Trunk or Treat Champs!

I think I found out why everyone here works at the plants.  A few months ago, a man was burned by some chemicals and because of it they had to amputate his leg.  Well, to keep him from not suing, the plants settled for $23 million dollars... So pretty much all you have to do is get hurt so bad you cannot work and then you become a millionaire.

This week, we went to see Baltazar.  It’s been a while since we saw him last because now he is always working.  But we did get to see his new house he just got and because he is very superstitious he needed our help removing some things.  He said they were magic crystals or something and wouldn’t touch them. Well, we go in and scoop up some greenish rocks in a cup and dispose of them outside.  I'm pretty sure they were just smelling salts or something, haha.

But the main event of this week was the branch trunk or treat!  It was so fun!  The Campos and us came up with the idea that we would decorate our car like Ghost Busters.  So she helped us out with the supplies we could not get, like the costumes and the signs, and then we put it all together in her yard the day of (we might have spent just a little too much time doing so, but it’s ok).

So what it was... we put down the seats of our car.  I stood outside telling little kids that I had caught a ghost and they needed to come look for him through the little window on the left.  And we had some lights and grey paint to make it look more foggy and scary.  Then Elder Roskelley was inside the "ghost containment unit" and he would move around and then "fly up" and put his face up super close and scare them.  Then he would pass out some candy through the little green hole at the bottom.  But let me be the first to tell ya, everyone loved it, and the kids came to our car a million time to find the ghost. And we won first prize in both the costume contest and the best trunk contest!  Talk about representing! Oh, and we had the Ghostbusters theme playing the whole time from our car.

It was pretty rad!

Elder Lund

One of the Best Weeks in a Long Time!

So this week was kinda weird.  During each day, we would talk to a lot of people

and say a lot of prayers with them, but not really teach many lessons.  But then somehow by the end of the week, adding up everything, we had one of the best weeks we have had in a long time!  It’s funny how things just always seem to work out somehow.  I think we did pretty well because all we do is ride our bikes. We had to drive to Houston a couple times at the beginning of the month and just destroyed our miles and so now we just bike everywhere. 

Darlene did not come to church this week, because I guess she is sick or something.  So we don’t know how she is doing without coffee or cigarettes, but hopefully we can see her tomorrow.  

And with Kristen, we have hit a little wall. We taught her the law of chastity and found out the real reason why she is not married to her boyfriend (who she lives with). They are really poor and they are not married so they both can get "single parent with kids" benefits.  And because of this she doesn’t have any plans of getting married or baptized in the near future.  So we are going to work with her about the blessings that we receive from living the commandments.  We taught her tithing, and she completely agreed that you pay your tithing first even if you are poor, so we will have to relate it to chastity.  Hopefully we can just keep building her faith and she will make the decision by herself.

Last night we went to Sixto Samayoa’s house in the country for dinner.  He is just crazy rich so he has the sweetest house.  Well, the house is like an average bigger house, nothing too fancy.  But he lives on a bunch of land!  Right behind his house, he has his "Gardens of Eden", well that’s what I call them.  It’s just a bunch of fruit trees right next to each other, so its like a jungle.  Then off to one side, he has a big pen full of chickens, guinea fowl, and peacocks.  Then on the other side he has a little grove of trees and in them, he has like 5 mini horses (so cool!!).  And behind all of this, he has 10 acres of uncharted land where they drive their 2 International Scouts and go exploring and off-roading.  Then throughout the whole place, he has multiple tractors and other old cars and boats he "works on."  Plus he has 4 wolf dogs, a german shepard, and a couple pitbull/bull dogs that roam around the property.  While we waited for them to finish dinner, we just roamed his jardines (gardens).  It was so nice!  But I didn’t get any pics because I didn’t have my camera.

Oh well, pretty good week if you ask me

Elder Lund

One Night on Queen Mattress was Heavenly!

So this week, Elder Steed got transferred.  He is up in my last zone in Sugarland area.  My new comp is named Elder Roskelley.  He is from Logan, Utah and fresh out of High School.  He knows the Crandals too!  But he is a U of U fan! And he played soccer and tennis so we can relate a little, just he is a lot better than I am. 

The highlight of this week was that we had a Zone Conference and a 70 came. His name is Elder Schwitzer.  It started early in the morning so we had to stay overnight in Sugarland.  We were supposed to stay with other elders deep in the city, but on the way up, Sister Mecham, the medical lady who me and another elder are super tight with, well she called us and wanted to see if we wanted to stay at her house.  Heck ya!  So we dipped out on our other plans and drove there. Haha, we got there a little early so we went and took her dog for a walk, then they gave us leftover dessert from a YSA activity, and then we taught them.

But that night, I got to sleep on a ... queen size mattress!  It was heavenly!  So weird not to have my feet off the bed.  But in the morning we went to the conference and Elder Schwitzer focused a lot on helping investigators realize they don’t get baptized to join the Mormon church, they get baptized to follow Jesus Christ and show their love for him.  It was pretty sweet.  And probably the best thing was that Elder Johnson was there!  Well, now he is Nick Johnson, but it was super cool to see him. And I got to sit next to him during the whole thing. It was weird because he has longer, trendier hair on top now, with his skinny suit and tan shoes, haha.

And last night we got to talk with Darlene for a long time.  She told us at church she wants to be baptized in the future so we got to talk all about that.  We decided she needs to quit coffee and smoking.  To do this she made her daughter put all her cigarettes outside the house so it is not a temptation.  Then she is going to chew cinnamon gum and drink cranberry juice instead of smoking and coffee.  She also needs to pray and read/listen to the B of M everyday.  And we are reminding her everyday at 5:30 in the morning to do these things!  If it all goes well, I could see her being baptized around the 26th.  Lets hope so!

I completely agree with all you said about missionary work. It is so sad to see someone reject the gospel after listening or not even give us a chance to talk and they don’t even know what they are missing out on.

Elder Lund

A Great Conference Experience!

Our mustache unity

Remember how I told you all about Jesse?  Well this week started off with him asking for a blessing of health.  He asked me to do it and in the blessing I was prompted to tell him that the Lord needs him as a worthy priesthood holder right now, and some other stuff.  Well afterwards he was crying, and long story short, I asked him what he has to do to be worthy?  He told us of how he had to quit smoking weed and come back to church.  So we set some plans to do that.  Well the next day he had to go to the hospital.  When we went to see him, he said he is having kidney problems so not only will he give up smoking to be better spiritually, but also physically.  Then Sunday morning we went and got him for conference. Well let me tell you, he had to be there!  First he sat down and just listening to the music and feeling the spirit really affected him. I think I saw him go through the whole repentance process right there next to me! 

Then after some counseling and talking things through, Conference started. During Eyrings talk, he leaned over to me and said "I think I want to get the Melchizedek Priesthood now."  Let me tell you, it was magical to hear him say that!  Then after conference, he was telling everyone about how he has changed and wants to get the priesthood and go to the temple and get his patriarchal blessing.  Super rad!  And afterwards he told us about how he used to be chained down by his drugs, but now he feels like he has been set free.  And you can tell!  He used to be all depressed and now he is always happy and smiling.  Man, I love being a missionary!

O.K. General Conference... they crushed it this year!  Well I thought Uchtdorf looked a little sad the first session but he came back strong.  Anyways, the MVP award goes to President Eyring.  He just shredded it!  Elder Holland’s talk about the poor was super good too.  Dad will you send me a Gen Con magazine when they come out?  So I can mark it up and stuff.

This week we got to see Meet the Mormons. It was so good!  The beginning is super funny and then all of the peoples stories make Mormons look like the coolest people in the world! (Especially the coach and the fighter and the humanitarian).

I also got to go on an exchange up to the city of Victoria. It’s like the big city around here but it’s about the size of Aliso Viejo, or smaller.  But when I was there we got to work in Christ's Kitchen, which feeds the homeless everyday.  I think its super funny that there the missionaries’ job is to serve the ice tea, haha. But it was super fun to be able to talk to a bunch of impoverished and homeless people and to hear their stories.

Then that night we went to a Pentecostal church.  It was pretty sweet.  We went because an investigator invited us.  Well we got there and his brother and sister were just jamming out, she on the keyboard and singing the alabanzas and him on the drums.  It was nutty for sure!  And lucky us, they had the alabanza lyrics on the screen so we could sing and praise along.  Then afterwards, the investigator's little brother who is 18 gave a super good sermon on love.  Then after some more alabanza-ing (praising), it ended and we got to talk to the investigator and his brothers and sister for half an hour about different things in our church vs. theirs.  It was good in that we didn’t argue over anything, which usually happens when talking to Pentecostals.  Plus, at the beginning, the pastor said to give us a welcome and everybody in the whole congregation came and shook our hands.  It made me feel special for sure!

Elder Lund