Monday Dec 3, 2018

My week has been ok, not too much has happened in Allen. Elder Price is my new companion and he is from Pensacola, Florida. He has been out for a year and was originally called to the Mississippi Jackson Mission. I'm getting a long with him pretty well but I guess the same problem occurs with every single Mississippi missionary I've been with. They get too distracted on Facebook. Of course they are only human so I can't blame them but there has been a couple of them who don't want to listen to all of the Mission rules in Texas. Some would record videos when they aren't supposed to or do something else. I guess they were trained differently but they should still abide to the mission rules. 

Dad was telling me how Baby River will be 18 months when I get home. I hate thinking about that kind of stuff, hitting a year mark is going to be difficult enough because it will only go faster from there. I guess he will be talking by the time I get home though, so that will be interesting. 

The Nativity went pretty well, I took a couple pictures of it. There was a lot of people that attended it over the three days it was up. They had a couple really old copies of the Bible there. One of them was over 400 years old. I guess the person who owns those bibles also has a copy of Joseph Smiths copy of the Book of Mormon and the One ring used in Lord of the Rings. He has a Bookstore in Utah somewhere. 

Members feed us a lot in this mission and I don't see President Dalton getting rid of Member meals anytime soon. I think he knows how big of a struggle that would be on our mission cards. That is exciting to hear Elder Holland is going to meet with the youth. I wanted to ask him if the Vape pen was against the Word of Wisdom just so I can use it for future lessons when someone asks about it. Just tell Jackson or Aiden to ask that question and let them know that their Brother from the Texas Dallas Mission wanted to ask him that. He is a pretty nice guy, but he will be up in their face as well. 

We did have a small miracle happen this week. This miracle started first on Wednesday. An elder named Elder Korhonen stopped by Allen which is where he served for about 9 months. He gave us a couple names we could stop by and see if they are interested in the church. We took note and added those names to splits that night. When we actually went out I realized that I should of double checked the area where each former investigator was because they were only a couple streets away from each other. Instead of turning around I had the feeling we needed to keep going to our destination. The house was vacant so they must of moved a while ago. However right next door there was a part member family in which we had a pretty good discussion with them. Iwas really hoping that this would be the family, but the Husband wasn't interested in joining the church. He was upset that religion has become more of a business than anything. However he did direct us to a house across the street where a lady recently lost her husband to suicide. We thought about it and decided it would be best to go the next day. We got to the neighborhood and as we locked up our bikes to a stop sign a lady drove up and asked us if we were Missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We said we were and she pulled over and talked with us for about an hour and explained the hard things she was going through. Her electricity bill needed to be paid and there was a lot of other things that needed to be paid off. She has a family and she told us a couple things that stuck in our heads. One of the things she mentioned is that God is no respecter of persons and that she repents every single day. You can't get a better person of interest than that. But that's not all, on Saturday we felt like we needed to stop by her house and when we did she gladly let us in. She actually wanted us to have a study with the kids so we started to share the restoration with them. The Daughter seemed to be the most interested in the conversation and asked us a lot of really good questions. There were tears shed in the room and at the end of the lesson at least two of the four kids were ready to commit to Baptism. This was one of the greatest lessons I've ever had on my mission! We invited them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and afterwards we talked with their mother about what had happened. She opened up to us and told us that the night that we first met with her that an anonymous person paid off her electricity bill and everything else that was needed. She knew that miracles were happening fast and she was excited to see what will come next. This is a golden family and they even came to the Nativity event on Saturday night. I am so excited for this family I know that the lord had his hand over this whole situation. 

Other than that not too much is happening right now. Stake Conference is next month and I really hope they don't announce which apostle is coming. I want it to be more of a surprise. I could care less on what is in the Christmas Package. I want to stay focused on the mission and nothing else. The only thing I could possibly hope for this month is hearing a reply from Club Penguin. I sent them a letter back in September and I just hope I hear something from them before they shut down. Anyways I hope you all have a good week and I'll talk to you again soon.