It's interesting out here. No one wants to change. I can't
blame em. They are happy with their religion and we don't even get a real
chance to say anything before the door closes. I'm working on a quick 20
second overview of the gospel to spill to them and
hopefully something I say will catch their attention.
I'm already missin bread pudding :( ......you know, they
don't really have that great of food out here. It's just kinda
average. Nothing Healthy Though! :/ I broke 160. :( So this morning I just ran
and ran and ran and ran. Then played basketball! :) I'm NOT gonna buy new pants
cause i'm fat! It's weird out here.... it's like people are offended if you
don't eat seconds, thirds, forths, or fiths! And we eat at a member's house like
every night! I guess I can't complain.
We're going to the Doug's and Bridget's after this to go
hang with them and pick out a Christmas tree! People really are nice here though.
I love hearin all about the
adventures at home! It seems like so much is happening now that i'm gone! haha
geeze! I'll just have to appreciate it more when I get back.
12/10/12: I had to give a talk in church yesterday. I was told a
couple days in advance but it's kinda hard when you are workin all day and
don't have much time to prepare. But it was a good learning experience. I
talked about Being A Light In The World. I think it went very well.
It's been very slow around here. No one has time or even
wants to talk right now-- even our golden investigators! It's because of
finals and work schedules around the holidays are killer. Mission president
says that people's hearts are softened around the holidays but I don't think
that's the case in a poor town like this. In fact, I think it's quite the
opposite.
We do what we can though. And we're having a good time. It's
rough but then again so was toughmudder. haha.
The other day we yanked a tree
out of the ground with our bare hands! It was to help one of our
investigators. The ground was soft due to a fire. It was fun. Sounds
crazier than it actually was. I also helped nail up garbage bags over his
windows to help insulate his house. The best part-- All this was done in
my church clothes! haha. It was a sight to see.
12/17/12: All is GREAT out here. I know you wanna hear about my teaching experiences and
I have two I can share. It's really the hardest area in the mission so we
don't get very many "real" investigators.
1: Jennifer is the babysitter for a less-active family in
our branch, the Bazzel's. (Yeah... no wards... weird) Anyway, we asked Sister
Bazzel if Jennifer might be interested in the gospel. She said yes and gave us
her address. We went and visited her one night and she invited us in.
We shared the message of the restoration. She loves to pray to her Heavenly
Father, which is great because that's my favorite thing! So I was able to connect
with her right off the bat. We started talkin bout wanting to return to live
with our Heavenly Father and all that jazz. She really is liking everything we
are saying.
This is what I wanted to tell you: I finally invited her to
be baptized but she said she already had. So she asked if her baptism wasn't
valid.... and my big mouth opened up and said, "I'm not gonna beat around
the bush with you.... Nope. It wasn't." My eyes got big and I thought to
myself, "What did you just do?! You idiot!"
But the most amazing thing happened-- we explained why
(because we are the only ones with the proper priesthood authority) and she
accepted! So she's gonna keep reading and keep praying and when she comes to
know that what we are bringing her is true, she'll be baptized January 5th!
2: Scott is a less-active (hasn't been to church in a couple
years). His wife is a non-member. Unfortunately she hates God because he took
her parents when she was 7. It's gonna take a lot of work especially cause they
don't let members in. But we stopped by on saturday just to visit Scott and see
how he was doin. He was in his garage and we just talked about his new boat and
his RC cars and all his "toys."
Outside on his driveway was his new truck that he
just picked up. Guess what kind........
A 2001 Chevy Silverado! Just like Sierra! So when I
mentioned that I drove the same thing back home he asked me if I knew how to take
off the door panel. Off all things! The door panel! The thing I have taken off
3 times! So I showed him really quick and his eyes lit up!
Then he started asking me about other things on the truck
and I could answer all of them! It was so exciting! I was and am so happy
still! So was he! We really hit it off. I kinda felt bad for my companion
cause he kinda just stepped back cause he doesn't like that kind of stuff. But
Scott likes us and is totally willing to have us back.
He used to feed the missionaries
at his work, Western Sizzle, all you can eat steak. But he stopped a while
back. But guess what? He invited us to come eat at least once a month! I'm
stoked. He's such a cool guy. He really is. And he has lots of potential to
come back to church. I think he will. We just gotta keep goin back and being
friends. I'm excited. Definately highlight of my mission so far!
12/31/12: So..... you wanna know about the adventure I had this week?
Well... For starters... I wrecked the mission car.
No joke.
It was the night of Christmas and all down the
road not a small car was driving, not even a.... Ok I don't have much
time to think up an elaborate way to tell this story so i'll
just tell ya straight up. It was about 5:30-6ish at night on the
evening of the 25th of December. We decided to leave at that time because
we didn't want to leave after dark because the likelihood that
the roads would freeze would be higher.
Elder Flores handed me the keys and said, "You drive.
I'm from California and just in case it starts snowing the guy from
Utah with experience driving in snow should drive. Little did he know how
wrong but as you will soon find out, how right he was.
Well we got about 5 minutes down the road and we drove right
into a blizzard. There was no avoiding it. We didn't even have time to think if
we should turn around. We left with no snow falling. And BLAM! Blizzard. We
just were driving over this small hill. I was going 25 in a 45. Not
accelerating or braking. The wheel was straight. Suddenly, and in slow
motion, the back end of the car just started to slide out from under us. I had
hit black ice and had no control of the vehicle.
We are now sliding sideways down this hill, in the
other lane, head on towards none other than an oncoming, big
'ol Dodge Ram.
While trying to regain control, I realized it was inevitable
that we were gonna hit this truck. It would have t-boned us plowin right into
my door... But last second I abandoned trying to straighten out the
car and yanked my wheel the other way to throw the back end of the
car around and create less of an impact.
Luckily-- it worked. And only the back bumper was riped off
of our car. Then we went spinning into a ditch and the front end of
the car was submerged in water.
How awesome is this story so far?! haha
Well the blizzard had gone from bad to worse and it took
forever for a black and white to get there. When he finally showed
up we did all the stuff you go over after an accident as fast as we could
and got the heck outta there.
The other guy had a small dent behind his door and a popped
tire. Crazy thing was, he was riding with unpuncturable military humvee tires.
Yeah. I punctured an unpuncturable tire.
Everyone was cool with everything and the guy was really nice.
I didn't even get a citation which made me and the Mission Prez very happy
campers.
Well the deputy took us (both vehicles) home. But we were
about 16 miles from our house so he took us back to the people's house we were
staying at before. We ended up staying there that night and calling the mission
president the next morning.
The officer actually got stuck taking us home and had to be
pulled out. He even had 4 wheel drive and 2 sets of snow chains. We left
the car where it was because a wrecker couldn't come out in that weather.
Well we ended up stuck. At a members house. 4 nights. No
electricity. I've never been happier to take a warm shower in my life. I was able to shower once while I was there but I don't wanna talk about it-- it was like jumping into that water at toughmudder all over again.
Craziest week ever.
We had the biggest snow storm in 80+ years and the first
white Christmas in 20+. It wasn't the snow that was bad. This place has ICE!
Ridiculousness!
Yes there were angels pushing that car. I also attribute it
to dad teaching me how to mess around on snow when I was young.
Well now you know about my CRAZY week.
The bright side? Prez isn't mad at me cause I made him
laugh as we talked over the phone and because I didn't get a
citation. We'll be getting our car back in about a week and a half.
They pulled the car out on Saturday and suprisingly enough, they were able
to drive it back to Little Rock.
All is well now. We've been walking and because we were
walking we went by this house and I said, "Let's go there." We were
on our way to see someone else but I was told to go to this house. Turns out it
belongs to this older Pentecostal couple. We talked for a while about what
we both believe and they're pretty similar. They were just "so happy seeing
young men goin out a spreadin the message of Jesus Christ." They loved us
and want us back. They are so awesome. It's gonna be hard though trying to
convert someone like that. We're just gonna take it super slow. I'm just
glad I have a companion who knows the bible in and out.
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