Martin

Making home-made tortillas...impressive!

Sonia, Kayla's grandmother took this picture at her house when we went over there this week.  That was actually a really fun time.  We made tortillas and had mole for lunch.  Then afterwards we sat down and made a little family tree starting with her parents down to her grand kids.  This was a suggestion by our branch president so we could try to get some more names of people we could visit.  By doing this we were able to come up with one person we could visit.  One of her daughters, who was baptized a long time ago and wants to come back.  Her husband is not a member and we have plans to visit them next week.
By the way, that food we had was so so delicious.  I love me some good Mexican food!

Here are some pictures that I got because they looked super awesome. Unfortunately, the pictures don't capture the majesty of what the sun and moon really looked like. The sun was so beautiful, but since we didn't stop to take the picture with a nice background of Texan trees where I wanted to, it's not quite as awesome. And the moon is from 5:00 this morning. It was super big (can't really tell from the picture I know) and super red. Isn't a blood red moon a sign of the second coming? Hmmm, interesting. 

I went out to this town called Sweetwater. It has a population of like 11,000. Yet, they're still known for a record too. I heard about this "Rattlesnake roundup" thing they do every year like 3 times while I was over there. Apparently it's the biggest in the whole country. Anyway, it was lots of fun. One of the ward members took us out to dinner that night, and bought us some fried cheesecake for dessert.  It was pretty legit!

Haircuts last night from Elder Hancock. Ah, Elder Hancock is so funny. He says I remind him of what his brother looks like and how he acts, so yeah we're basically like best friends already, after 3 weeks.