Strawberries, Kisses, and Political Turmoil

Hi interested parties, 

This week was great, but long. Monday Elder Stroud had a dentist appointment in Shreveport so we did that and our shopping in the morning, while the other Elders got stuck helping someone move, who had told them it would only be an hour or two and then proceeded to keep then for 6 hours instead. Which completely destroyed their pday. Moral of the story is no service on pday haha

I don't think some people realize that missionaries have schedules too. We met up with the ZLs though and ate lunch as a District at Buffalo Wild Wings! Elder Stroud's mom payed for us all which was super nice! Between the 8 of us we ate over 130 wings. Monday evening was spent in Springhill visiting people at darkened but partying apartment complexes. 

On Tuesday we walked the dogs in the morning. This time as we walked by one of the houses one of the dogs was tied to a cinder block. As we walked by it ran towards us and our dogs dragging the cinder block with it! It was so funny seeing this small dog struggle and make slow progress running towards us dragging a piece of concrete haha--it was like it was moving in slow motion. After a couple loups (British spelling) with different dogs it pulled so hard that it dragged the cinder block into the road and broke free! Now there's just a Lone cinder block out there. 😥

Our afternoon consisted of the usual tasks and contacting, and we were actually able to get a full comp study in for once! In the evening we met a lady named Autumn who's really interested in the Gospel! Autumn's often are. We also encountered several porch goblins once it got dark outside. Sometimes as one walks down a dark street one then catches a glimpse of a dark figure on a porch. After calling out in an appropriate manner, the response is often a raspy garbled (but friendly!) piece of nonsense. In such a case whoever waved the friendly hello usually sheepishly mumbles a "God bless you" and continues walking hoping the response addressed the goblin's response. 

We also had a great lesson with Lois on her porch! She loved the Book of Mormon video we shared. Then we went for our lesson with Jarriod but he was "very busy." Just so you know "very busy" means that someone is watching some TV alone in bed. I just learned this fact! So we dropped in on Randy and Tatyanan who haven't been responding to us and ended up reading the Book of Mormon with them! Tot was very rudely playing a video game the whole time though tsk tsk

Wednesday the Minden Elders came up for exchanges, and we all went to do some service for a less-active member named Sister Smith! The Millers came too, and we spent the morning clearing out her carport, tidying it up, blowing out the leaves, and clearning out her drain gutters! (We were definitely on the ground the whole time ;) Then we got out the power-washer to clean off her patio, vents, and door. As always when young men get their hands on a power-washer, we maybe had a little TOO much fun signing our names in the concrete and so forth. Sister Smith made us a delicious lunch afterwards, consisting of Spaghetti, salad, punch, garlic bread, jello salad, and brownies! In the afternoon I exchanged with Elder Lloyd, and we had a really powerful lesson with Erik Russell! We read Enos, and then I felt prompted to give him a blessing, so we did. Then after dispatching a wasp nest, I made some calls to finalize the ads for our blood drive. The evening was fun, we double-worked Magnolia and had a super fun lesson with Gary on his porch about the Restoration! 

We also encountered a girl on the campus walking around in a shark costume! Which always brightens the day. She was really nice too, as Im sure real sharks are. We met a lady in the hood who tries to give us $2 and didn't seem to know why she was doing it haha--probably drunk. After 9 pm an intense Jenga game started. At its crowning point it reached great heights while resting on a single block. Elder Stroud chopped the block out super fast and the tower remained! It was very impressive. 

Thursday morning we drove to Texarkana for zone conference, and here are some of the things I liked, before I jump into some of the Udder Drivel (U.D.) that wad also said.

The good:

▪︎ they talked about unique finding methods, and gave us lots of good ideas

▪︎ they did scavenger hunt where we had to find all the hidden toy dinosaurs hidden throughout the church

▪︎ they talked about the jot of missionary work

▪︎ some cool stories that President Taylor shared about finding lost people (even if he did dramatize it way more than was necessary)

▪︎ a fantastic musical number!

▪︎ good salad at the lunch portion of the conference 

▪︎ some really good clips of the apostles talking about PMG were shared, these were excellent 

Now for the U.D. 

▪︎ the APs saying  that you don't have faith if you have been focusing on only a few of your favorite finding methods. Absolute nonsense. Of course everyone needs to grow, stretch themselves, and branch out! Everyone is always improving. But to call people that aren't improved to the place the APs want them "without faith"?! Not only is that prideful and ridiculous to judge the faith of another, but it's also the OPPOSITE of what you want to do if you want to inspire righteous action. Hmpf.

▪︎ they told us the better we are at finding, the more we will baptize. False. It's a related concept, but is very far from true that finding = baptisms. X + y does not always = z. In fact it rarely does. There's a lot more than finding that goes into a baptism. Finding is worth nothing without commitment. 

▪︎ President Taylor saying "if you ain't tracting you ain't a missionary." If this was said jokingly, it would have been okay (ha ha ha yeah we get it in your day thats all missionaries did), but this did not seem like it was the case. This statement is so wrong and ridiculous that only the naive would have no problem with it. Tracting is the least effective way to do missionary work. (Here at least) And if you want to do it then go ahead but to say that those who don't arent missionaries is preposterous 

▪︎ they pulled out a bunch if finding stats and compared us to the other missions in the Area. Which goes all the way to Nevada and more. Isn't the oldest rule in the book not to compare? Aren't we supposed to compare ourselves not to others who are in very different places and circumstances? I immediately lose a little trust in those who compare to others to manipulate results

I could go on and on, but those are a few of my frustrations. Despite these issues, Zone Conference was quite good. Very artificial but good nonetheless. I loved the Stake President's message on the Atonement! Before we left Texarkana President Taylor told everyone to find someone in Texarkana to be taught before leaving back to their areas. So we went to a gas station and found someone and got their number, and gave it to the Texarkana missionaries. Its sooo easy to get a phone number, and 90% of the time they are a waste of time and arent interested even if they will talk to you. But it's all worth it for those who actually listen! 

Thursday evening it was raining all night we did a lot of driving around, but still had a very successful night! Also I love the rain at night time. We found a lady named Dina who actually hugged the Book of Mormon when we gave her one! It was really cool. We also taught Sonya, and talked to a bunch of referrals.

Friday we had interviews with President Taylor, bur I accidentally read the interview schedule wrong and thought the end time was the start time haha! So at 9 we were studying and then we got a text saying "where are you?" So we quickly got in the car and arrived an hour later :)

After our interviews President Taylor told us about a time when on his mission his companion was feeling really depressed, and then one day they taught this really attractive girl. At the end of the lesson she just went up and started kissing his companion with no warning!! Needless to say (Ive been itching to use that phrase for some reason) it cured his depression for good!

Friday evening was crazy, as we were stopping by Brenda we say this guy run past us, and then behind him we heard a bang! We turned and say that the guy had been tazed and two policeman were arresting him! We weren't close enough to see who, but we heard yelling and swearing and claims of innocence. Although if you are innocent it's not smart to run from the police haha--We started walking around the block to see better and I heard "Elder Nielson! Tell them I'm innocent!" I looked and sure enough it was Tyre! I didn't know what to do and didn't want to get involved so we just walked by. It was so crazy haha--I don't know what he did, but hopefully nothing too bad. :() 

Then we went and tried to talk to some people who tried to ask us what color of skin Jesus had. When we said we didn't know this big black guy who was obviously drunk was getting all in our face about it saying if we are going to talk to them we HAVE to know things we can't just not know. So we left. We met a cool guy named Romero and a girl named Shaterica who are interested though! Had an awesome lesson with French as well, and he's very open to more scripture. 

Saturday we walked the dogs again and by the end we were ready to toss them into the forest haha-- in the afternoon we taught a very sad-looking guy about the Book of Mormon. We had some amazing food at Mulekick which is a pizza restaurant with the Masses. We walked around and visited a guy named Tay, and turns out a guy named Reph Grer lives there instead hahaha--or at least that's what we think his name is! He told us all about how he's 72 and has all these health challenges, seemed to be a lonely guy. He said we can stop by anytime! We also met with the Millers and turns put Charlien and Juan have both disappeared. Bad. I'm sure we will find them though. 

On Sunday Juan showed up! So he wasn't lost long. We also had Mary show up who isn't a member and interested in joining once she can stop smoking! We had a great potluck fall feast afterwards and after a long afternoon of meetings a good evening walking around in the Misty night!

-Abe

The Ultimate Porker (have I used this title before? I am not sure. The ultimate porker is what makes up a lot of my worldview though so I guess it doesn't hurt to use the title again even if I have used it before.)

Seasons Greetings,

I hope this week has treated everyone well! Over here we've been enjoying the fall weather and the still green summer trees. People here are calling it cold which is just flat out wrong tsk tsk

Monday we went to the Bins as usual, and this time we found many interesting books and movies. Nothing worth buying though. Then we went to Lululemon to look for a suit for Elder Irizarry, but unfortunately they didn't have any of the blazers in stock. So we only had one choice and that was to go to the sparkly middle-eastern feeling suit store. Unfortunately after trying on every suit color they had, including the dragon suits we decided they were too cheap to be trusted haha--so we went to Dillard's and spent the next hours there because for some reason it took them FOREVER to check out when Elder Irizarry was finally getting his suit. I don't know why, you dont need ID to get a suit right?? They should just be able to charge you and go, but apparently that would be way too easy! We ate at Cane's again, and then did some other shopping and relaxed. That evening we drove back home and made some visits in Springhill. One lady we talked to named Teresa was super nice and even allowed us in to talk. It was going great until her 17-year-old daughter showed up and then kept trying to insert herself into the conversation. Talking nervously about her car, her job, her school, her nails, and other such nonsense. It was getting late so we finally decided to try and teach more another day. I also got a call from Qui-Qui (someone we met once) saying "hey pastor I really need help with my light bill can you help me pay it" and then said some sob story about how money is tight. I get these calls from people quite often, and we simply cant help everyone. We have to focus on the members, not the people who are just trying to take advantage of churches. 

Tuesday morning we went to the church to help Royce order supplies for the building cleaning. After ordering more supplies then we know what to do with, we walked around the church and took pictures of spots that we need to have the FM group get power washed. It's interesting to see how many different teams are in charge of making sure things are running in our churches. We encountered a ton of huge wasp nests too, so we filled a giant bowl with dish soap and water and one by one obliterated each one. Once the soapy water hits the wasps they just start falling from the sky haha

We did some walking around the campus and talked to some cool students. One of them just said "Yes sir" "No sir" after each question and didn't seem to have any personality or life in him besides that. We tried to teach Becky again but she flaked out again. Elder Stroud doesn't even believe she exists at this point haha--this isn't helped by the fact someone different answers the door each time. In the evening we visited Victoria, and were told that they don't know any Victoria at the place we've talked to her COUNTLESS times. I'm so tired of people saying they "dont know anyone by that name!" Yes you DO! I saw them two days ago! We aren't stupid, we don't just knock on random doors and ask for random people! 

Anyways sorry just had to get that off my chest, this has been happening way too much recently. People think we won't come back if they tell us nobody by that name lives there but they are wrong. We will come back MORE! If they don't want us to come back all they have to say is a simple "we aren't interested." Other than that though the night was good, we met a cool guy named Johnny who's very open to the Book of Mormon!

Then we had another lesson with Jarriod haha and it was crazy. He didn't remember 50% of the things we talked about last time and so we had to rehash a lot of the same things, and then he said he's been doing some "research." Never a good sign haha

Turns out his "research" was asking his fellow church members what we believed. So he proceeded to tell us what we believed. Not a SINGLE point he made was something we actually believed haha. So we proceeded to blow his mind again as we went over what we actually believed. He was very confused that we believed in God because he kept pointing to the Book of Mormon where it says "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" and claiming that meant we only believed in Christ not God. Which is completely nonsensical. He also thought that if he were to join he would have to be a missionary, and so on. It was fun teaching him because hes so oblivious and shocked at each thing we say that you can see on his face the gears are constantly turning (or attempting to turn). We will definitely keep going back and maybe he will slowly start to understand.

On Wednesday we drove to Minden and had District council. The ZLs came and Elder Haymond gave a good training. Elder Lloyd is definitely still trying to figure it out as a DL, but he did a better job leading district council this week than last! We ate at Cottons and started the long drive home. 45 minutes in to the drive I realized I forgot my bag and so we had to drive all the way back down to get it haha

The evening was spent talking to people as usual. We stopped a jolly biker who seemed slightly tipsy, and shared a scripture with him. Turned out he's really interested and has been looking for a church! We also had a fantastic lesson with Juan and the Millers on the Restoration. Juan got back his kids from his crazy wife, and he may have some of his court charges cleared now that people are realizing his wife is on meth and actually clinically insane. 

Thursday we walked the dogs, and one of them that Elder Stroud walked kept trying to jump on his so Elder Stroud finally started knee-ing it every time it tried (as he should). One of the times the dog attempted this stunt Elder Stroud stepped out of the way and it flipped around 360⁰+ and landed on its back hahaha--after that it calmed down and walked normally. We spent the afternoon taking care of tasks, and then we went and walked around some trailer parks, and found two girls (Jazz and Crystal) who accepted a Book of Mormon! We also had a good lesson on Mosiah 18 with Sonya. Then as we were heading over to teach Christina we saw a plume of thick black smoke coming from the other side of town. Christina fell through so we drove over with the Millers in tow and followed the smoke until we found the source. It was a house engulfed in orange flames. It almost looked like a fireball when we first pulled up. So of course we needed to investigate further. We walked right up next to it, and there were a bunch of fire trucks just watching it. We talked to a guy sitting at a table next door, and he said that the owner had a scheduled burn for the house since there were too many cockroaches and the house was a lost cause. We talked to Ronny for a while and turns out he and his fiance have been looking for a new church! So we gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him right there by the blazing fire! Moral of the story is always find the source of every fire. 

Later that night we taught Annette and Andrew, who as usual haven't been reading the Book of Mormon sadly. Probably time to give up on them for now, but at least we had a good visit!

On Friday we had an awesome visit with a less-active member named Rebecca! She's super nice and told us a lot about her life. We were also able to find some ways we can help her, and set up some service for next week! Definitely a potential person who could become active. We did service at the Thrift store, and then in the afternoon we talked to lots of homies who were partying it up at 4 pm haha

We had some super good dinner at the Blue Bull with the Masses, and then an amazing lesson with Charlien on 2 Nephi 4 in the evening. It's cool to see how far she's come! Also felt inspired to knock a certain trailer, and found a lady named Lashonda! Which is funny because just yesterday we found a Shalonda!

Saturday after walking the dogs we spent the afternoon finalizing Sunday, and then walking around the richer neighborhoods in Magnolia. We knocked on this random guy's door and he drove up right as we were leaving! He got out and then talked with us for 45 minutes haha--he basically just vented about how corrupt Boy scouts has gotten and when they started the downward slope and so on. It was a very entertaining conversation. He also told us how much he admires what we do, and said if we ever need anything at all to reach out! He calls himself Grumpy Old Man Ed haha

In the evening we visited a bunch of referrals but as usual nobody was home because every Saturday night everyone is out drinking and partying. You can always here music for various parties thumping no matter where you are! We did have a good lesson with Becky and then with Sonya! The Millers came with us, and I especially liked our lesson on the 10 Commandments with Sonya! Sister Miller attempted to use "bearing children" to explain what "bear" means in "thou shalt not bear false witness" but it only made Sonya more confused about who's bearing false babies! Finally Sister Miller realized she should have just said "it means don't lie." Sister Miller is bold, but sometimes overly bold with people and it's funny to watch.

On Sunday we had a good church meeting, we had 43 in attendance! Which is way better than last week's 20. I also started Tithing Declaration and so I got to be on the other side of the desk haha--which I never thought I would be the one sitting down with families for Tithing Declaration just a year or two after MY last meeting. It was good though, I remembered what lots of past Bishops have down with us, so thank you to them for all they have taught me! Also got to do some interviews and we didn't get home from the church until 4 pm haha

-Abe

Elder Ward

Hello everyone,

This week was good but tiring. Monday we spent in Shreveport. Went to the bins and saw lots of weird and funny things. Including but not limited to: a Bible just for women, a double-barreled nerf gun of some sort, a thick book on how to pray, lots of scrubs, a crop vest, fake raybans, and a fancy painting of a random girl standing stiff and reading a book. We also shopped at Walmart, and had an especially fun time in the CDs and Vinyl section. :))

We had lunch at Canes, and it was fun getting to know our new district! They seem pretty cool, I'm excited to get to know them some more. Though I shall definitely miss Elder Gwyn and Elder Freman (ha). In the evening I went on an exchange with Elder Lloyd, as we double-worked Haughton (Hotton? Hutton? Houghten? Never bothered to look at how it's actually spelled). Elder Lloyd and I got dropped off in a middle-class neighborhood to walk around while the others went to a couple lessons. We walked around, talked to people, and knocked on some doors. Absolutely nothing came of it, as is always the case when you go out with no real plan and do some of the least effective things, but it was still fun because I got to know Elder Lloyd as we walked around. As it kept getting darker we somehow kept taking wrong turns and looping back to where we started haha--I think we walked the whole neighborhood, and some parts of it several times. Then we went and had a lesson with a less-active member, which went super well!

Tuesday we had District council, and the Millers surprised us by making a lunch and cake for my Birthday! They made some really good chicken, and salad, and bread. The cupcakes were store-bought so you already know how they were, but it was fun. In the afternoon we went to help Brother Mass on his property with some leveling, but then his equipment wasn't working so we ended up just helping him feed his mad quaking ducks instead. In the evening we had a good time walking around Magnolia, because it was beautiful outside! As we walked we ran into a guy named Torrey, who said when we asked to share a scripture: "Ill have to catch yall later!" We got to eat at the Flowers (an early Birthday dinner for me), and had one of the best dinners ever!! We had little salami and cheese Tortilla roll up bites, taquitos, Andes Mint cookies, nachos, fruit and Carmel dip, and some super good honey and ham/cheese sliders! It was a great feast.

After dinner we went to Burger King to finish up some contacts for the night, and Torrey walked in right after we got there! He said, "I'm ready for that scripture now." And seemed quite interested!

On Wednesday we had a good lesson with a lady named Martha in the early afternoon, and despite having one eye she seemed to really like the Book of Mormon. Taught her the Restoration, and talked about how to find strenth in Christ since she goes to Dialysis right now. We also walked around SAU and talked to a couple of nice girls, and a kid named Braxton. Then we went with Brother Bahr and had a lesson with Erik. He seemed to be down in the dumps today, but he quickly cheered up as we talked. We read President Nelson's "Think Celestial" talk with him, and Brother Bahr Extended a calling as the EQ Teacher which he accepted! Maybe this will help him become active again. 

Wednesday evening we had a really good lesson with Felechia. We read 3 Nephi 18 and she wants to come to church on Sunday! Unfortunately she is another that will need a ride. I think we need a church bus, last Sunday we had to split 2 big families between 4 different cars to even get them all to church haha

Or we need to start only teaching people with cars (we may actually need to start doing this because it's getting ridiculous). All day it was again absolutely beautiful, it's so fun to walk around when it's 60⁰F, slightly cloudy, and it smells like Fall. We found a guy named Stephon, and taught him on his porch about our church. Invited him to read the Book of Mormon. We also knocked on a guy's door who was quote "super busy" and was very obviously just sitting with his chips and soda watching TV haha--also had a really good lesson with Charlien.

Thursday was super busy, we walked the dogs in the morning and I didnt notice if they did anything bad because the ENTIRE time I was on the phone with Elder and Sister Miller. Got a lot done though, and we were able to make some decisions to help the Branch. We had a mission-wide Zoom meeting in the afternoon, which was very mediocre at best. It was good to hear testimonies from the new missionaries, but then President Taylor just read from his journal from his mission, and it all sounded very fake and like his mission was just going perfectly. Very artificial. The rest of the afternoon was spent writing up some of the issues and how to address them. We also helped out at the Stew Pot, which was quite fun! We've gotten pretty quick at our little food assembly line. 

In the evening we had 6 appointments, 3 of which fell through. We ran into a girl who was prancing and dancing around in the middle of the road though! Had a really good lesson with a guy named Gary, where he talked and talked but we didn't mind because it was absolutely beautiful sitting on his porch! So pleasant outside, and we had a good in depth talk about prayer and study. We also taught Sonya and her grandkids about the Commandments, and why they are so important. One of the kids told us very confidently that the commandments are what keep us from going to hell, which is good to hear! Overall the day was long and stressful, but at least not too bad. 

Friday was much better, we did service at the Thrift store and I started practicing some primary songs since I'm playing for the Primary Program. I got some birthday gifts as well, so thank you to everyone who sent something!! It was a great package to recieve, and definitely made up for the stressful birthday! I especially like the big block of cheese, I could have wished for nothing more. :)) 

We walked around in the afternoon and it was again extremely nice out side, in the 60s. Because of this tons of people were out and about, and we got 3 peoples phone numbers! We also had dinner with the Millers, and then had an amazing lesson with a less-active member named Juan! He's so humble and wants to get his life back on track, but feels guilty so he hasn't cone back to church. We talked in depth about Christ's Atonement though, and he wants to start coming back! After our lesson with Juan, we drove to our next appointment with Stephon. As we drove by his house it was dark but we could see him sitting on his porch. We parked our car around the corner, and when we walked over he was gone and a car was there. We knocked on the door and waited a fee minutes. From the back yard two white guys smoking weed came out and asked who we were looking for. We asked for Stephon, and they said they didn't know anyone named that. So we described him and they said they didn't know anyone like that. But someone has to be lying because I've talked to him at this house 3 times, and he always comes out when we knock! Then we decided to call his sister Laquisha because she lives there too, but when a lady picked up the phone she said her named is Shay! And she said she knows no Laquisha. Even though I talked to Laquisha a week ago on the phone. We finally gave up and left, and saw two shadowy forms get out of the car and run inside as we walked away...

On Saturday we walked the dogs, and I started walking a super crazy dog that zig-zagged all over the place. It kept rolling around and boing-ing all over the place. And then the next ones we walked were even worse and kept jumping up on us. Luckily a few knees to the face fixed that problem :)

Then Elder Stroud walked a dog that looked like a cow, and it kept trying to walk backwards. Then we went and taught a guy who lives alone in a rundown house in the middle of nowhere in the woods! He let us into his cave (which is basically what it was), and we had a good long conversation with him. He asked us so many questions about ourselves and our mission, and every single answer seemed to shock him haha--everything we said met a raised eyebrow and confused expression. He was nice though, he was especially confused about all the commandments we keep and very surprised we aren't bar-hopping etc. We had a Zone Call for the first time in weeks which was nice cause we got to see our whole zone! They talked about finding in unique ways though which is a topic I've heard an uncountable amount of times. The mission leadership usually cycle through topics it seems. They think that missionaries aren't being creative enough, so they train on Finding and it changes very little, then they start pushing becoming good teachers which usually does help mildly, then they go through a member phase where they remind everyone how important members and getting friends to church is (this usually significantly helps), then they get tired of that instead of putting a little more emphasis on it and start putting an emphasis on putting people on date in the first lesson or some such nonsense (this usually does nothing except then more people fall off date), then they push having more faith, etc. I've missed a few topics they cycle through I'm sure, but that's the gist of what mission leadership does haha

In the evening we walked around and talked to people. One guy said "you probably shouldn't be walking around the hood so late, you wouldn't want to get robbed. Im from Chicago and things can get pretty crazy" Even though it was 6:20 pm haha

I think he wanted to give us a little scare or some such nonsense, but not only were his pants halfway down, but he had an ancient squated Chevy Tahoe (how can you be scared when someone drives THAT), most people here can't even walk straight, and everyone loves us. Some people like to think they love in a scary neighborhood here where you have to watch your step, when really it's just a run-down neighborhood without any of the actual fear that comes from a big city hood. We also talked to some super nice ladies a few minutes later who want to learn more about the Book of Mormon and are looking for a church! 

On Sunday the Millers had an emergency and had to run to the hospital in Tyler, and then we had a Bishops Council meeting in Shreveport! So hopefully church went well haha

Our meeting was super good, even though it was 5 hours long. They had some super good ravioli for lunch!

-Abe

Hotdogs and Jelly

Good afternoon and evening to your future self,

This week had a lot of unexpected turns. However, to spare you from unnecessary emotion, I have decided to pull out everything remotely interesting. Instead I will report on the utterly mundane, the entirely uninteresting.

Monday consisted of consuming food, walking around, and talking with other people.

Tuesday we had a meeting, a meal, a lesson, a meal, some lessons, and some visits.

Wednesday thru Sunday was very similar to Monday and Tuesday. 

---

Alright, now I suppose I shall go into more detail, as those who are only lightly skimming the email have now departed. 

Monday was crazy, we had a lot of fun in Shreveport, went to lunch with the ZLs, and then went to some malls. I attempted to convince everyone to purchase Rayban's and/or Oakleys at the Sunglasses Hut, but unfortunately my efforts were fruitless. I got very close though! In the evening I went on an exchange with Elder Gwyn, and we went out with a soon-to-be missionary in the Minden Branch. We visited some people, including a guy named Ron who didnt let us say a word, kept on saying how he already knows Christ, and how he's too busy to read the Book of Mormon. But still expected us to come and teach him, which of course is a waste of time. We also had a lesson with a less-active member, and then went back to our car and started the drive home. As we drove on the freeway I noticed that suddenly the tire pressure on the driver-rear tire was dropping very quickly. So I pulled off to the side of the road, and sure enough we had a flat tsk tsk. At this point it was 9:15, but we had no choice but to change it. So we got under the car and removed the spare, and then figured out how to change it on a truck. We finally got it changed after much sweat and dirt, and made it home at 10:30 haha

Tuesday we had District council, and then ate at Subway. We drove around Minden after that from tire shop to tire shop trying to find one with our size of tire. Finally we found one, and they looked at our tire and said (as we suspected) that it couldn't be repaired. And the only tires that would fit our truck that they had were some nicer more expensive all-terrain tires. Which would cost about $500 to replace both the back ones (they couldn't just do one). We called Elder Jacobs though and he said "wow, only $500? Usually it's more, have them do it!" So now since I've started driving this truck, every single tire is new :)

After that we drove up to Springhill, and visited with Tawanna. Then we drove to Buckner for dinner with the Millers and Marchans, and it was super good! We had an amazing lesson with Quanisha in the evening, who is super elect, and had so many good questions for us!

On Wednesday we walked the dogs in the Rain, which was fun. I love the rain, until at the very end it started DUMPING on us. But it was worth it to see those dogs completely and entirely soaked haha--mine kept trying to shake itself off but had no luck due to the constant barrage of rain. In the afternoon we had some lessons, one of which was with Erik Russell. We read Doctrine and Covenants 59 with him, and had a super good discussion about the Commandments! In the evening we had a lesson with a girl named Tocarra, with the Millers. It was pretty good, but the whole time smoke, weed, and stoner music was emanating from within. And if you looked closely enough you could see that deep within the house a poker game was going on, among people that looked completely drunk. It was fun to see the characters that kept wandering out as we were teaching Tocarra! 

Thursday we drove to transfers, did I forget to mention that Elder Schneider is getting transferred to Allen 4/6? I will be training a new missionary haha--but since they don't come in until Friday, I was given a temporary companion (Elder Nelson), and spent a couple days in Rowlett working the 2nd ward! It was crazy to be back in my old stomping ground, I love Rowlett! Elder Nelson and I spent Thursday night walking around and talking to people at a cool Market event they had going on downtown. 

On Friday we did service for a friend, and helped trim some tall bushes, ate some amazing Mexican food at a Shell Gas Station, and watched an Elder at the 4 man apartment we were in eat an ill-advised pepper and suffer the consequences of trying to look cook for the next several hours. :)) Anybody who tries to show the amount of spice they can handle, WILL be humiliated by the laws of spice! We did service at LifeShare as usual, and I was in charge of handing out massive amounts of bananas. I gave 4 bunches of bananas to each person who came through, non-stop, for 2 hours. Then I took care of some agendas, and we went to Dinner with the Bonds. We had some amazing Sloppy Joes,  and then a great lesson afterwards. We spent the rest of the evening at a ward volleyball night that they had invited friends to!

Saturday I got my new companion, whos name is Elder Stroud. He's from Florida, and I think I'm going to like him a lot! We share some of the same interests, and hes a genuine guy. We drove back and had a great dinner with the Masses, and then had a lesson with Joel, then Tatyana, then Sonya. Our lesson with Sonya went super well, we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and her grandkids kept chiming in with good answers to our questions! We ended the night by shopping, and introducing Elder Stroud to the Flower's. 

On Sunday we had no bread when it was almost time to start church, so we had to stall for time until it got there haha--Also we had 14 of our friends come to church! Many of which were kids/grandkids. We had a good temple class with the Flowers, and a ton of good meetings too.

-Abe