You Probably Won't Read This Whole Thing. And Then You will Miss Out On Something and Regret it Your Entire Life :)

 

Hello e, 

Time to tell you about my week®️

Monday was pretty fun, we went to the Blanchard farm for Zone pday. The only problem was, the air conditioning was not working, so, as you will see in the picture, we were all sweating a lot. But it was really fun, we ate pizza, played games, and I played some Foosball. Foosball was really fun for me, because I didn't lose a single game! I even played one-handed, and still destroyed every opponent who dared to play me. :) Fun fact, this isn't a very good way to make friends, but I wasn't there to make friends. >:)

Tuesday was a great day. In the morning we had another amazing lesson with Mark, and put him on date! After this we proceeded to meet our finding goal for the week, on day 2! It was so much fun, I guess prayer does work. My favorite person we found was a dude named Dailyn. When we were doing our daily planning in the morning, I felt prompted to put in a stop by that we had tried a ton of times. This lady has never answered the door, the house looked abandoned, and it was kind of out of our way. But I guess it's maybe a kind of good idea to listen to the spirit, so we put it in.

Later when we arrived at this house, it looked ever run down and empty as usual. So we left without knocking.

Ha! I got you hehe--just joking of course we knocked it anyway. A dude named Dailyn answered. He came out and sat down, and had us sit down too. We talked about the Book of Mormon, and read the entire intro with him. He was intrigued. He asked us a bunch of questions like where we were from and why we were in Texas, which we happily answered. He then asked if we had a church and we said yes! He said, "You probably don't believe me, but I WILL be coming to church on Sunday." We were really glad to hear that. We said we'd arrange a ride for him, and then he told us this. He said, "I had a dream about Utah, and missionaries last night. So that's why I'm talking to you now!" It was super awesome to hear! Dailyn already seems very golden, we gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon, and set up another lesson in a few days. 

After we found Dailyn we did a lot of street contacting in the neighborhoods of New Boston, and found some more people. I even watched the Sunset--attached below in a picture (8k).

Wednesday was full of crazy things, and it all started when we woke up, as all days do. We drove to Queen City and picked the Elders there up and drove us all down to Bossier for Mission President interviews and district council. Distruct council was a blast as usual, and I loved my interviews with President and Sister Seitz too. I rapid fired some questions at president on things we could do to improve our area and he rapid fired the answers back at me. It almost seems like he recieves revelation for the mission, but I couldn't tell for sure.

One thing I decided is I NEVER want to get set in my ways as a missionary, I constantly want to be learning and improving so Wednesday overall was great because I learned so much and got so many new ideas. 

After interviews we got Chick-fil-A, and then drove back to Queen City. In Queen City, and by Queen City I mean not Queen City but actually Atlanta, we exchanged with the Texar Elders. So Elder Rainey and Elder Maisey drove back to New Boston, and Elder Nelson and I drove back to good old Texarkana. It's really fun going on exchanges with Elder Nelson (who goes home in 2 weeks), cause not only is he hilarious, but he has an extreme amount of experience and knowledge to learn from. We got back to Texarkana and went to Slim Chickens for comp study, and much to my slight dismay--Elder Nelson got us both a meal. As we ate we just talked about how sad it was that so many missionaries go inactive, and we talked about all the ways to avoid this blunder. Elder Nelson has done it right, he just tells people to shoot him if he ever goes inactive. He's told so many people this now, that he literally can't go inactive or he will die :)

In the evening we decided to walk the streets and neighborhoods of Texarbanana and it was fun! We just basically ran around trying to catch people before they went inside. Not a single person was interested, but sometimes that's 1 of their 8 needed contacts before they ARE interested. It was so much fun to walk around with Elder Nelson, he is hilarious. We also stopped by a lady, who didn't have time for a message, but she said we could say a prayer for her. Elder Nelson started the prayer, and it began like any prayer. He was just praying, as you do, and one thing he said was "we are thankful for all the sunshine." This must have been the wrong move though cause the lady just started LAUGHING! We were unsure what to do but he kept praying and then the lady TOOK THE REIGNS. I wasn't aware that you can just take over someone's prayer bit apparently you can--cause she did it. She took over and finished the prayer. We just kind of said goodbye and walked away still confused  what had happened. When we got our bearings we complained about the state this world is in these days. You can't even be in charge of your own prayer! Also we ARE grateful for the sunshine, I don't know what she was laughing at--the heat makes things much more interesting! 

This was only the beginning of our night though!

We then drove to a green dot, and taught her the Plan of Salvation. I love teaching about the Plan of Salvation, cause nobody else has such an ingenious plan--and you can see those you teach thinking it too when you teach it. After this we were walking to our car until we saw this dude by his apartment. We walked us to him, and soon realized he was a bit drunk, and was wearing a slightly long t-shirt. Under his t-shirt, we think he had nothing else on, but we didn't have the heart to confirm this haha-- It looked like fun so we naturally offered to share a message. He invited us in and we talked about the Book of Mormon. He apparently teaches at a church that has 6 members :) Judging by most churches in Texarkana it's probably called something like "First Baptist Church of GOD on the Rock of the Rock In the Rock of the LAMB Holy Ghost Holy Temple Tabernacle of Texarkana." A church named something like this is the true church fun fact! Christ definitely set up a church named something you can't even remember. After we talked with Willie, we did some calls and then watched our usual Stake President devotional.

Thursday Elder Nelson and I spent the morning writing the Eulogy for his coming funeral. Also, sometimes the Natural Man is just eating a jar of peanut butter.🤷‍♀️ After personal study we headed to a park for a meeting and comp study. It was a beautiful day!! I love that park. Because we were on exchanges Elder Nelson got to join my meeting with the social media specialists, and since he used to be a sms he had no reservations just unmuting and letting out a blood-curdling scream. That got the energy going, and the meeting went very well! After the meeting we went to a donut shop and got some donuts while we did some Facebook work. The donuts were pretty good, though definitely not F.D.A.D. good. I did like how you could choose what to fill your donut with right there and then since they just had empty filled donuts in the case. 

After we had lunch Elder Nelson accidentally smashed his phone, so we spent a lot of time setting up his new one. Then we went to do some study at Wendy's. After this we talked to a homeless dude who said, "why would I lie to you" when explaining why he needs money. All non-liars say this so we completely trusted him and gave him all our money. Every jot and tittle

Then we headed to the Church building on the Texas side for a lesson with Trevor (a guy the Sisters ate teaching). They have a problem--they keep running out of people to teach cause they all get baptized too fast. :(

Anyway this lesson with Trevor was top tier, definitely one of the best lessons ever. It was Elder Nelson and I, the three sisters, and a recent convert, all there to teach Trevor. Because there were so many of us the lesson flowed sooo smoothly from person to person and the recent convert (who counts as at LEAST 2 missionaries) bore his testimony basically the entire lesson about every single thing we said. He also brought up conference talks and scriptures left and right. HE basically taught the lesson haha--and he was only baptized a couple of weeks ago! But I guess that makes sense, cause he was going with the missionaries on lessons even before he was baptized haha--he's one of the coolest people I've ever met in my entire life. Anyway back to Trevor, he loved our lesson and even gold us about how he had received an answer that the Book of Mormon was true. He said it didn't make any sense because he's only in second Nephi, and he can't put the spirit in a box like he's used to doing with things in his life, but he couldn't deny it was the spirit. The lesson went so well, as the Sisters and Elder Nelson taught the spirit was super strong--I can see why they are baptizing so many.

After the lesson we dipped and booked it to exchange back, cause Elder Maisey and I had a dinner appointment. Much more happened, but I'm running out of time.

On Friday we had a blast!! We had another amazing lesson with Mark, he's such a cool guy. In the afternoon we decided today was sauna day! So we decided to do street contacting in the hottest time of the day. It was so much fun! As usual it worked, and we found 2 new people to teach! We taught an on-the-spot Restoration lesson which was really fun, and then I also took some pictures for a post. 

In the evening the Smiths took us out to a Mexican restaurant which was really good! I got a steak/fajita beef, salsa, cheese, and bean burrito smothered in white queso and it was pretty good! I've has better bur I've definitely had worse. I didn't take a picture of it cause I ate it :)

We read and talked about the Restoration Proclamation with them, and it was so good. If you don't like the Resto Proclamation you are wrong.

After dinner we did more stopbys and street contacting, but nobody was interested. Which is fine cause little do they know we won't go away. >:) One of these times they will have no other option but to hear us out!

Saturday was great, we did some calls and got a lesson set up. After the calls we had our meeting with the ZLs on how to best help our Zone. We got lots of great ideas. Afterwards we went back into the heat and talked to lots of people.

After dinner this sudden storm rolled in out of nowhere and darkened the sky. It was so cool! We expected it to rain but it didn't so we street contacted all evening. Because of the storm it was sooo nice outside! It was lots of fun to walk around and see all the greenery. 

While we were stopping by a green dot, this young man came out dressed completely in Black, with a black ski mask, black backpack, and black gloves. We, being missionaries, asked for referrals! He gave us one, and then headed off to burgal his next house. :) He seemed pretty nice. 

On Sunday Mark came to church! He even said he didn't drink water so he wouldn't have to use the bathroom during it haha--he stayed for the whole church and loved it. Then he came to lunch with us and the Pierces after! The Pierces gave him an indefinite invitation to all their missionary lunches. He wants to come again next week. Also he's started sending us accountability texts for whenever he does better on Tea and Coffee, and we didn't even ask him too! He's definitely getting Baptized, probably sooner rather than later.

We had a ton of other great things happen but that's all the time I have

-Elder Nielson

Don't Forget to put Away Your Laundry, Ky

Hi young people,

This week was full of things that happened, as some weeks are:

On Tuesday District council was really fun. Elder Nelson always gives excellent trainings, I learn a lot of things I can improve on every time. After District Council a member fed us lunch right there at the church building. It was really fun to eat as a district. Also the members were really lucky to hang out with so many missionaries, anyone who doesn't get this opportunity is missing out.

We also had another lesson with Mary, and it was awesome. Most of the concerns from last time she had prayed about and gotten her own answers on! As we were preparing to explain more about polygamy she said, "Oh yeah I prayed about that and I already got an answer for why God did it."So we went on to Temples and explained more about what happens in Temples. She was really excited and ran inside to grab something to show us. It was a picture of some temple (we couldn't Identify which one), and she said the Sister Missionaries who had taught her had given her this picture. Apparently she'd had a dream about a temple, and when she had described it to them, they had identified which one it was and has given the picture of it to her! One of her boys came out as we were teaching and apparently I've been talking to him on Facebook! He said he was considering going on a mission and then his Mom had been scared off by the Baptists. Then her daughter drove up to say hi cause she's someone we see at Dairy Queen every evening! Apparently all these people are the same family, so if we can get them back to church, not only will we be able to baptize some of them, but we will also hopefully rekindle their desires to serve missions. Mary asked for a book about Joseph Smith because she wanted to learn more about his life. She already knows its all true. We will get her a copy of a book which I cannot remember the name of, but it should be good. We invited her to say the closing prayer, and she said, "I'm not that good at it" but she agreed anyway. Then she said the best prayer ever, praying for the prophet, all the missionaries, and other great things. It was a pretty fun lesson.

On Wednesday we called and talked with a ton of companionship in our Zone and taught them how to do use Facebook more effectively and helped them make goals. We noticed the contrast between different companionships' view of Facebook. Some were pretty discouraged about it, and then some (like the Sisters in our district--1/3rd of their finds come through Facebook) love it and know that it works. We gave each companionship advice--being the wise and noble people we are. 

We also had a lot of lessons fall through, which was annoying--I guess other things like hairdressing are more important to them then their eternal salvation. 🤷‍♀️

Thursday evening we did a lot of walking around and found some people. Other than that Thursday was boring, I'm sure you wouldn't care to hear about the giant bunny.

Friday in the morning it pourrrred and stormed. There was tons of lightning and thunder, so I decided to study outside on our mini back porch (as one does). It was really fun to see the rain and storm all around as I studied--would defintely recommend! To hear more tips you can subscribe to Elder Nielson+ for 12 easy payments of $24.99

Later in the day we helped some members move a whopping 300 feet. Now let me explain the situation, before you make fun of this. So we were carrying a dryer, as one does when moving--and, it was hot. Super super hot. And super humid! And when it gets humid, things get slippery. And when things get slippery, things slip. So as we were walking, this dryer started to slip. To combat this, we picked up the pace. The more it slipped, the faster we walked. Everyone knows you don't just set something down when you have committed your time and heart to it! So we pressed on under these difficult circumstances. We had scarcely got inside when things got out of hand, literally. There was a huge crash haha--we looked around hoping nobody had seen. We quickly picked it up again and ran it the rest of the way. Luckily it didn't look to be damaged at all! It's their fault anyway for not thinking to use a dolly sooner.

Later on Friday we walked around and found 3 new people to teach! 

Saturday was fun, in the morning we taught one of our most progressing people (named Mark) and the lesson went really well. He had lots of questions about the temple recommend interview and baptismal interview. He's really easy to teach because he remembers every single thing we teach him.

After Mark we went over to help the same people move some more things. At this point it was starting to get hot. After helping out there, we went over to a non-member's house to help move a ton of fake flower supplies and bouquets. At this point it was EXTREMELY hot, especially since we were carrying things to and fro. It got so hot that all of us had actual water streaming down our faces. I'm not sure I've ever sweated so much in my entire life haha--it was kind of fun! We were in pros and so after the moved we went home and changed. We didn't shower though cause we knew we would be out in it again in the evening. One of the ladies we had helped was super nice and had given us each a Taco Bell and a Dairy Queen gift card. So we ate at Taco Bell for dinner. It was actually surprisingly super good!! I never has Taco Bell much back home but I was impressed. I will attach a picture, tell me what's wrong with it. 

After dinner we walked around New Boston which was really fun. We talked to everyone we saw and found a couple new people to teach! Street contacting in neighborhoods is pretty fun cause you already know where everyone you talk to lives! 

After we got home I started making a set of teaching scriptures cause it seemed like it would be fun, and sure enough it WAS fun :)

On Sunday right after church we cleared out the chapel, set up tables, and had a potluck! They are going to do this the second Sunday every month. It was super fun, probably the best Potluck I've ever been to. There was so much variety. I especially loved the Spaghetti, the tortilla soup (some of the best I've ever had), the pork sandwiches (some of the best I've ever had), the Alfredo noodles, the banana pudding, the cheesecake, the German chocolate cake, and the salami platter. As you can imagine we did not just lightly munch on the occasional item. 

After the potluck we studied at Tapp Park. It was 95⁰ but felt like 110⁰ haha--I think I much prefer walking in this heat then sitting in it, in fact it's kinda fun to walk in it. But comp study in it is less fun for sure.

Overall it was a good week, we found 6 people and got 3 to church.  

That's not everything that happened this week...

-Elder Nielson 

Argon's atomic number (The Original)

Dear people to whom will recieve this, 

This was a crazy half-fortnight! Below is an authentic account of everything that transpired--if you can trust it...

Monday started out like any p-day. It was fun, relaxing, and orangutan. At around 4, a member in Texarkana invited us over to eat some leftover food from their memorial day celebration. Most of us claim to have stomachs, so we headed over there. We arrived and it looks the only guests the members had invited over for their party had been mice because the food looked almost untouched. There were ribs, drumsticks, beans, Mac and cheese, salads, cheeses, fruits, dipping vegetables, chips and salsa, colsla, and every drink--and only seven of us (Sister Carr, Sister Sharp, Sister Dabling, Elder Maisey, Elder Rainey, and Elders Nelson and Nielson). We feasted and then left. Elder Maisey and I were there because we were going to go on exchanges. The only problem wyas the Texarkana Elders have had no car for a long time, so we both came up to Texarkana to double-work their area (one companionship on bikes, the other on car). So Elder Rainey and I took the car, and Elder Nelson and Elder Maisey took the two bikes (one of which was Elder Rainey's). 

Elder Rainey and I decided to do some street contacting at a nearby park, so we started walking around and talking to people. Then we made the first blunder of the night and talked to the wrong people. I asked if we could share a scripture and they said yes, so I shared Alma 37:37 with them. After the scripture we asked if any of them were religious and they said "yes, we have a church." We then asked if anybody would ever be interested in talking with us again about Jesus Christ. Two of the ladies politely declined, and as we were about to leave this guy who had been fishing the whole time turned around and walked up to us. He started by saying "why would you offer to share your message with them when they already said they have a church??" We politely explained that our message was for everyone, no matter what their beliefs and so we didn't think it would hurt to offer. This guy was insane though and started to bash us hard-core. Almost everything he said was utter nonsense and easily disproven but each time we tried to speak he said "I'll answer for you" and then proceeded to say something he thought we would say. I don't have time to go over every stupid thing he said but to give you an example he said, "I've been around longer so I know my geography better than you do" and then said THIS outrageous thing. He said that there's a practical explanation for Jesus walking on the water. He said that in the morning the Mediterranean Sea freezes over, and so when Jesus "walked on the water" he was really just walking on the ice. He was completely right, it's not like I've actually swam in one of the warmest seas in the world and that it's impossible for it to freeze over. Also, it wasn't even the Mediterranean that the disciples were in, it was the Sea of Galilee (if I remember correctly). This man also posed the question, "How would Jesus get from Jerusalem, all the way over to the Americas? You know they aren't right next to each other right?" This man that claimed to be Christian sure didn't seem to really believe Jesus has any power. I finally took control of the conversation and told him we were going to leave since we'd been listening to his drivel for 45 minutes (and I was afraid I was going to sock him). We left and I answered every question he hadn't let me answer to Elder Rainey to get it all out. 

That guy had wasted most of our night so we headed to McDonald's to do our Facebook work for the evening. That's when we got a call. The second blunder of the evening had just happened. Remember this is still only Monday :)

The other Elders called us, and said Elder Rainey's bike had just been stolen. They had left it unattended for only 10 minutes without a lock, and in that time it was stolen. We rushed over there asap and started to ask everyone in the apartment complex if they had seen anyone steal it. It was dark at this point and so we couldn't really make any headway. Through all this Elder Rainey was steaming, he had warned them that his bike was VERY expensive and had specifically told them to ALWAYS use the lock. His parents had even told him not to let anyone use it and so he had very grudgingly even allowed it to be used. After searching for a long time with no luck we had no choice but to head back to the Texarkana apartment. The whole drive home not a single word was said. It was dead silent except for the Tiwi giving intermittent and way to cheerful "check your speed"'s to Elder Rainey. We got back and all quietly headed in. Elder Rainey closed himself in a different room and we all just sat in the main room trying to think how we could have done better and what we could do to fix this (again his bike was not cheap). Elder Nelson called their Elders Quorum president, Bishop, and the ZLs trying to see if anyone had any ideas. 

Finally he decided to call President Seitz so he did. President Seitz listened to our situation and then said, "Let me talk to Elder Rainey." So we gave the phone over and then we left the room to give him some privacy. After 10 minutes or so they finished and the entire mood changed. For the rest of the evening Elder Rainey's mood was back to normal and he acted like nothing had happened. We played some games and had a ton of fun! I'm not sure what President did but it definitely worked. 

Tuesday morning we woke up and then we realized we were going to have a problem now that there was only one bike. Between the 4 of us we had 1 car and 1 bike. So we decided that we would go and double work New Boston (cause there's another bike in our apartment). So we started the omega exchange, and decided we would do exchanges until Zone conference on Thursday. So in the morning and afternoon Elder Rainey and I used the car and the other Elders biked New Boston. It was super fun, New Boston had 2 missionaries for each half of the small town. We were able to be in two places at once and teach some lessons we thought we'd have to reschedule. 

We met back at the apartment for dinner and ate some steaks and Spaghetti. It was so fun staying with 4 Elders in that apartment. Things are so lively when Elder Nelson is around. In the evening Elder Nelson and I decided to go on foot in Hooks while the others took the car. We had so much fun just walking around the neighborhood. We found 4 new people to teach! 

On Wednesday after breakfast we split up again. Elder Nelson and I went to Wendy's to do comp study. He got me a 4 for 4 despite my half-hearted protests. We were eating and studying and then we got a call from the other Elders saying they were going head up to Texarkana. Apparently they got a call from a member who was moving someone out and their help was needed. So they left us the car and a member drove them up there. Then we got a call from the sisters saying a different member needed help moving IN. So we packed up everybody's stuff and went up to Texarkana and helped the Sisters move this member in. We were helping people move all afternoon and decided to spend the night in Texarkana again so we could save miles. 

After the moves a member in that ward took all 7 of us to Raising Canes and it was soo good. I must have been really hungry cause usually it's just mildly good. After dinner we exchanged again so it was me and Elder Rainey again. We double worked Texarkana, and Elder Rainey decided to walk around with a gigantic Bible. It was hilarious, he looked like a Baptist preacher while he was carrying that thing. We had a lot of fun even though nobody was home haha

We stayed the night in Texarkana and it was awesome, we woke up the next day early and drove to Shreveport for Zone Conference. Zone Conference was super fun also, afterwards some members in Shreve provided Hawaiian haystacks :)

We took a Zone picture which I will attach, President Seitz came up to us fists clenched in  gorilla pose which made us all start moving and laughing so that's why a couple of the pictures are blurry. 

On out way back from Zone conference we stopped at the Fouke Monster Mart and saw their mini Bigfoot museum. It was a lot of fun. 

Friday and Saturday things were finally back to normal, we did a lot of planning and stopbys. 

On Sunday we started working on a video to hype our zone up for Facebook work. Our video contains a short funeral for the Zone page. As we were filming a sudden storm hit and the power went out. It was super fun, I decided to make some hot chocolate. I will take any excuse I can get.

A lot more happened but already you probably gave up reading so I will stop there

-Elder Nielson

Be Careful or the Parsnips might eat YOU

 

Greetings, 

This week flew by as usual, 

Tuesday we had a lot of meetings. We met with our photo team and talked about themes we could use for the Zone posts. We also had District Council, and in the middle of it, we got a call which of course we answered on speaker as we are supposed to. It was a scammer, so I just handed the phone to our DL (knowing he would take care of it). He played along for a second claiming to be the owner of a 2001 Honda Accord SPORT edition. Next, they told him it wasn't covered so he let out a blood-curdling yell saying "Help me help me, someday help me!!" I've never seen a scammer hang up so fast, and none of us in the room could even breathe we were laughing so hard. Tuesday evening we did some stopbys and street contacting which was fun. Street contacting is really fun if you just talk to everyone who is outside. We found someone new to teach. Then as we were going to head to DQ for Facebook since it was almost that time, I felt like we should stop by this girl named Lenora. We are teaching her but she hasn't answered our calls or the door the last 10 times we've tried. It's super sad since she's so golden. Anyway so we stopped by and knocked twice no answer. So we decided we would probably drop her. We were going to leave but I felt like I should write a note and leave that. So I started writing a note ad when I was about halfway done she answered the door! We would have never waited that long if I wasn't writing a note. We talked with her and she said she had been scared off because of jealousy in another pastor's eyes when we showed her our ingenious "Love" Plan of Salvation diagram and apparently he said some not very nice stuff about us. So she had kind of cut off contact with him and us. But we resolved her concerns and she said she was so glad we were persistent and didn't give up on her. She even said she wouldn't be talking to us if she didn't believe what we were saying.

Wednesday was fun, we stopped by a lot of people and walked around and talked with lots of people. Nobody was really interested, but it was super funny to mutter under our breaths after each one. For example one person said "I don't have time for a scripture" while sitting on their porch doing absolutely nothing. Our unspoken reply was "You don't have time for God then?" Another funny things is when someone is walking away briskly so they don't have to talk with us and then we go around the other way and corner them anyway haha--it's hilarious to see the look of dismay as he or she sees they've been bamboozled!

We also taught Doris the Law of Chastity which was fun cause she completely agreed with everything we taught, as old ladies do. 

Thursday in the morning we had some meetings with the social media specialists. In one or the meetings they gave us some cool numbers. Apparently in our mission this month as of Thursday there have been 87 people found through Facebook, 27 of those at church, and 11 or so of those on date. So Facebook has really been working well. And I will get to more on that soon...

Also on Thursday we had all 4 lessons cancel on us. Luckily we always have in a backup event on our calendar for every planned lesson so we did a bunch of stopbys in De Kalb. It was only 70⁰ so it was perfect for walking around. For dinner we had Tortilla soup with the Heiners which was pretty good. We have started getting members involved with the Zone page now that we are running it. After all it's much easier to send one of the Zone posts to one of their friends then to refer them directly to us. Then WE reach out to everyone who likes or interacts in any way, so it makes their job extremely easy. 

On Friday in the morning we helped someone (a non-member service referral) move for 5 hours. It was fun, I've always like helping move when it isn't ME who's moving!

Unfortunately we had 4 lessons with 4 different people who we were planning to put on date, and every one of them cancelled, as if they KNEW we were about to invite each one of then to be baptized. But it's fine cause we don't give up. >:) 

In the evening we walked around and talked to everyone who was outside. One dude was out there with his buddy arguing and we yelled out to them asking if they would like to hear a scripture. The guy's reply was, "I'm smoking Crack so I don't think you want to talk to me right now. You know the brown stuff? I smoke that!" At this point I was trying my best to hold in my laughter, and not doing to well. Finally we just told them to reach out if they ever DO want to talk, with laughs almost escaping the whole time, and we walked away.

On Saturday we helped with the move a bit more in the morning. We also talked to a girl named Mary (name has been changed) as we walked out of a lesson and she was looking really sad. So we went up to her, and apparently she is going through a rough time. She said she used to be a member of our church but then she had a bad dream as she was preparing to go to the temple and it scared her off. She cut off communication at that point. We were intrigued but didn't have time to talk at the moment so we got her address and set up a time to come by on Sunday. She said she was fine if we came by but she wasn't going to join our church. This is just the beginning...to be continued...

Sunday morning was great. As we were getting ready for church I got a message from this guy I had randomly messaged on Facebook a little while ago to look for him at church today! And sure enough he showed up to church after parking his longboard. So I have now found at least one person on Facebook every transfer so far!! Facebook really does work super well, I just wish I could get our Zone to believe me that it works. We've been trying to get them more hyped about Facebook work,, but they are all so pessimistic about it. >:( Anyway back to the guy, he's so cool, he came in with us and and asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and he said, "I always thought there was more writings, not just the Bible." We spoke in church and afterwards he told us he loved it. He us also intrigued by the thought of modern prophets and said, "it does make sense that they would exist." He stayed for Sunday school even. Then another member of our ward came up to him with a surprised look on his face, and apparently the two work at the same place! So they talked for a while, this means we already have a fellowshipper! He even posted on his Facebook after church thanking us for being so welcoming. 

Okay, now to return to Mary. Sunday evening we went over to her house, with not very high hopes. She answered her door and we day down with her and basically asked her why she was scared away from our church. She told us it was that dream she had. But we knew there was something more so we kept pressing. She them said one thing that concerned her was polygamy. We promptly told her that isn't a thing anymore and she said, "Really? Oh well that's a relief!" We then explained a bit about why it was a thing before and she said, "Oh yeah, I'm sure God had his reasons." We then asked if she had other concerns and she said, "The spirit is telling me I should be honest with you guys. So actually I didn't have a dream that scared me off. I was actually shown a video by these Baptists about some horrible things going on in the temple and I know I shouldn't have watched them but I did and it scared me." We were shocked to hear some of the things they had showed and told her, and quickly told her nothing like that would EVER happen in the temple. She was so relieved like a weight had been lifted and we told her she can't believe everything she's told. She agreed and seemed much happier now. She then told us she had never actually been baptized, she had just been working towards it, and had been scared off. We asked if there were any other concerns and she said "how do I know it's actually God's church?" And we said great question and went to Moroni 10:3-5 and started reading but as we were reading she interrupted and said, "Actually I already did this, I prayed about it and I know it's all true cause the Spirit told me." And we were stunned again. So we got a return appointment, told her next time we'd tell her everything we were allowed to talk about that goes on in the temple next time and we are planning on putting her on date to be baptized! 

That's it for now 

-Elder Nielson