Ask, Seek, Knock...

Hello everyone! I hope you are all staying safe and out of trouble! This week was quite the week. We were also let out of quarantine sooner then we thougth. So yay for that. Kinda a random wierd week but fun!

Start off the week, still stuck in quarantine. Still have been staying busy. My dad showed me this super cool thing in the gospel app that helps you understand the scriptures more. Holy crap. It has completley changed the way I study and I have learned so much more than I thought I would’ve. We taught a lesson about the plan of salvation to a lady who lost her father to covid and she was super sad but told us she really needed that call. So we’ve had a few lessons with her since and pretty funny she prays for me and ask’s the lord to help me learn more spanish hahaha. We have also been teaching a single mother with three kids. She is so awesome and understands everything we’ve taught her and shes kept up on what we have invited her to read. She’s awesome!!

Made enchiladas this week and they were straight fuego! Literally… We made them (thanks for my awesome mother for sending me what to do) although we were told to put wayyy to much chilli powder then was told and holy crap it was spicy. I thought it was super good but my comp was not diggin it lol. The food this week has been amazing. The members literally fed us everyday during quarantine. The food was so good too!

Friday deserves it’s own paragraph. Holyyyy Crapppp friday was so crazy and random but so good. Start off the day we got a call and they told us we don’t have to quarantine anymore!! Then we had a fire district council and learned alot. After that my comp was in the bathroom and Im just chillen in my chair looking out the window of our apartment. There was these two older kids kinda yelling at these to younger kids and I was so confused why and then all of the sudden behind one of the A/C things theres this flame that appears and then this little old lady ran behind the A/C unit and basically grabbed whatever was on fire and through it into the middle between the two apartments and then ran back inside so I grabbed my water bottle and ran out there and sprayed down this bag that was on fire. So weird and random. But basically the two little kids had been playing with a lighter. Lesson learned here dont play with fire hahaha. Then literally everyone we called today answered us!! Then mama jules pulled up clutch with the dominos pizza!!! That was amazing. Right after that we got to go watch coco with our ward in the church parking lot. Anddd… we didnt have a car or anything so we straight up rolled our office chairs all the way to the church hahahaha. It was hilarious. Then this crazy little old lady came up to us and straight up roasted me about my spanish hahah. Basically she said for every word I dont know in spanish I have to pay her a dollar. She is straight up like 4 feet tall on the dot she is so little. Her feet were so small hahah. During the movie she came up to me with a bottle of hot sauce and told me to open my hand. She literally filled my whole hand with hot sauce and told me to drink it! She basically said this is what we do in mexico. She spilled it all over my pants and shoes and I also had just opened my soda and that spilled on me hahaha. The she proceeds after I had licked all sauce from my hand grabs my popcorn and puts the sauce all over my popcorn. Mind the sistrict and my comp are just sitting their laughing at me. BUT that popcorn was straight fire with the hot sauce in it. Crazy fun day hahahah hope you enjoyed that.

My saturday morning was so weird. My neighbors are so weird. During my personal studies this dude full on sprints across our window like randomly and then five minutes later he comes back and stands in front of our door and just stares at me through our window then proceeds to walk across to the other side of our window and cuts across behind one of our bushes. Then I see his hand come back into view and he breaks off two branches takes them and then leaves hahaha SO random.

We had two devotionals this week that were for the houston area. One was with Elder Soarres of the quorum of The Twelve Apostles in spanish it was super cool!! It was like a face to face where we asked questions. Let me tell you all, the gift of tongues is real. I went into the devotional thinking I wasn’t going to understand anything. I understood most all of it which I was so suprised. One of my fav parts about it was actually he shared the only scripture I have memorized in spanish which Is D&C 82:10 and then talked about that and said God knows our intentions, the scriptures were laid before us to guide us through our lifes (Idk if thats what he said exactly but for the most part I think thats what he said). Alot of the devotional I think was about the scriptures and how important they are. Which they seriously are. I have learned to love reading from the scriptures. They are full of so much wisdom. He also said as missionaries we are to “invitar, invitar, invitar”. Such a cool expeirence, the devotional was amazing. I invite all of you to make time to read the scriptures everday even if its just a verse a day!

Id love to hear how all of you are doing! Feel free to shoot me an email if you want!!

Pics
mama jules comin in clutch with the pizza!
Sistrict with two of the english elders.
Me and the comp rolling our chairs to the church hahah.
Popeyes
Bought some dope belts and some buckles at mi tienda

Let God Prevail...

This week as been crazy!! We were exposed to covid and have been stuck inside all week. But holy crap this week was good. Its been long but much needed.

To start of we had to go get tested and we got to go to the astros stadium to get tested! It was pretty sweet and got to see all of downtown houston. It was super pretty. Quite a bit of homeless people but other than that it was a great sight to see. Not gonna lie the air quality here is not that great. It always just looks dirty. Also tested negative sadly… We have to quarantine for 10 days anyways so I wish we had gotten it.

We have been doing a lot of facebook finding and responding to peoples comments that liked our page. Btw Me and my comp are editors for the english page so thats pretty cool! We have a video that we made that has reached like 4000 people so thats pretty sweet!

The members here are seriously so good to us. Since being in quarantine they have fed us so much! Like literally every night. Hermana Pocheco fed us three nights in a row. My comp said before I came he had been fed like once or twice before I got in the area soooo basically the members here just love me. We have had a lot of meat and rice and some weird plantain thing that is like a mix of a potato and a banana hahaha best I can explain it.

Angel!! This dude is awesome! We had another lesson with him over zoom and as usual he was lovin it! He has a dog named simba and hes so cute. His wife is still in rehab but she gets out this week so hopefully she will be as interested as he is! We invited him to church even though we weren’t able to attend. Im not sure if he went or not tho. Our lesson went super good with him and we kinda just read the intro to the bom with him and he seemed to understand it all. My spanish still sucks. It been rough lol. Funny story… We needed a pic of angel to send to the bishop to look out for him on sunday, so we looked him up on facebook and literally the only pictures he had was mirror pics with him and his shirt off hahahaha. We wanted to just send it like that and make our bishop so confused it would’ve been hilarious but we just cropped it just so you can see his face but this dude is actually shredded!! Hopefully we can keep teaching him and all goes well!!

This week I’ve been able to read a lot from the scriptures and holy crap! This week has been awesome my testimony of the scriptures has grown so much and I’ve learned so much just by studying. This sunday we got to have a devotional for the area of houston east and Elder D Todd Christopherson spoke it was super awesome(over zoom). They had some speakers before he gave his talk. You could tell that their native language wasn’t english and it was so hard to understand them and it was kinda making me mad. Then one of them shared a scripture from 3 nephi which says “ Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy." Man this scripture… I have never felt so bad for what I was thinking in my entire life. Of all people for me to say that about those people who came to speak to us. They were doing their best. That last part where the savior said “ for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy.” made me think. I’m learning a language and for how hard its been for me, for me to say that about them makes me sick. It’s been hard enough for me learning spanish so if anything I should have had empathy for them! When I’m speaking to people in my awful spanish I don’t want them to think “ this kid sucks at spanish” I want them to be able to have empathy for me and know that Im trying my best. Sorry idek if that made sense but I just need to be more like my savior Jesus Christ and see people how he does. He truly is the perfect example for us to follow.

Taught a lesson yesterday to a single mother and she is seriously so awesome she was so willing to hear what we had to say and seemed so interested!!! Its so sad when she said where she was from cuz she wasn’t in our area:( It’s super sad to send someone to different missionaries when you're the ones who started teaching them. But hey whatever brings her closer to her savior is all that matters!

(btw today is my pday because of tranfers)

(In quarantine still until next pday so thats soooo much fun… not)

Pics
The salt gun of doom where we have killed plenty of bugs and cockroaches in our apartment!!! Nasty!
Downtown Houston
The sistrict meeting over zoom because we in quaratineee

For In His Strength, I Can Do All Things...

Hey everyone! This week was awesome! We had zone conference and that was pretty fun. I had to say the closing prayer in spanish and it was quite scary not gonna lie there was like 100 people there so no pressure... I did my best so thats all that matters. Overall great week!

At zone conference we were asked to write down our weaknesses. So I did and then asked us to evaluate how we have been trying to overcome them on a scale of 3. It got me thinking and honestly I hadn’t been doing much to overcome any of them. So I gave myself a 1. I made a goal to attack my weaknesses head on so for the rest of my training Im going to do all that I can to make my weaknesses become my strengths! Which I can do with the help of My Heavenly Father. I want to be able to make it through my mission with no regrets and push myself to do my best. And I can’t do that with my weaknesses holding me back. “Yea, I know that I am nothing as to my strength I am weak ; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things ; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.” Alma 26:12

This week we got a new contact! (hopefully his fam soon! the martinez fam) He’s super awesome. He’s 18 and just graduated highschool. He played football. It was a lot of fun talking to him. When we called him he was with his girlfriend and we felt bad but he said they were just doing “homework” hahahah. But he said it was fine and wanted to talk to us. We got to know him and shared a scripture with him. He seems super interested and wants to learn more. He’s super busy with work and trying to become Independent so it's been hard trying to contact him. But we set up a lesson with him for Sunday and then he bailed last minute cuz his brother is in the military and was calling home. So hopefully we will catch him soon!

Hurricane Delta is pretty big ! back to back hurricanes in a month. We are mostly getting rain and wind as of rn but its hitting lousiana again. So literally all the people who were already affected by the first one are having another one so keep them in your prayers. We were looking at the map and it shows where hurricane danger is going to be and where we are staying is like a block away from being in the hurricane warning zone.

The humidity this week was sooo gross. It was like 60% since I’ve been here and then went up to like 92% and it was just gross you straight up just feel wet and gross. Bless A/C. Walking into our apartment it feels sooo good its nice and cold. Which I probs wont have in mexico. There's also a restaurant here called aguascalientes!! Everyone says its amazing so Ill make sure to go there before I actually head out to mexico. Speaking of which I heard that some mission presidents are preparing to go out and get missionaries soon. So hopefully by the end of the year Ill be outta here. Mi espanol es no bueno… Its been a struggle. But hopefully It will get better. I straight up got roasted by the secretary in the ward on sunday. He asked me to go set up chairs in spanish and I literally didnt know a word he said and then he started laughing and said we got a real latino over here everyone. It was pretty funny, he was just giving me a hard time cuz he knew I was new.

Oziel!! This dude is something else. We are doing our best to try and get him to read the Book of Mormon but he always has an excuse. We finally saw him recently at the park (crenshaw park is lit) and read a scripture with him. He loves it so Im still just wondering why he wont give it a shot! After talking with Oziel we were just taking a lap around the pond/lake thats there and some dude sitting on a bench was yelling at us to come over there, so we did and then he proceeded to ask us if we were those "church people". And then asked us to pray for him because he had shin splints hahaha. Then he told us he’s been struggling with some stuff and asked where our church meets so we told him and wrote it all down in A book of mormon and gave it to him. So hopefully he comes this week! His name is alex! Pretty cool guy!

We also taught this guy how to pray over a zoom call! He’s awesome! His name is Angel. We taught him how to pray and he loved it. After that he was already talking about baptism and hes never been baptized before and for some reason already wants to be baptized which is crazy cuz he hasn’t heard any of the lessons or knows anything about our church. His wife is in rehab. He said once shes out he will talk to her but basically everything that happens next will be on her so hopefully she is down for that!

There were also six kids in my zone that tested positive for covid after they went to zone conference which is kinda scary and then we gave 2 of them hugs and shook their hands so we are stuck in our house for today. We also saw our zone leaders yesterday and they hadn’t been feeling good and we had given them hugs as well. So hopefully they get their test back and hopefully it’s negative. One of those six missionaries was scheduled to fly home and now cant because of that so I feel bad for him. My mission president is the man and is already on top of it!

Pics
The beautiful Crenshaw park at 6:30 in the morning
Me at the park
Elder Coats and I at Zone conference!!
Some dude just chillen by his flipped over car.

First Week in Houston...

Hello everyone I am alive and safely made it to Houston!! This week has been so sick! I already am loving the mission field so much.

This week we've done quite a bit of service but nothing from the hurricanes. We cut down some trees and other stuff for this elderly couple and they had the coolest Texas accent Ive ever heard! And let me tell you all, its very hot out here! Feels super good in the mornings and then its just hot the rest of the day. In the mornings sometimes we go and play pass with a Frisbee with the English elders in the most beautiful park I've ever seen for our exercise.

The first day I got here we met our district. Which is all sisters. So we now call it the sistrict and we call our district leader (my companion) the relief society president lol. The members here are so awesome. They have fed us literally every night since I've been here!! Hearing some of their stories is super sad but it amazes me how much they love the church. I've been very fortunate with a loving family. Where some of these people don't have that much yet they are so happy and giving!

Ever day since Ive been here we go on a walk at 8 at night to talk to one of our buddies named Oziel. He's such a cool dude! He is always so nice to us. We found out he knew some other elders and said the elders before us had given him a book of mormon which is awesome but he said he's never really read it. So we've been trying to get him to read it but he won't! He has been coming up with all these different excuses every night so Saturday night we said you know what lets read a verse with you right now! And he said ok so we shared helaman 5:12 which talks about having a strong foundation. He absolutely loved it. He was like "yeah I believe that, that scripture is totally true!" So we asked if he would start reading just at least a verse a day and he said ehhh idk if i can do that so we asked if we can just send him one every day and he said sure! So thats cool hopefully he actually will read them. I'll let you all know how it goes next email.

This last weekend it was general conference!! I had a few questions I was praying for an answer. The first two days I was here I was super discouraged about serving a mission and was rethinking it LOL. Its a lot to take in those first days ur out then I read a letter my uncle had sent with me and it had brought me so much peace and I turned to the lord and did what my uncle told me to do, just keeping pushing through. Although still feeling a little discouraged I went into conference wanting an answer on how I can stay focused and not feel like that. In the Saturday morning session Scott D. Whiting was talking about climbing a mountain. He talked about being discouraged and how at the time you may not think you can make to the top but by just taking that one step in front of you you will be able to. That right there was an answer to my prayers. Its a little overwhelming being a missionary at first but knowing that the lord is right by my side helping me all the way through it all brought me so much peace and comfort and I'm so grateful for that. I can truly testify that God hears and answers our prayers.

Ps I threw up 3 times last night cuz I'm pretty sure I got food poisoning lolzzz but I'm chillen now.

Pics

1. Proof the world is flat...
2. First day in the apartment
3. Me vibin outside my apartment
4. Me finding my new fav restaurant (canes)