Matchmaking

Dear close friends and random people,

Monday was Zone Pday, so we played some games and had a Baked potato bar (suggested by Spencer). It was pretty fun! We also went to the Chiropractor and talked to Jack again. In the evening we went put to Garland with Richie, and taught a couple of surprise lessons! We met a guy named Shaun, who seemed open to our message. The one problem is we caught him in the middle of a Fortnite match, but he graciously talked to us for a while anyway. We talked about a lot of stuff with Richie too, which for legal reasons cannot be mentioned here.

Tuesday was Zone Conference, so we drove up to McKinney! Traffic was super bad so we guessed how much it cost to build President George Bush Highway, (1.6 Billion) and discussed other such subjects. Zone Conference was super fun, got to talk a lot with Elder Sauer again which was so fun! Also Elder Gamett conducted so I got to sit on the stand and observe the masses yet again. I like presiding ;)

After Zone Conference we went on Exchanges with the Greenville East Elders, I went back to Heath with Elder Mecham. It was super fun, our member cancelled so we made some emergency calls and went out with Harrison. Not many people answered but we spent the whole night looking at giant mansions and houses so it was arguably even MORE fun than a night full of lessons. Elder Mechams jaw was on the ground the whole time haha

On Wednesday we exchanged back and then went on exchanges with the Forney Elders. Elder Nani came to Heath with me, and we went out with Ruben. We drove out to Quinlan and made some visits there, it was super fun! Lots of bumpy middle-of-nowhere roads were braved, and sketchy houses conquered. We also had a cool lesson with Robert where he asked some super good questions like how to stop repetitive sin. Ruben was the perfect person to have along and basically just taught the lesson!

Thursday we did service at Helping Hands, exchanged back, and then went out with Jack. We talked to a cool guy named Michael, and Jack immediately went to his garage and talked with him about his BMW and motorcycles. It was really fun, we have this tradition of identifying and photographing each cool car we see, and Jack is definitely the most knowledgeable. He also attempts to touch an animal each time we go out. First a duck, then a cat, then max the dog, and this time it was going to be an armadillo, but it was dead and probably covered in disease, so he refrained. 

We had a super good dinner at the Palmers with Navajo Tacos and scones with cinnamon sugar for dessert! After that we went into a giant neighborhood called Kingsbury which is basically just a neighborhood of mansions, and stopped by someone. It was lucky we got through the gate, we slipped in behind another car. Jack gave us some of his friends to visit, and got us drinks, and then we met some more people in Heath and Forney. We met a girl named Sarah who was not interested and thought that the Bible is the only word of God, and after talking with her persuasively for a bit, she admitted that she had gotten her information from Wikipedia. So she said she'd read the Book of Mormon for a bit and see what it was actually about, as long as we read some of a daily devo book she likes. Jack gave her his Book of Mormon that he got when he was first introduced to the missionaries, and then told her we'd be back in a month and it wouldn't look good if we had read from her book and she hadn't read anything, and then told her she should at least finish 1 Nephi in that time! It was super fun.

After that Jack wanted to have a lesson with Tony so we called him, and met up. 

On Friday we got lunch with Jack, and went out with Feki. It was pretty fun, we found a girl named Nila, who's very interested in the Book of Mormon! We were struggling to find someone to come out with us Saturday, and we ender up visiting a YSA named Robert who we thought was inactive, but apparently he just moved in! We shared a lesson with him, and then he said he could take us out on Saturday!

Saturday we had some District service raking up leaves, and then had some cool lessons when we were out with Robert.

We had a lesson with Jack as well which was very fun, he said he's trying to get better at consistently reading.

Sunday was crazy as usual, the most notable thing that happened is we went out with Jovanni who's a branch missionary and then invited one of the other branch missionaries Alejandra along too! It was funny because Jovanni and Alejandra have a lot in common so we are hoping to bring them out with us more and see what happens. They are both super fun to hang out with

-Abe

Laurence Laurentz

 

Hi everyone!

This was a great week full of many things, but as usual I don't want to take forever writing an email so I will condense as much as possible.

Monday we mostly did a bunch of errands, one of which was going to the chiropractor for Elder Gamett cause he's been having neck problems. Jack came in to work early just so he could say hi to us, and strapped Elder Gamett to the electrocution device and took his blood pressure as well haha

We went out with my favorite ward missionary Brother Hobbs in the evening, and had a good member lesson with the Jones family, and then met up at the church and taught Robert and Tony! It was super good, we taught the Plan of Salvation and Brother Hobbs was super helpful.

Tuesday after district council we did some mulch-spreading and trimming for Ruth, and talked to her about memories from her life as we worked. Whenever she wasn't outside we talked about the Clone Wars and Rebels of course. In the evening we went out with Brother McCormick and his son Miles. We had dinner with them and the Davis family, and also visited some other families. At around 7:45 we got a call from the sisters asking us to come to a surprise pass-off lesson with a guy named Ryan at 8:15! The McCormicks had to leave at 8 so we would have no member with us. So we called Jack 15 minutes before the lesson and he said, "I'll be there." It was super awesome, Jack liked coming to the lesson with us, and Ryan said he'd come to church!

Wednesday we had park-your-car day, and luckily it wasn't too cold. :) We had dinner with Kristen from the YSA, and since she couldn't pick us up alone, we had another YSA named Jovanni pick us and her up! We went to Hawaiian Bros which is usually pretty good, especially the Dole Whip! In the evening we went out with Spencer, and he got us some drinks and cookie dough bites from Bucky's as we visited people in Royse City.

On Thursday we did service at Helping Hands, and then Jack picked us up around 1:30 and spent the entire day with us until about 9:30 pm haha

It was so much fun, we went down to Terrell, and visited some people at a very run-down apartment complex. We talked to some cool people, took some pictures of some Mustangs, and Jack managed to grab a stray cat as well! Jack also joined us for the Zone Call, and went with us to dinner with Brother Linn at Denny's. After dinner it started storming really bad so we decided to head out to Rowlett ;) 

We drove out and met a few Spanish-speaking YSA members, and set up some lessons! We also had an SPR meeting, and then went to the church and had an awesome lesson with Robert! Jack remembered when Elder Sauer taught him Sea-tur-tle as a way to remember which kingdom of glory is which, and taught Robert the same, rather proudly haha

We read in Mosiah 18, and put Robert on date for baptism on April 15th! It was a super fun day, a ton happened but I am running low on time.

Friday we did weekly planning, and then after our studies we had interviews with president. Then we drove out to Rowlett at a poorly-planned time (rush hour) and exchanged with Rowlett 3. I stayed there with Elder Jones and spent the whole night nodding along as he taught and talked to people in Spanish

On Saturday we exchanged back, and then helped someone move some fridges in Garland, and in the evening we went out to Caddo Mills with Justin! It was fun we got to see his new house hes having built, and then had another super cool lesson with Tony and Robert.

On Sunday we nobody showed up for church, but then in the first 10 minutes of church Robert, Scott, and Ryan all showed up! It was super cool!

-Abe

Shabby Thesealion

Hey everyone,

This was a fun week! LOTS of meetings with it being the first week of the transfer, but fun nonetheless.

Monday we ate lunch at Velvet Taco with our District which was pretty fun, I got the Brisket taco! We also played some frisbee, and then unfortunately got it stuck in tree. We then proceeded to also get a baseball, a baseball bat, another frisbee, and a football stuck in the same tree while trying to knock down the frisbee haha

In the evening we went out with Luke, and drove out to the boonies of the Heath ward with him, it was pretty fun.

Tuesday Elder Gamett and I spent the whole morning working on the SPR report report, which I always enjoy! We also had our ride for the evening cancel, so we frantically started calling people and luckily Harrison (the first person we called) said he could take us! So we went to dinner with him, and then had a lesson at the Davis' home and a lesson with Robert! At the Davis' they have a GIANT puppy that just bites into your arm and just holds it in his mouth like a bone if you aren't careful. The majority of the lesson was spent pushing him away from us haha

On Wednesday we had District council, and ate at In-n-out. We were able to talk to a nice Hispanic couple who were interested in the Book of Mormon there which was cool! We also went out with Brother Thurgood, and met some cool people in the evening.

On Thursday we had mission conference, and then did weekly planning. After that we went and sat on the balcony of the Rockwall Library and worked on the Zone Plan while it poured and stormed. Super fun to watch! In the evening we went out with Alex, and had an in-depth Plan of Salvation lesson with Kaity Madrid! Alex also got us Chick-fil-A afterwards, and I tried one of the salads which was pretty good. We also had a call with the DLs and set a spiritual commitment for April, and I finally got my way and we made it very low (we made it 2 haha), so now maybe this Zone will actually achieve their spiritual commitment for the first time EVER

Friday we after MLC we went out with President Bush, and had some cool member lessons! One of which was with the Cranes, and we had a great discussion about finding joy and happiness with them. We also taught the Stewarts and I took a picture with their Porsche 911!!

On Saturday Brother Stewart picked us up in his Camero and took us to have an amazing breakfast at their house! We Potatoes, sausage, gravy, onions, peppers, cheese, and (If you aren't me) eggs with fresh Raspberries! After breakfast we did service at the thrift store. In the evening Nick came down from McKinney and we went out with him up to Greenville!! We also had another awesome lesson with Robert, and he asked a lot of good questions such as what habits should he form to become more disciplined and closer to God!

Sunday we had an encounter with my favorite bishop, but other than that it was pretty normal. Nothing too exciting, although Jack came to church as usual and I got called up to bear a surprise testimony haha

-Abe

Big Honk

Hi Everyone, 

This week we had so much happen that its going to be hard to fit it all in this email. I will try to hit the highlights!

Monday nothing too eventful happened, we played some pickleball and went out with Brother Cline in his '06 Mustang. We talked about cars basically the whole night which was fun. We were also able to have a member lesson with Sister Wilson, and had a great lesson about Charity! We also ran into a lady named Ruth, who was gathering up dead grasses she had been trimming, and so we asked if she needed help! She said yes and we set up a time to come help the next day. She said she'd been wondering and praying how she was going to do it all herself!

Tuesday we had District council in the morning, and then went and helped Ruth! She was very impressed that we had stayed true to our word and returned to help! After service, we went and exchanged with the APs. I went with Elder Gardner again back to Heath, and we had a fun night! We went out with Ruben and had some cool lessons, and he even came to our dinner appointment with us! He's so good at talking to people, so we just sat back and let him talk to the people we taught. We went and taught the Davis family and they had 3 nonmember friends there as a surprise for us! 

Wednesday we exchanged back, and then drove up to Greenville for their District Council! It was interesting to see the difference in dynamics between the Districts, it was great to see everyone was getting along! In the evening we went out with Brother Berg, and had a drop lesson with Eddie and Karen. It went pretty well, even though Eddie is reading the Book of Mormon and knows its true, we told him we can't keep teaching him unless he comes to church. Brother Berg was very blunt with him and basically told him that in his line of work as a doctor he has to tell people to excersize, and if they won't help themselves he can't help them haha--Eddie was very understanding, we said when he comes to church we will start teaching him again though!

Thursday was a wild day, we ate lunch with Jack and then went out with him in the afternoon. We stopped by a girl named Madison, who we had tried stopping by before, and her dad had said she was still interested but was working. So he had told us to come back either Saturday or before 4 pm on a weekday. Last Saturday night we stopped by around 7 pm, and a different lady answered the door and said "what are you doing here it's the middle of the night!" It was 7 pm. She told us not to come by when it's late, so we thought to ourselves, "okay, we will try during the day then, since Saturday didn't work." We went by with Jack, and there was no answer. We left a note and drove away, then 5 minutes later we got a call from that same lady. She said she had found the card, and that we should come back. She didn't sound mad, but also didn't sound pleased with us. We said "sure" and then when we hung up we realized that maybe we shouldn't have been do hasty to comply. Jack and Elder Gamett thought we should go back though, so we did. When we got out of the car, that same guy who told us a few weeks ago to come back came out and started yelling at us! He said a bunch of colorful words and threatened us to never ever come back. Jack tried his best to hold in a slight smile, but let it slip slightly because then the guy got up in his face and asked "do you think this is funny?!?" And started backing him down. He was saying all sorts of nonsense about how he could beat us up etc. but we left and drove away. Jack was very pleased we had returned, and was talking about how exciting that was for the rest of the day haha

We also found a lady who had come to our church before, and Elder Gamett was able to teach her! (She spoke Spanish, so Jack and I just nodded along and relaxed)

Jack dropped us off at our dinner, and then after dinner we went out with Spencer. All day we had been hearing about this supposed "big storm" rolling in, but had seen only small clouds and felt only sprinkling rain. Spencer said there might be storms coming too, but it looked fine so we drove up to Royse City. On the way up, we got an emergency Storm alert, so we decided to pray about if we should return or not. We felt like we should go back, so we drove home and on the way the storm hit super bad! It was sooo windy and stormy and as we drove the power was slowly going out behind us along the freeway. It started to hit super bad so we decided this was an emergency situation and just drove into our garage with Spencer. We didn't want him to have to drive home in it, so he just hung out with us for a couple hours! And we were able to have a cool phone lesson and watch the lightning through the windows with the lights off which was great!

Friday we drove to Allen for a Safety Meeting, and in the evening went out with Brother Fielding! It was super cool, he told us all about his job, and we were able to have an amazing lesson with the Youngs! Brother Fielding is a lawyer, and he put down an ironclad case for why our church is the best, and is going to have the Youngs over for dinner soon too! He has a commanding presence, that I would never want to be up against in court! Especially since he's one if the top litigation attorneys in the nation according to many in the ward.

Saturday we did a bunch of service, and in the evening drove around with Gene. Gene was able to connect with some of the people we saw as usual, and he got us Blizzards!

That's all I have time to write this week

-Abe