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Hi, 

Hope everyone has had a good week. Up here in Magnolia we had a lot of fun this week, did a lot of driving!

Monday we went down to Bossier City and did some shopping at The Bins, and then went to Lululemon to look at pants and shorts. We also shopped at Hobby Lobby and Bass Pro, and Elder Davis almost bought fishing gear in many instances and I almost bought sunglasses in many instances. Luckily neither of us gave in :)

We spent the afternoon mostly at the Brownlee apartment talking to family, and then drove back to Magnolia after pday. In the evening we had a lesson with a lady named Lois (pronounced "Low-is") and taught her through her mesh porch. We walked around and taught a bunch of people too. David put an entire hardboiled egg in his mouth at once (this was a prior event that I am now recalling). 

Tuesday we did service, and then taught Enoch. He told us:

- His family wants him to be more into religion 

- They want him to be a pastor and own his own church and he wants to as well

- He wants to be more involved in religion

BUT

- He doesn't want to be pressured

- He refuses to start reading and praying even though he knows he should

- He doesn't want to look to his family like he's studying and praying cause then they will tell him to do more then he wants

- He doesn't want to pray because he thinks it's silly to pray if you don't really mean it and he never means anything haha

Because of all this we have had a super tough time getting him to do ANYTHING! He's nice but full of excuses. We finally hot him to commit to saying gratitude prayers. We taught Bill in the evening, and them David and Charlien. Immediately after the pray I layer out very clearly everything the Word of Wisdom says you CANT do without even missing a beat. This is not usually a wise tactic but I'm tired of beating around the bush and they need a little boldness sometimes. Charlien took it very well and suggested to herself that she could drink Sprite instead of Tea! We didn't even have to suggest it. And apparently she likes Sprite better than tea anyway haha she only drinks it cause that's what they have. David didnt commit to following it really but he seemed to understand it a bit better by the end. Tyre also had his Baptismal interview and passed it. 

We drove down to Bosssier City to spend the night there and then in the morning drove to Zone Conference! It was surprisingly good, lots of good messages. This mission president is really heavy on the importance of memorization which is interesting, so he's having us memorize a lot more. After Zone Conference we had interviews with him, and it was fine. He's a cool guy, just seemed to be somewhere else in the interview haha

In the evening we exchanged with the Brownlee Elders, and had dinner with the Deatons. Upon arrival at their abode we were immediately attacked and restrained by their rogue children!! Tags were stolen, arms grabbed, backclimbing attempted, and yelling began. They have the most wild kids I have ever seen, I was just about to get out my wacking stick but I refrained. Dinner was pretty good though, had some good lentil soup!

I exchanged with Elder Haymond (a greenie) and he's super cool! Got to talk with him about his future career as a helicopter pilot. :) He also complimented my excellent driving! (Not to brag but I have learned the precise things that will trigger Tiwi on the truck, and so I can have a lot of fun driving and still not get flagged by Tiwi)

Elder Haymond already seems to have a handle on missionary work which is cool!

Thursday we drove back to Taylor, AR and helped demolish the paneling in one of the rooms of the mayor's house. It was fun (as you would expect) to tear it all off! We ate with the Masses at Sam's Southern Eatery for lunch which was absolutely amazing as usual! We are recognized as regulars by the girls that work there now and they always say hi. In the evening we returned to Magnolia and taught David and Charlien. We pulled up and Charlien had a bottle of Sprite next to her!! We taught them the Law of Chastity, which went pretty smoothly. 

On Friday we did service at the Thrift store and I got fed up with how many cords there were so I started cutting and discarding every cord that wasn't remotely useful. I went through 2 boxes of them when I usually have enough time to go through only 1/5 of a box each time :))

We ate dinner with the Marchans (Spaghetti), and then went with Brother Bahr and taught Tyre all about the Priesthood and temples! Brother Bahr did a really good job of getting through to Tyre. After Tyre we drove out to Bradley, AR and visited some people out there! We drove 50 minutes on country roads to get there which was lots of fun cause driving dirt roads is like a roller coaster. Everyone we talked to turned us down, which is good because it's too many miles to go out there very often haha

Saturday morning we had Tyre's baptism, which went smoothly. I baptized him, and Elder Davis gave a talk. After he was baptized he wouldn't open his eyes so I had to lead him to his stall in the bathroom and give him all his stuff haha--don't know why he kept them closed so long. Because of the baptism we didn't walk the dogs, but I can just imagine them barking angrily at our absence. Glad we were too busy for them 😤

In the afternoon we noticed our tire pressure was slowly dropping so we called Elder Jacobs and he told us to take it in. They found a series of small holes halfway around the front left tire, so we got two new front tires put on. And we payed in cash haha After that we taught Bill again who's dealing with a lot of relationship trouble in his family so we just listened while he shared it all with us. 

Sunday Tyre got confirmed, and the 5th Sunday lesson was on the new PMG which was great! I also had 4 interviews after church. Tyre will be getting the Priesthood next week, and then Logan will be getting his Patriarchal blessing! 

-Abe

Handcuffs

Hi everyone, 

How has everybody's week been? Email me if anything of note is going on in your life :)

Monday was good we spent the day in Magnolia, and shopped at all the downtown shops which was fun! Went to a couple antique stores with lots of super cool things including ancient cash registers, vintage dishes and clothes, and lots of Vinyl. Also looked at old Coke Bottles (unopened) from various eras. 

Monday evening nothing too exciting happened, just walked around and talked to some intoxicated people as usual. Got a couple phone numbers but who knows how solid they will be :)

On Tuesday we drove to Minden for district council, and we got to meet the 2 greenies in our district now! They seem pretty cool, Elder Haymond does Falconry! Elder Ward seems like a classic bright-eyed cheery greenie who's ready to work, which is good to see. After district council we ate at Cotton's again which was really good. After lunch we drove up to Taylor, AR and helped Brother Mass continue to fix up one of the mayor's houses. It's in absolutely atrocious condition so he's basically systematically rebuilding it from scratch. We helped fill holes in the ceiling which was pretty fun, though very hot! Brother Mass is very proud of the fact that he can fix and build anything, so working with him is funny because he's always very confident of himself haha

Tuesday evening we did some street contacting at the campus, and then walked around Magnolia stopping by formers and those we are teaching. Along the way we talked to lots of characters, one of which tried to con us into buying his Elvis Presley Vinyl which he claimed was worth "A LOT" of money.

Wednesday we did service at the Thrift store, and we've started working with an old man who comes to volunteer which has been fun. He thinks hes hilarious, and is hard of hearing, so just assumes we are laughing at all his quips haha--he also likes to think he knows a lot about electronics, so when he says something like "this thingie here is worth a lot of money" while gesturing to a curling iron we just smile and nod :) He's fun to work with though.

After lunch we went up to Waldo, and taught Xavier about the Gospel, and put him on date for baptism on August 12th! So that'd pretty exciting. He told us hes been wanting to be a missionary, and to feel needed! So we talked about Callings and how he can get one, and talked about how he can join us for lessons! 

After our lessons I took care of some business at the church, and then we had comp study on the SAU campus. Due to us being on a college campus we ended up talking about BYU and college options and stuff instead though haha

In the evening we taught Tyre and Brother Bahr was able to join virtually which went well. We taught the Word of Wisdom, and Tyre wants to keep his date set for the 29th and thinks he can be following the Word of Wisdom by then so we will see how that goes! 

On Thursday we walked the dogs, and it was a fairly normal day with them. I always get to walk one named Buck who constantly has to stop for bathroom breaks, often at the most inconvenient times. And then he will walk with his front legs at a 30⁰ angle to the right as opposed to his back legs so he's constantly diagonal haha

The Masses took us to dinner at Flying Burger, and I got the Bacon Cheeseburger which was excellent! The fries have a little to be desired, maybe a tad crisper, but such it is with many (if not all) restaurants. 

After dinner we had a lesson with a guy named Bill. He seemed dismissive at first but then the more we talked with him the more he opened up!! Apparently he is fed up with all these churches thinking there arent modern prophets, and that faith is all you need to be saved. He also thinks communion should be every week! So it was a great lesson, we taught the Restoration and he was excited that we agreed with him in many ways. After we said the closing prayer he said some of the things we prayed for are the exact things hes been praying for so he knows the Lord sent us! We met some other awesome people to including a girl named Keasia. She was super nice and is really responsive to texts as well! We also taught Charlien and put her on date for baptism August 19th.

Friday we taught Tyre again, and went to the Marchan's for dinner. They made us Hot Dogs and Burgers which was just what I wanted. Most of the dinner was spent with Brother Marchan making out-of-pocket comments and debating what she said which was funny to watch, but overall we had a good discussion. That night we felt prompted to talk to some porch-dwellers (there are many here) and met a lady named Victoria! She told us that she's looking for a church, she hasn't been baptized and wants to be, and that she'd known some members and always wondered about the Book of Mormon! So meet every one of those needs. 

On Saturday we walked the dogs again and Elder Davis' dog kept jumping on and grabbing my much bigger and older dog. We also walked some half-blind dogs that couldn't see where each track (we walk the dogs on train tracks) was so they kept falling into the spaces between tracks and stumbling around. It was quite entertaining to watch if I do say so myself.

In the evening we had another lesson with Bill, and the Masses and their Grandson came with us in person to that lesson! It was so good to have them, they are such strong and normal members of the church! Bill really got along with Brother Mass and in fact had actually been the mechanic that had worked on his car last week. We talked about what to expect at church, and talked a bit about the Plan of Salvation as well. Again he agreed with everything we believe. And the Masses loved coming too. We also taught Tyre again, and David. 

Sunday church was good, Tyre, Xavier, Charlien, and David came. We had a pioneer day Linger longer with Ice Cream after which went well too. The rest of the afternoon was spent in meetings. Got to set apart a new Primary President too. Now every organization has changed presidencies in the last 2 months :)

Nothing else too much of note happened this week, wish there was more to report on. Overall a fun week though!

-Abe

The Wild Orchid

Hi everyone, 

Hope everyone had a good week full of interesting things. We certainly did here.

Monday was spent in Bossier City and Shreveport, doing a lot of shopping. We went to the Goodwill Bins in the morning which was fun (you get to buy from unsorted bins and they sell it by the pound), and then we also did some shopping at a couple malls! And we even ran into some members who gave us free Coldstone. We also ate some VERY good fried chicken at a place called Southern Classic. Probably some of the best fried chicken Ive had! I exchanged with Elder Gentry in the evening, and we found someone for them to teach who speaks spanish! I also gave away another Book of Mormon :)

On Tuesday we went to District Council, and afterwards ate at Cottons in Minden which was also pretty good. Their catfish was quite good! We drove up to Springhill after that, and taught Tawanna. I also did a Patriarchal Blessing interview with her and shes excited to get hers! Then we drove back to Magnolia and the new (soon-to-be) couple who are moving in and her (Sarah's) mom took us to dinner! It was super fun to meet them, and I'm really excited to work with them. It's really refreshing to have two 19-year-olds in college to work with again. Lohan is super cool he's a recent convert and wants to come out with us! Also he's been around her enough that he seems like he's already been a lifelong member. During our dinner right after Elder Davis said this place was getting old and he wants to see more of the mission, we got our transfer news! In the middle of dinner haha

And Elder Davis is staying :))! I'm really glad he's staying, definitely one of my favorite companions, and he's actually glad hes staying too once he got to thinking about how much fun we are having. 

Tuesday all night into Wednesday morning it stormed and stormed. We woke up throughout the night to constant thunder and lightning sounding as if it was IN our apartment it was so loud. It it didn't stop for hours and hours. It was great! Wish it had been during the day so we could have watched it. 

In the morning on Wednesday we helped some more at the Thrift store, and its finally starting to be more and more organized. The only problem is some busybody keeps intentionally adding one box of cords to another! "Oh I'll jut consolidate this," They must be thinking, disregarding the fact that it makes no sense whatsoever! For example why would we group all of the ethernet cables with the USB-B cables haha

We went up to Waldo in the afternoon and taught a guy named Shaun about church and the Book of Mormon. The only notable thing about Shaun is the fact that he is constantly driving around town thumping tunes out of a ancient, long, red, Lincoln Sedan with tinted windows and weird rims that look like they aren't moving as he drives. Everybody else in Magnolia drives dumpy lifted Chevy Tahoes. Or GMC Yukons. One of those or an even poorer man's version of either of those is ALL anyone drives haha

In the evening we taught Enoch, and he told us all about how his extended family had gotten into black magic and been trying to mess with him and his family. He didn't really go into detail though. We taught him about the love and healing that Christ can bring and also answered a lot of his questions about the church and Jospeh Smith. We also taught Charlien while she was lying on a mattress that she had dragged out to her carport for some strange reason haha--Disturbed David wasn't there cause he was at the church accross the street asking for money. :) The pastor even came out and asked if we were helping David and his family and we said no, and the pastor then shook his head in a disappointed way and told us what they REALLY need is financial blessings. We ignored him though and kept reading in the Book of Mormon with Charlien. 

Throughout the week Disturbed David had his Grandma call us and ask us to help with their electrical bills/rent not once but two other times! The second time we were very firm in saying no, some people just don't get it unless you lay it out plainly. :)) Also I resent the fact that he had his Grandma call cause he thought we would have more sympathy. Very manipulative tsk tsk

Also Doneshia was finally kicked out for good, and the Lowthers took her to a homeless shelter in El Dorado. From which she got kicked out of a few days later and driven back by police to Magnolia. Now shes MIA so we dont even know WHERE she is. Such is the Magnolia life ;)

Thursday we walked the dogs and this time we think the ones we walked had some trauma left over. They were scared to death of even far-off cars, and anytime we approached them too close they would jump away in terror only to be halted in their tracks by their leashes haha

Thursday was also Park-Your-Car day so we also biked around a lot, and taught Enoch again. We got to do some service at the Stew Pot preparing meals for the homeless as well which was fun! 

In the evening we taught Candice at the swing by the SAU pond, and she had so many good questions for us! We talked in depth about the origins of our church and she agreed wholeheartedly in modern prophets! Her mind was fully in-place and wasnt ruined by drugs too which was a perk. Also had a lesson with Tyre and his crazy dog Cocoa. 

On Friday we got to eat dinner with the Marchans. We had pizza with lots of ground beef on it which wasn't bad. Nothing else super notable happened on Friday though as usual we met lots of characters. 

Saturday we walked the dogs again and this time we walked a wide variety of them. Elder Davis started with a puppy that could only boing and drift, it couldn't just walk normally. It kept running and drifting into my legs as it hit the end of its leash. Then he got to walk a GIANT dog that looked like it could kill and eat anything or any person it wanted too. And it's eyes were bloodshot too. It basically dragged Elder Davis along the whole time. Good thing it didn't realize its true potential! 

We helped Sarah and Logan move in Saturday afternoon, and I got to meet Brother Rasmussen who I helped move into the Texarkana ward over a year ago again cause apparently Sarah is his sister! 

Brother and Sistet Mass finally returned and took us to Antiguas for some pretty good Mexican food in the evening, and then we walked around Magnolia. We taught David and Charlien again, and it went a bit better this time. They told us more of the story than they did before. Apparently Doneshia was taking advantage of them, and then since they were just letting her stay to be nice the landlord actually didn't want her there anymore and kicked her out. So now we arent sure who to trust. 

On plus side they came to church on Sunday! And so did Tyre. We had some people from the Blanchard ward come and speak to us which was cool, and some other visitors too so we actually had 45 in attendance! After church I extended some Callings and did some recommend interviews. Then we met with the Stake "Building Faith Specialist" or some such name and talked about how the stake can help our branch grow. 

Also as we were meeting it started raining extremely hard in giant sheets, so after our meetings I finished working out some things while we watched the storm from our car. 

We spent the evening teaching Lee and then went all over the place visiting less-active members.

-Abe