Dear people to whom will recieve this,
This was a crazy half-fortnight! Below is an authentic account of everything that transpired--if you can trust it...
Monday started out like any p-day. It was fun, relaxing, and orangutan. At around 4, a member in Texarkana invited us over to eat some leftover food from their memorial day celebration. Most of us claim to have stomachs, so we headed over there. We arrived and it looks the only guests the members had invited over for their party had been mice because the food looked almost untouched. There were ribs, drumsticks, beans, Mac and cheese, salads, cheeses, fruits, dipping vegetables, chips and salsa, colsla, and every drink--and only seven of us (Sister Carr, Sister Sharp, Sister Dabling, Elder Maisey, Elder Rainey, and Elders Nelson and Nielson). We feasted and then left. Elder Maisey and I were there because we were going to go on exchanges. The only problem wyas the Texarkana Elders have had no car for a long time, so we both came up to Texarkana to double-work their area (one companionship on bikes, the other on car). So Elder Rainey and I took the car, and Elder Nelson and Elder Maisey took the two bikes (one of which was Elder Rainey's).
Elder Rainey and I decided to do some street contacting at a nearby park, so we started walking around and talking to people. Then we made the first blunder of the night and talked to the wrong people. I asked if we could share a scripture and they said yes, so I shared Alma 37:37 with them. After the scripture we asked if any of them were religious and they said "yes, we have a church." We then asked if anybody would ever be interested in talking with us again about Jesus Christ. Two of the ladies politely declined, and as we were about to leave this guy who had been fishing the whole time turned around and walked up to us. He started by saying "why would you offer to share your message with them when they already said they have a church??" We politely explained that our message was for everyone, no matter what their beliefs and so we didn't think it would hurt to offer. This guy was insane though and started to bash us hard-core. Almost everything he said was utter nonsense and easily disproven but each time we tried to speak he said "I'll answer for you" and then proceeded to say something he thought we would say. I don't have time to go over every stupid thing he said but to give you an example he said, "I've been around longer so I know my geography better than you do" and then said THIS outrageous thing. He said that there's a practical explanation for Jesus walking on the water. He said that in the morning the Mediterranean Sea freezes over, and so when Jesus "walked on the water" he was really just walking on the ice. He was completely right, it's not like I've actually swam in one of the warmest seas in the world and that it's impossible for it to freeze over. Also, it wasn't even the Mediterranean that the disciples were in, it was the Sea of Galilee (if I remember correctly). This man also posed the question, "How would Jesus get from Jerusalem, all the way over to the Americas? You know they aren't right next to each other right?" This man that claimed to be Christian sure didn't seem to really believe Jesus has any power. I finally took control of the conversation and told him we were going to leave since we'd been listening to his drivel for 45 minutes (and I was afraid I was going to sock him). We left and I answered every question he hadn't let me answer to Elder Rainey to get it all out.
That guy had wasted most of our night so we headed to McDonald's to do our Facebook work for the evening. That's when we got a call. The second blunder of the evening had just happened. Remember this is still only Monday :)
The other Elders called us, and said Elder Rainey's bike had just been stolen. They had left it unattended for only 10 minutes without a lock, and in that time it was stolen. We rushed over there asap and started to ask everyone in the apartment complex if they had seen anyone steal it. It was dark at this point and so we couldn't really make any headway. Through all this Elder Rainey was steaming, he had warned them that his bike was VERY expensive and had specifically told them to ALWAYS use the lock. His parents had even told him not to let anyone use it and so he had very grudgingly even allowed it to be used. After searching for a long time with no luck we had no choice but to head back to the Texarkana apartment. The whole drive home not a single word was said. It was dead silent except for the Tiwi giving intermittent and way to cheerful "check your speed"'s to Elder Rainey. We got back and all quietly headed in. Elder Rainey closed himself in a different room and we all just sat in the main room trying to think how we could have done better and what we could do to fix this (again his bike was not cheap). Elder Nelson called their Elders Quorum president, Bishop, and the ZLs trying to see if anyone had any ideas.
Finally he decided to call President Seitz so he did. President Seitz listened to our situation and then said, "Let me talk to Elder Rainey." So we gave the phone over and then we left the room to give him some privacy. After 10 minutes or so they finished and the entire mood changed. For the rest of the evening Elder Rainey's mood was back to normal and he acted like nothing had happened. We played some games and had a ton of fun! I'm not sure what President did but it definitely worked.
Tuesday morning we woke up and then we realized we were going to have a problem now that there was only one bike. Between the 4 of us we had 1 car and 1 bike. So we decided that we would go and double work New Boston (cause there's another bike in our apartment). So we started the omega exchange, and decided we would do exchanges until Zone conference on Thursday. So in the morning and afternoon Elder Rainey and I used the car and the other Elders biked New Boston. It was super fun, New Boston had 2 missionaries for each half of the small town. We were able to be in two places at once and teach some lessons we thought we'd have to reschedule.
We met back at the apartment for dinner and ate some steaks and Spaghetti. It was so fun staying with 4 Elders in that apartment. Things are so lively when Elder Nelson is around. In the evening Elder Nelson and I decided to go on foot in Hooks while the others took the car. We had so much fun just walking around the neighborhood. We found 4 new people to teach!
On Wednesday after breakfast we split up again. Elder Nelson and I went to Wendy's to do comp study. He got me a 4 for 4 despite my half-hearted protests. We were eating and studying and then we got a call from the other Elders saying they were going head up to Texarkana. Apparently they got a call from a member who was moving someone out and their help was needed. So they left us the car and a member drove them up there. Then we got a call from the sisters saying a different member needed help moving IN. So we packed up everybody's stuff and went up to Texarkana and helped the Sisters move this member in. We were helping people move all afternoon and decided to spend the night in Texarkana again so we could save miles.
After the moves a member in that ward took all 7 of us to Raising Canes and it was soo good. I must have been really hungry cause usually it's just mildly good. After dinner we exchanged again so it was me and Elder Rainey again. We double worked Texarkana, and Elder Rainey decided to walk around with a gigantic Bible. It was hilarious, he looked like a Baptist preacher while he was carrying that thing. We had a lot of fun even though nobody was home haha
We stayed the night in Texarkana and it was awesome, we woke up the next day early and drove to Shreveport for Zone Conference. Zone Conference was super fun also, afterwards some members in Shreve provided Hawaiian haystacks :)
We took a Zone picture which I will attach, President Seitz came up to us fists clenched in gorilla pose which made us all start moving and laughing so that's why a couple of the pictures are blurry.
On out way back from Zone conference we stopped at the Fouke Monster Mart and saw their mini Bigfoot museum. It was a lot of fun.
Friday and Saturday things were finally back to normal, we did a lot of planning and stopbys.
On Sunday we started working on a video to hype our zone up for Facebook work. Our video contains a short funeral for the Zone page. As we were filming a sudden storm hit and the power went out. It was super fun, I decided to make some hot chocolate. I will take any excuse I can get.
A lot more happened but already you probably gave up reading so I will stop there
-Elder Nielson
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