Artesia week 8

Here is our service that we did this week of building a less active lady in our ward a fence with her non member friend. We tried our best at teaching him, but we could not turn him into an investigator.

Here we are walking down a random street where I talked to some guy who spoke only Spanish, then he gave us a fresh cucumber from his garden, so that was pretty cool.

Gotta enjoy some IHOP

We definitely had some great blessings this week. For the first time since I arrived here in Artesia, we had an investigator come to church. Rita made it out to church this Sunday and brought her boyfriend, Angel along with 2 of their kids. She split right after sacrament, so we didn't have time to ask her what she thought of it, but it was great to see her there. When we asked her to be baptized she said yes, but she still has some things to work through before she gets there. Namely, quiting smoking and getting married.

It was a sad day when Toni dropped us this week. She was sooooo legit. And she had some real good friends in the church. But, I guess it just happens sometimes. This week I was thinking a lot about member missionary work. I always do. I think I am just upset about it because in my last area Sergio was just so awesome at it, he spoiled me from ever on. Still, from a ward of more than 100 regular sacrament meeting attenders, I was hoping that we would get a referral by now. Just remember family: The missionaries are the teachers, and THE MEMBERS ARE THE FINDERS! It usually doesn't work out that way, but that's what the prophets and apostles said it should be like. Nonetheless, we are working mighty hard and doing lots of finding. We were able to teach this nice old man, Ricky this week. We found him a couple weeks back. His wife is super active in the Catholic church (you don't see that very much), so we're hoping she'll join in on our lessons sometime soon.

Mark is doing good and bad. I don't know how else to describe it. Everytime we go over he feels the spirit really strongly. But he never reads the Book of Mormon on his own. Therefore, he keeps telling us that he doesn't feel good about it. Well Mark, how can you feel good about something if you haven't spent the time to actually read it for yourself? You can't! Ugh! It's so frustrating, especially when he's felt the spirit witness the truth to him so many times... This week may be a make it or break it for him. If he won't keep the simple commitment of reading, we may have to let him go, which would be really sad.

Typical nice sunsets of New Mexico and Texas. Beautiful.

Late at night we decided to take a picture right before heading in. I thought this little pose with the street light in the back would be cool, but it didn't work out quite like I expected. Anyway, as we were putting out cameras back in our bags this cop drives by right where we are and stops. We're thinking, "oh dang, he probably thinks we're dealing drugs or something." But he drove off and nothing happened. Anyway, fun story.

Some people are cat people. Some people are dog people. And I guess in Artesia some people are goat people? We found this cute little goat in someone's yard, so why not take a picture with it? It was making all these nice little bahhing noises when we were next to it. Then as we were walking away it started screaming super crazy and loud. Kind of like the goat in that Taylor Swift video, y'know? 

Spaghetti and meatballs. Simple, yet always good.

A new experiment: PB&J quesadillas. Pretty decent, except that the jelly when it became hot was real runny and kind of like molten lava. Still good though!

Last night a member came out with us to some lessons, and then gave us a whole bag full of snacks, including a giant bag of pretzel M&Ms, which is basically one of the best inventions ever.

This week I figured out the difference between being exhausted and being worn out or discouraged. Every day I come in exhausted, but this week has been a blessing of being able to feel fulfilled in my purpose, and for that I am grateful.

That's about it for me this week. Thanks for the pics. Mom, I hope you have fun at your new job. And Meagan, just because you're 18 doesn't mean you're really an adult. LOL. I love you Meagan! I love you Courtney! I love you mom! I love you dad!