Meeting Some Great New Families

Dinner outside because there wasn't a 3rd man 

Every neighborhood has a little bayou like this behind it that floods when it rains.

Classic walking and talking

This week, we met a couple really cool new people.  First is the Zundels. He just got assigned from the English ward to be our Elders Quorum President. That’s what happens when you are a strong member that speaks Spanish, haha.  But they are awesome!  They had us over and he cooked us some of the best BBQ I have ever had.  He made ribs with his homemade sauce and we also had BBQed corn and veggies. He told us how to make the ribs and gave me the basic sauce recipe so we can try it out when I get home :)  But he loves collecting old stuff and she is a professional ballet dancer. So their house is super old school with big chandeliers and mirrors and lots of wood and stuff.  Then he has a bunch of old signs and photos and vintage cameras all over.  And they have a super cool library with a bunch of classics and history and gospel books.

We also met the Velez family. They live in our area but have been attending the Pasadena ward.  It’s the ward that steals all of our members because its bigger and stronger, but outside the mission. Well, we found them outside and it turns out that they have been feeling like they should attend their own ward.  The only problem is that they are fluent in English and Spanish so that means they can drive 10 minutes to a strong English ward…or drive 40 to a Spanish branch that is barely held together by our Presidency...  We will see what happens with them.

Also, the same lady in my second picture, Hna Amezquita, she usually feeds us the best food ever. Haha it always looks gross but tastes really good.  Well this week was a little different.  She made us fish soup.  And in my soup, I had a whole fish tail. It was like 8 inches long with the fins and scales and everything.  It tasted pretty weird too, haha.  Not super gross, but just weird and super duper fishy.  Plus, I had the whole spine so I was constantly pulling out all the bones and they were almost needle thin, clear, and only an inch or less long.  It was the most deadly dinner ever! haha. 

But we did have a 4-ward chili cook-off this week. Too bad the judges were racist and only English members won... But our Kemah House (what we call our 4-man apartment) chili was pretty dang good too.  It should have at least placed. Oh well, we will come back perfected next year!

And I don’t know if I told you about David Martinez, the guy whose wife was in a coma…  If not, I can explain more about him next week… But we started teaching his son, David Jr. but he never has time so we teach him little 5 minute lessons. So far we have taught parts of the plan of salvation, restoration, and the atonement.  Hopefully we can keep doing our little lessons but start to teach him everyday.  That would be perfect.  People that get taught almost daily are the ones that end up joining the church. 

It’s cool that y'all (Texas is changin me, haha) were able to support Yevi in the areas where her family couldn’t.  That’s super cool that she had such a good mission.  Sometimes I get super down because I feel like its coming to an end and I don’t feel like I have become the "successful, spiritual giant missionary."  Especially since I left Houston 4, it’s been super hard.  My numbers are always super low and I haven’t had anyone progress since Hailey.  But I keep working super hard, harder than ever.  I am trying to be more obedient than ever and study harder and harder.  I feel like I have been trying a lot… and not seeing results. The hardest thing is that I don’t know what we can do differently.  I’ll pray a lot this week and see what can change but prayer has also been hard recently too, just hard to focus. 

I remember that last Saturday it all hit me.  I finally realized that I have less than 6 months left and I have a lot more to do and I don’t want to waste any more time, and I just cried for like 5 minutes.  First time I have ever cried on my mission.  But it was really good for me because it made me have more desire to get to work and hold nothing back. So as soon as I figure out what else I’m missing, we will be in business!

Hope you all had a good week as well!