No Way a Papaya Won!

Hi everyone, I am again writing to the 5 of you who read this :)

Monday was good, Elder Gamett had to pack and deal with a bunch of stuff, and then we went and played Pickleball with our District, and an inactive YSA named Zoe! It was pretty fun. And in the evening we went and said goodbye to people for Elder Gamett, Richie drove us around. We also "taught" (actually just talked and said goodbye), and Jack may have tossed his dog into the pool. (Slightly sad, but not enough to not laugh and document it)

Tuesday Jack drove us to transfers! Once we got there Jack, Elder Sauer, Elder Dawe, and I all talked about various things for about 3 straight hours haha--After that I met up with Elder Bjazevich and we drove back. After getting some really good Mexican food, we settled in and went shopping. In the evening we went out with Brother Cline, and visited a guy named Todd. Todd's super cool, he used to work on oil rigs, and also was a fireman. Brother Cline and he also used to be serious bicyclists, and so they talked for almost an hour! It was super cool that they got along so well, and Todd seems really interested in learning more about what we believe!

Wednesday we went out with Spencer, and drove up to Caddo Mills. We visited some country trailers out there, and one person we visited was a less-active YSA named April. She wasn't home, but her mom was, and her 39-yr-old special needs Brother. We tried to share a message but it was impossible with him making inappropriate jokes, and straying from topic to topic endlessly with no purpose. We finally gave up and got out of there. We stopped to get gas at one point, and there was a car show happening! So we talked to some cool car owners there, and took a few pictures.

On Thursday we did service at Helping Hands, and for Ruth as well. We went out with Jack, and after eating at Five Guys, we went down to McLendon-Chisholm and Terrell. We talked to Brother Stewart and got to see his '89 Porsch 964! It was super cool. We also talked to some very interesting people in Terrell, and even though none of them were interested it was fun to interact with them haha--one guy thought he was SUCH a jokester, and told us his name was Jason and then said, "just joking it's George." We were rolling on the floor laughing. We also talked to a lady who couldn't hear and so the encounter was just Elder Bjazevich saying something, and the lady replying with "What??" Jack sadly was not able to grab a cat this time. Next time he has to find two I guess...

Friday we had mission conference, and then went out with Feki in the evening. We were able to teach Diego, and also went down to Forney! We met a lady from Africa that only knows French, and from what we could gather from her animated manner, she's ready to get baptized!!!!

Feki is super fun to hang out with, it feels like we're just talking to a friend.

Saturday we helped keep time for the ward Spring 1k and 5k, helped make cotton candy, did service at the Thrift store, and helped a guy build a playground. In the evening we went out with Brother Thatcher, and after getting us Braums we headed to Heath. I had felt like we should visit this inactive guy who probably didn't even live there when we had planned, even though it was a bit out of the way. So we headed there first, and on the way Brother Thatcher mentioned that he's been thinking of seeing the Gomez family sometime. We realized they were in the same neighborhood we were heading to, so we decided we might as well visit them while we were there! When we pulled up, not only were the Gomezs there, but so was there daughter who we talked to with Brother Thatcher a few weeks ago with. She had said back then that she wanted to get all of us together, and then it had never happened. Brother Thatcher is good friends with all of them, so we had a great conversation together! After we shared a message which they said was just what they had needed, the daughter asked us to give her parents blessings since they had been struggling with health AND family issues. Elder Bjazevich was able to give blessings in Spanish to all 3 of them, and even though we never got to the other guy we had planned to visit, this was obviously they reason we had needed to head there!

Sunday was fun, the 2nd hour in the YSA was all about dating haha--it was a very strange lesson to have as a missionary.

-Abe