Izzy

Hi young ones and old ones and medium-aged ones, 

This week we had some unexpected things happen which I will get to soon, but first a Gospel message:

Haha just joking, if you want a good gospel message go to Gospel Library and find one :)

Monday was good we did some more shopping, and tried some good jerky at the jerky store! We went to a couple malls, and looked at lots of sparkly and flashy dress clothes as well. We had lunch at Canes which was quite good since I haven't had it in a while. It is not as amazing as everyone claims though. In the evening we walked around and exchanged with the Brownlee Elders. Elder Haymond and Elder Davis were DETERMINED to catch the gator in their pond. I, being the skeptic, told them there's no way they will actually do it. And I was right! They were all talk as I suspected, claiming that, "it's too dark, we will do it in the daylight" or some such excuse as I anticipated. We did feed it some frozen fish though. 

Tuesday we had District council in Bossier City, and the ZLs came to it. I gave the training on Daily Planning, and then we ate at Fuzzys tacos for lunch which was mid. To survive in the Taco world you have to make REALLY good tacos, not just mediocre tacos tsk tsk.

Then we drove up to Springhill and visited some inactive members including Ruben who is deaf, bed-bound, and almost giving up on life. He still pays Tithing though, and we brought him the sacrament. We taught Tyre the Restoration again in the evening, and he said he relates a lot with Jospeh Smith because he also was searching from church to church for the truth! We also Taught Bill, and then David and Charlien about Tithing. They took it pretty well, and afterwards Elder Davis led them in a game of Simon says to demonstrate how we should listen to God and not the world. 

On Wednesday we did service at the Thrift store, and I got fed up with all the cords and just started cutting them every time I couldn't untangle them :) So we got rid of a lot of cords. Wednesday was boiling hot it felt like 115⁰F (46⁰C for all you foreign subscribers) but Elder Davis and I got talking a lot and so we didn't even notice it until we got inside and we were dripping in sweat haha

We also walked a lot in the evening, and approached every single person but had no luck. I guess everybody was crabby. We had a fun time though, got to see lots of interesting things, and lots of different rims on different lifted Chevy Tahoes. 

Thursday we walked the dogs. One of the dogs Elder Davis walked was terrified of him, and tried to walk as far away from him as possible. We may have taken advantage of this and chased after it and reached out at it as if to grab it. It got so scared that it literally tried to boing out of its leash haha--Im sure we helped it build character. After the dog walking I got a call from President Taylor asking how things were going in the Branch. He then asked if having a senior couple to help would be helpful. I said yes. An hour later we got a text from him saying he was sending us Elder and Sister Miller and they would be there in 24 hours! Apparently they had just they day before mentioned that they felt kinda useless working in the Allen 4th ward since it was so strong and there was nothing to do. So then a day later they a get a call saying to pack and drive to Magnolia asap. They said it was a prayer answered! And we have wanted a senior couple for a while, but because they are so hard to come by we never thought it would happen! 

We did our weekly planning, and planned some ways to work with the new couple. In the evening we went to some new areas, and met some cool people outside. One of which looked like her wanted to kill us but then when we asked if he wanted to hear a scripture he said of course, and ended up being really nice! We taught David and Charlien, and went over the Baptismal interview questions. Tyre joined us virtually for the lesson, and shared how his experience was with the interview and what to expect. And when we asked him his advice for Charlien and David to prepare for baptism and he said "practice it in the bathtub. Do it over and over until you're comfortable" hahaha

On Friday we did some more service, and looked at some potential apartments where the Miller's could live. Everywhere in Magnolia is cheaper than their tiny apartment they were at in Allen. We had dinner with the Masses at Flying Burger, and met the new missionaries as well. They are both soft-spoken and nice. They always try to ensure everything is just right so we had to go over the same things several times haha

After that we started walking around and we invited Tyre to come and he said, " That'll be fine" in his very Tyre way. He walked and talked with us, and we went to visit Bill. We had an amazing in-depth Plan of Salvation lesson with Bill and he said everything we taught even the Spirit World and the 3 Kingdoms made sense and were in line with the Bible! We didn't expect him to get it so quickly. We also walked around downtown a bit, and got some good pictures!

Saturday morning we walked the dogs, and they were crazy today. But in a normal, uninteresting way sadly. We visited Neena who swore up and down she would be at church, only to call us Sunday morning and say her leg was hurting, a very lame excuse (spoiler, I've decided to start adding in retroactive spoilers so that you know that something has been spoiled after it has been spoiled already). 

We got to have a meeting with the new couple though and got a lot done! The meeting ended up being two point seven (2.7) hours instead of zero point five (0.5) but we got a lot done so it was okay. We now have some plans of how we will all work together and progress the work forward. We also taught Charlien and David again, this time about Callings and Priesthood. Charlien asked us nervously if hypothetically hot chips were against the word of wisdom as her hands and mouth had a suspicious red dust coating as she asked us this. Luckily for her we explained that it was totally fine to eat hot chips, which elicited a sigh of relief! We also met a lady on the phone who we didnt realize she was on the phone until we approached her. She got mad at us for politely trying to leave and said the person on the phone deserved to hear the message too :)

Sunday we had a mandatory meeting for Bishops and YWP in Shreveport, so instead of Fasting and going to church we drove to Shreveport, partook of the sacrament in our Bishops council meeting, and ate a big breakfast AND lunch both provided by the stake hahaha--it was such a good meeting though.

-Abe