Abilene week 25

68 degrees today, ice storm rolling in tomorrow

Hola! This week was really good! As you can see, it started off nice and warm. We took advantage of this warm weather and biked all over the city for a couple days. We stopped in a little park for dinner (we packed some good old PB and J sandwiches) because since we were on bikes we couldn´t return and cook anything special. 

Selfie in the park, in the dark!

We were out rather late that night too. We tried taking a little short cut through the woods to get home, but it was too dark, so we had to turn around and just bike on the streets. We were actually then told by the zone leaders to not bike that late, so they picked us up and drove us home. That was nice of them. We had a good time finding people on our bikes though.

Oh, and I found out... no Skype. Only a phone call. Apparently, some other missionaries had gotten too emotional seeing their family over Skype, so that one got outlawed. But we get an hour to talk on the phone! So think of some questions you want to ask me!

And here we have the storm rolling in I think Wednesday night? The flash caught all the snowflakes in the picture, which I thought was legit!
 The roads here got destroyed by the ice storm by the way. Nobody knows how to drive here in the bad weather either. We saw lots of people skidding around. We have 4 wheel drive on our jeep though, and I took it slow, so we were fine. Yes, that means that we went out every day, despite the roads being a solid block of ice. They cancelled before for nothing, but then we went out this week in the real storm. I´m glad though. We had some really good lessons, especially with Azriel.

Elder Moffitt and Elder Banks outside enjoying the ice storm

Ok, now for some exciting news about Azriel. We were able to meet with him 3 times this week. He is still super excited about getting baptized, and he loves the gospel. Over the course of just a couple days he read in the Book of Mormon all the way from Lehi´s dream up to when they get to the promised land. He then explained it all in good detail to us. He is the most prepared person I have ever met. The Lord is in his life 100%. His baptism is set for this coming Saturday, the 14th. He was at church this Sunday, and him and President Swartz, our branch president have a great relationship. He was the one who baptized Javier and Flo too. Basically, him and Bro Robles (our ward mission leader) are super good at becoming everybody´s friends, which is awesome.

Elder Moffitt's TEXAS table at the ward Christmas Around the World celebration

Thanks for this picture mom. My table looks great! That was cool to get to see all my buddies little set ups at the party too. I am glad that everybody liked all the pictures. Pictures are definitely really fun. I don´t know if I told you... one of the mission rules is no caffeine. So no Dr Pepper for me for a while. I know. It´s sad, especially since I am in Texas, but it´s all good. It´ll be all the more delicious when I get back. 

That reminds me, I should probably tell you about a couple of the other investigators we have right now. Pedro and Juanita are an older couple that we have been teaching for a couple weeks. We have taught them about 5 times now we think. And this last lesson we had (right before we took that picture in the car actually) went really well, and they should be doing some good reading of the Book of Mormon this week. Pedro had a stroke a couple years ago too (seems to be a trend), but he seems to be all there. He just moves pretty slow. Juanita is really smart... and really baptist. But that´s ok. She already changed from being a Catholic before, so she can change again right?

Another couple we are teaching is Juan and Rosenda. They like to argue with each other a lot and try to get us to pick sides. We didn´t. It was hard to even teach a lesson. So, we just asked them, do you want to improve your relationship with each other? They said yes, and we promised them that if they read the Book of Mormon together every day for 3 days (tonight is the 3rd day and we have a return appointment) that their relationship would improve. They accepted the challenge.

Two other investigators: Jose- he says he knows the Book of Mormon is true, but won´t accept that we are the only church with authority. Nice guy. Juan (a different Juan. Basically, there´s a 90% chance that a hispanic guy is named Juan or Jose)- he can´t read. But he´s nice, and we had a good lesson with him with Bro Robles. He soft committed to baptism. We met Paul this week as well once briefly, but couldn´t have a real lesson because he was out of town most of the week. Nancy and Griselda, we weren´t able to get in contact with  again with this week.

And I found out this week that Mistletoe is a parasite. We saw a bunch of it in the trees, so we took a picture.

The beginning of last week Elder Banks got a sweet package from his family. It´s a 25 days of Christmas package. Every day has a present. And every day his parents gave me a present too! They are so nice! So we have fun every night opening a present and reading a Christmas story from your book by our Christmas tree.

I also hope you like my picture of me in the Santa hat at the church. 

 I haven´t gone Christmas shopping yet... but that´s the plan for today! I hope ya´ll have a good week. Christmas is coming fast! I love you Mom! I love you Dad! I love you Meagan! I love you Courtney!