Abilene Week 3

Blue Bell Ice Cream......YUM!

 The 4th of July was this week as you know. Of course we had to do a little celebrating.  so last Monday on p-day we took a little trip down the ice cream isle.  And look at all the bluebell icecream we found! I got some red velvet and it so delicious!  I've only had one bowl so far. The 4th was kind of a downer day.  We had to bike all day because Thursday is bike day.  We had 2 appointments with Spanish speakers.  Now, the Spanish speakers are on the opposite side of town that we live on, so we had a nice long bike ride.  We had to ride for 30 minutes to get there, but we knew we had to visit them.  Then on our way back Elder King popped his tire.  We were still about another 15 minutes on bike from home when this happened.  Luckily, a guy from another ward was driving by us with his truck right when this happened and was able to give us a ride home.  Blessings! Blessings! Everywhere!

4th of July celebration.....Monopoly.....yay!

Our celebration of the 4th of July was playing Monopoly.  We had to be back by 6:00 that night because they didn't want us to do anything with fireworks and get in trouble.  So we hung out with some of the Elders and had a 2 hour game of Monopoly that went no where.  but at least we had some food and good company.

The mosquito's love me!

The mosquito's still like to destroy me here. One night this week we had a lesson outside. After the lesson was over we counted, and I had a total of 20 bites. We decided it would be best to take documentation of this event in case it was some kind of world record. But the lesson was good at least. It was the first lesson that we had with Eliseo, a new Spanish investigator. At the end of the lesson we challenged him to be baptized and he said yes! His date is set for the 20th of July. So, I said that the bites were worth it. Then last night we met with Eliseo again and talked about the Plan of Salvation. He really liked it, and seemed to understand it despite our awful Spanish. I even was able to make him laugh pretty good one time. He was looking up the Gospel Library app on his iPhone and it froze for like a minute, and he got a little mad at it. Then a pulled out my flip phone and asked him if he wanted to trade? He thought that was pretty funny. He still wants to keep his date, and we are going to start meeting with him 3 times a week. He is super interested in learning more about what God wants for him, and hopefully this desire can help to reactivate his inactive wife too. They both were at church yesterday, which was super awesome! 

Elder King's Birthday

It was Elder King's birthday last week as you know, and one of the families he baptized had us over for a little fiesta. It is tradition in Mexican birthday parties to have the birthday boy  take a bite out of the cake. And of course, it is inevitable that someone will push the rest of your face into the cake too. Pretty funny. You should tell people about that tradition, except only tell them about the first part. Then when they go to take a bite you can catch them by surprise. HAHA!

Paying homage to a picture from my dad's mission scrapbook

This week when we were driving down the road I tried to replicate that picture dad has from his mission. I don't know how good of a job I did, but there you go. And I don't have any Palm trees in the background or anything. I did get a train that was going by. I thought that was pretty cool. Not quite as awesome as Florida, but it will have to do. Interestingly enough, the people here think it's nice and humid. The people from Utah especially comment on the humidity. I'm like, "are you kidding me? It's so dry!" The don't know what humidity is like... 

So remember that awesome family we found knocking last week? This Friday we had an appointment with them. We went over to their house and knocked on the door. We heard people inside, but then it got real quiet real quick. We knocked a couple more times, but no one answered the door. We then called the number they gave us and the dad answers. We ask about our appointment, and he says "Sorry I'm at work." Well sir, no you're not. Your car is in the driveway, and we just heard your whole family in the house. We didn't say that of course though. We said is there another time that would work better for you? He said how he was a Christian man who already was great with going to the Church of Christ. We told him that's great. We're Christians too! He said he wasn't interested. We asked if we could still meet with his wife and children because they seemed really interested last time when we talked to them. He said no.

Speaking of children, we got another new investigator this week who is 9 years old. Her name is Kayla. Her grandma just got custody of her and Kayla is now in a good environment and super excited to learn about the Gospel. Since she's 9, and it's the middle of the summer she has plenty of time to meet with us. We met her 3 times this last week. She is pumped about the gospel, and has a baptismal date set for the 20th of July! We came back the day after our first visit for another one and asked her how her reading from the Book of Mormon is going (she has the kids one with pictures too), and she said she read 19 chapters! That right there is why Jesus told us all to be like little children. They have tremendous faith and really try so hard to do the right. 

Abilene Week 2

Good Ole Texas making money from oil

Texas is really funny.  Where ever you go there are just pictures of Texas.  There are always sayings about Texas on all the walls in stores and restaurants.  There are pictures of the state engraved into the walls on the highway, on people's cars...just everywhere!

You rock MOM!

 Perfect choice on that Nesquick you sent me mom.  You know it's my favorite.  So on my first p-day, last Monday I went out and bought the biggest container Walmart had of it.  So the one you sent me will just have to wait its turn....a week or so probably.  Elder King said I should try to balance all of that for a good picture.  So I did....look it worked!

Making my delicious grilled cheese dinner!

As little cooking as I'm doing, it turns out Elder King does even less.

This is where the magic happens.....

And by magic I mean, cereal, and peanut butter and honey sandwiches!

Can you believe this bathroom belongs to two 19 year old young men

My super fancy bathroom.  Try not to get to jealous.  Luckily, Elder King and I are both very clean people, so our apartment is neat.  Especially in comparison to some of the other missionaries.  There are all levels of grossness I have seen in other apartments.

Our study area

This is where we study and we study a lot! Personal study for an hour.  Then companion study.  Then until I am here for 12 weeks we get another hour of companion study for training purposes.  Then an hour of language study.  Then lunch.  Long morning!

So, I guess it's time to tell you how my week has been. Super exciting, quite stressful, but very rewarding. Elder King is pushing me, but I need it. In my first week here we were having a lesson with a Spanish lady, and I was barely catching a word here and there. Then all of the sudden Elder King says, "and my companion has a scripture he would like to share." Oh really? I do? So I turned to one I thought had to do with what we were talking about and after I read gave a brief testimony of it. Then the lady we were teaching said "Que bonito." The old Hispanic ladies are quite funny, even if you barely know half of what they are saying.

This Thursday Elder King and I had a really neat experience. We  had a lesson with a less active, old hispanic man and taught the first lesson. Interestingly enough, he didn't know most of the things we were talking about, so it was a good thing that we did. Then the rest of the day, we had nothing. After we left his house at 2 we had no set appointments for the rest of the day. Our other 2 we originally had punched on us. Punch means to cancel. We had a goal to find a new Spanish investigator that day. We didn't know how, but we decided to start driving. Then after a couple minutes we felt like we should stop. Before we got out we tried calling our investigators and other potentials to see if we could set up some appointments for later on. Dozens of phone calls later with no answers we felt we should just get out and start knocking doors. So we did (knocking doors to find Spanish investigators is especially difficult because most of the people who answer speak English). We knocked for almost an hour, and we finally got to the end of the street. Only 3 houses left to go. We knock on the 3rd to last house. We hear running around inside, and a kid say "hey it's some people from the church!" Oh great, we think. Then we proceed to wait another minute before someone finally answers the door. It's a little girl who we start talking to (she speaks English), but then in the background the mom says "No ingles aqui. Lo siento." The girl starts shutting the door then we bust out some Spanish real quick. The door flings back open. The mom walks up to us and says "pasenle, pasenle."

Yeah, that means come inside in case you were wondering (afterwards Elder King told me that he has NEVER been let inside someone's house from just knocking on doors before. Very rarely you  can get invited  back later for another visit, but never right off the knock). We start talking a little bit. The mom is finishing some cooking on the stove, and 4 kids are running around the house screaming while the TV is on some raunchy show. After a couple minutes the mom comes back into the living room and turns the TV off. Then Elder King invites the kids to come and listen too. They do, and everything gets calm. Well, would you guess it? We taught the whole first lesson all in Spanish. Elder King and I had practiced it in the morning in Spanish, and then earlier we had had it in Spanish with that less active man. We were all practiced up, and the Lord was helping us every step of the way. I said the first vision, and afterwards we paused. Then we asked how each one of them felt. They were all feeling really good. The Spirit was there. We have a return appointment with them this Friday, and the other 2 kids (6 kids total!) and the father will be there as well we think. I reeaallllyy hope this is the family Elder King and I have been praying to find. Everything that morning led us towards them, and they were so receptive. I'm still praying they are who we are meant to find.

Anyway, that day was the best day of the whole week. Especially because after that one of our investigators, Carlos, who we can never reach called us back, and we were able to teach him in Spanish too. Then we were able to get an appointment with an English investigator, Jacob. Right now he is our only really progressing English investigator. He really has a heart of gold. He wants to be the best person he can be. He has a tough time being a single father right now, but he has a strong desire to follow Christ. He is finally reading the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, but he doesn't know it is true yet. I pray every day that he will receive an answer. Anyway, that great day was so needed because the day before was pretty disappointing. We had 6 appointments. Our whole day was full! Then 4 of them cancelled... You would be surprised how many people cancel. It's pretty sad.

Now, we're getting a little out of order, but I want to go back to Tuesday. That night we had dinner with the Juarez family. Elder King baptized them about a month and a half before I got here. Well, 3 of them. The dad and the oldest daughter are still not baptized. Nadia, the oldest daughter has a date set for the 13th of July to be baptized though!  Very exciting. Nicolas, the dad, is super nice. He's a great guy, and I love him. But he is just not as excited as the rest of the family is about baptism. He comes to church every week with the family though. So Tuesday we taught him the Doctrine of Christ. Then when the Spirit was really strong, and I know he was feeling it, I challenged him to be baptized. He said yes... but no for a while, which basically means no. It was sad, and you could see that on the faces of his family especially. I'm feeling though, that soon he'll make it there.

Saturday night we had an appointment with Allie and Sal. Allie was a less active member who Elder King met a few weeks before I got here. Now she is super excited about the church. She loves it. She is coming to church every week, and her testimony is exploding. Sal is not a member, and he has almost no religious background (which is unusual for Texas). We're taking it very slow, because he is starting from ground zero. That night we were setting up for a baptismal challenge the whole time. We led into it with a bunch of scriptures promising all these wonderful blessings of baptism. Then I asked him, "Sal, do you want all these things in your life?" He's a smart guy, and he said. "Yes, but I know where you're going with this and I'm not sure I am ready to be baptized." Another baptismal challenge thwarted. It's ok. We told him we didn't want him to feel like he was doing it for us, or even his wife. He should be doing it for him. He doesn't have a faith that Jesus Christ is his Savior yet, and he definitely needs that before he gets baptized.

Well, Sunday was exciting. Last Sunday I gave a talk in Abilene 2nd ward, the English one. This Sunday I gave a talk in the Abilene Spanish branch. Fantastic. Either they like me, or realllly don't like me here. One of the two. I feel bad in the Spanish branch because when I try to go and talk to people, they always end up saying something I have no idea, then I kind of smile. After asking them to repeat themselves like 2 times they realize I have no idea what they're saying. At least people are nice about it, but sometimes I feel a little helpless. Everyone in our wards are really friendly though. It's a good place. Family, I love you! Thanks for the prayers, and keep them up because I need them! Love you mom! Love you dad! Love you Meagan! Love you Courtney!