Artesia week 7

HEY! Good to hear from you. I'm glad you missed me. That makes me feel a little better about myself. I did not get your letter from St. Thomas yet. I did get your 7-11 card though. Thanks! The only problem is there are like zero 7-11s in Texas and New Mexico.

They have a bunch of other random little convenient stores. Crazy...

Christmas in July!

Here's some more pics of Elder Nowland from this week. I hope you like our Christmas lights that we have up. We are celebrating Christmas in July. You've probably heard of it before. But anyway it's cool. 

And here is Elder Nowland by a cactus that he thought was cool, so I took a picture of him by it.

Here are some interesting things about Elder Nowland. He is essentially a beast. He can bench press 450 pounds 7 times. Wow. Normal people shouldn't be able to do that. Anyway, as seems the usual, when one is particularly talented in one area, it leads to a weakness in another. He has a hard time learning and remembering things. So, these weeks of training should be particularly challenging. But, he is willing and he is able. He had never read from the Book of Mormon before coming onto his mission. But this last week we were both able to have an amazing spiritual experience and for the first time he received a witness that the Book of Mormon is true. So that is pretty much super legit. 

Here I am making some brownies for our 4th of July treat in our apartment.

 And here is my face which got wrecked by a mosquito a couple nights ago :)

This is Elder Young, another new missionary as of a couple weeks ago. We went on exchanges this week so I had to get a pic.

I have not met President Heap yet, but I have talked to him on the phone a bunch of times because of Elder Ramirez going home and then Elder Nowland coming out. He seems really nice and cool. Elder Nowland came out a little late because he had a little surgery on his foot in the MTC. Also, he almost went home when he was there. But he decided he needed to come out, so here he is. He is a determined guy. Which is a really good thing (unless I try to tell him to do something as his trainer and then he decides he doesn't want to). For example, he doesn't like to go and talk to people on the street. Well, we kind of have to do that like all day. So last night I told him he was going to talk to the next person. He said no. We walked over to a guy and I asked him how he was doing. He said good. Then he asked us what we were doing as missionaries. I looked to Elder Nowland. He didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then he whispered to me, "You got this." I didn't say anything. I just kept looking at him. After a few more seconds of painful silence which seemed like an hour Elder Nowland started talking. There we go buddy! Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do as a trainer. Hopefully he doesn't hate me. LOL

News for our investigators: Sonya is having trouble getting over her Jehovah Witness beliefs. But she did read from the Book of Mormon and is still willing to meet with us. We were also able to pick up a new investigator this week named Eddie. We just found him on the street fixing his car. We had a great lesson and set a baptismal date! But he didn't make it to church, so we had to change it.

And last exciting news of the week: We decided to go by and visit Mark on Monday. We were able to have a great lesson and the spirit witnessed to him again that he should give us another try. He told us that he remembered how he always felt good when we came over. On Saturday we had a church tour with him and it was superb. We went in the chapel last, and told him right before we went in that we just wanted to sit in silence for a few minutes and let the spirit speak. I think that's what we should do for all our lessons. Say nothing and just let the spirit talk. Because he felt it so strong and even started crying. He told us he knows he has his answer, but that he's just got to do something now. Unfortunately he ended up staying up until 2 that night and slept in for church! Dang... Random question: did you get my package I sent about 2 months ago right when I left Hereford? It had some clothes and stuff in it?

I love you mom! I love you dad! I love you Meagan! I love you Courtney!