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!