Artesia week 12

Here we are at the last district meeting of the transfer. From top left to right we have: Elders Arave, Thomas, Nowland, Moffitt :), Young, and Van Voris. Then from bottom left to right there are : Sisters McCarthy and Starr and Elders Mitchell and King.

This new transfer does not bring much different news. Elder Nowland and I will both be staying here in Artesia. For my planner cover this time I decided to get a couple pictures of Jesus teaching the people. That's what I have felt like during the last few transfers. Teaching. Teaching. Teaching. Finding. Finding. Finding. It's something you've gotta do, and we've being doing lots of it.

Have you ever had a habanero? One of the spiciest peppers out there? I hadn't until this week. We went over to a less active's house and they told us that all the missionaries who came had to do the challenge. We accepted, and they agreed that for every one we ate they would also invite a friend to talk to the missionaries or go to church. Extra bonus. Anyway, the night arrived and we headed over for the epic event. Before we started Elder Nowland was being quite a big talker. He was saying how he wanted to beat the record of 7, and how if he felt like he could he would keep going and get like 10 or 12. I was just sitting there silently, waiting for the games to begin. With video cameras rolling, we both showed down on our first one. Whew! It was SPICY! I don't think spicy is even the correct term. Probably just burning. After the first one, Elder Nowland was down. He was gulping down ice cream and popcicles to quench the fire. I decided I couldn't stop after a just one, so I ate another 2 real quick. At this point I was feeling pretty confident with myself, so I went all out and ate another 3 right in a row. At this point I was at 6 habaneros. I was one away from the record and everyone was egging me on. I felt awful though. My mouth felt like it was just full of third degree burns and tears were streaming down my face from the heat. But with the peer pressure and being so close to going down in Martinez family history, I decided to man it up and eat the last two as fast as I could. Thus, I made it to 8. "say 8. Say 8," to quote Brian Reagan. I will probably never eat a habanero again in my life, so I had to make sure I went all the way that time. And I did. In the pictures you can clearly see how happy we are before commencing and how after eating 8 habaneros I look like I am about to die. No worries. No lasting consequences. Except a place in the hall of records!

Elder Nowland and I got to do some fun service this week for an excommunicated member who wants to come back. We helped him with building his chicken coop. I like the little sheik look I have going. It actually kept me a loooooooot cooler and prevented me from getting roasted by the sun. Now I understand all those Arabs...

Elder Moffitt and Elder Nowland doing service

 And here we are doing a late night 30 minute service project for our member, Brandt, who just helped us out for 2 hours with appointments. Once we get help, we gotta give back.

My other picture here is me trying a new experiment. I threw in some eggs, hashbrowns, mushrooms, and soy sauce. It was decent, but I don't think I'll go for it again. I was just in the mood for something really salty, and we had some mushrooms we needed to use.

 I got an e-mail this week from one of the girls in my MTC district who said "3 months left!" Crazy. The sisters that came out with me are going home in just a couple more transfers. I was talking to Elder King last night as I was doing my district leader calls. He said it was super weird for him only have 4 transfers left. It's winding down faster than you think. Luckily, 9 months is still a lot of time :)

This week for investigators: We finally were able to get into contact with Rita. We had a good lesson and she is doing well. She remembers everything we taught her, but we'll have to start over with the progress of her getting and answer to her prayers. She's still on board!

Jaime and Flora were busy this week too. We had one lesson with them. They read the Book of Mormon! Aaaaand they also read on Google about "those Mormons." But, the spirit that we had with us was able to calm their concerns. Nothing we said helped, but just the spirit itself made things better. We also started teaching Mike, another guy that lives in the same house as them. One day Mike answered the door so we just started teaching him right then and there. He is a neat guy. Very spiritual. He liked our lesson we had about the restoration and said he felt "spiritually fed" afterwards. None of our investigators made it out to church this week (Except Ryan who we aren't really teaching anymore, but if he starts calming down maybe we could teach him again).

Sonya has shown major progress this week. When we came by for our lesson she told us how she had just been reading where we left off (we read 3Nephi11 with her and told her to keep going from there). Turns out, this last week she read all the rest of 3Nephi! Wow! Incredible! She said she kept reading because she felt hungry for more. Buuut she didn't pray about it and therefore does not have an answer that it is true. Pray for her to have the strength and faith to pray. She hasn't prayed with us there yet. This week was also great with the ward. We have been helping out the Elders Quorum visit their people and hit a record of 10 less active member lessons this week! That was exciting. We are seeing lots of success, just not in the form of a baptism yet. Soon. How soon? Very soon....

I love you mom! I love you dad! I love you Meagan (have fun going out to college this week. Be safe and enjoy yourself)! I love you Courtney!