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| Memorial Day Hot Dogs and Chips |
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| Alexis and Alfredo |
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| Alexis and his family |
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| Roofing service project |
ALEXIS!!! is such a stud!!! So on Tuesday, he past his
interview with flying colors! Then on
Thursday, we got to meet his whole family when we taught them at his house for
the first time. They are the best! His mom is super nice and super supportive of
everything as long as her son is being a good kid. Then he has a 15 yr old sister and a 9 yr old
little brother. Then on Saturday was his baptism! He showed up 30 minutes early too, very
impressive! His friend Alfredo, who was
recently baptized about 2 or 3 months ago, baptized him. And after his baptism, he gave his testimony
about his conversion and his mom started crying! The Spirit is the best!
After the whole thing, the mom got invited to the next relief
society activity and the other kids in the ward invited all the kids to
activities. And finally, his mom, Ana,
came up to us and said "Now that he is baptized in your church, I am
putting you all in charge of him. When
he is at my house, he is my responsibility, when he is at the church, he is
yours." But she said it in such a
loving and trusting way. The whole
baptism could not have gone any better.
We think that the rest of the family will feel the truth and be baptized
in the coming month! Faith!
Also this week, we helped Hermano Sierra redo his roof. We helped him carry all the supplies up to
the top. BTW those packs of shingles or
whatever are so heavy! It wasn't just some
walk in the park. My back was dead for
the rest of the day and the day after that haha. I pretty much decided in that moment that I
don't want to work as the pack mule for roofers.
The next day we got to go with him to the dump and get rid of
all the old roof. I haven't been to a
dump in so long! But it was sweet
because as I was pulling the roof out at like 1000 mph, one of the pieces
sliced my finger and I got a giant gash across the top of it. It bled like none other. But it was ok
because I wrapped it up in the bottom of my shirt and then finished the job
with just my right hand. Plus, they got
us McDonald breakfast afterwards.
#heaven.
We found out that the Sierras read a chapter each every night
and they do it all together. So they all
sit down and listen to each other read until they have all read. Super cool!
It is super cool that the are all getting really into the Book of
Mormon. So now all we have to do is help
them get to the temple soon. We will
work on that this week.
Esteban and Alemari are doing super good too! Esteban said he gets super bored at home so
he just sits and reads the Book of Mormon every once in a while. STUD!
On Sunday we went by and his mom got a little moody with us, so we might
have to wait for some things to settle down before we go by again. We still have high hopes for them. I think that’s the secret. If you always have a bunch of faith and high
expectations, then God just kinda makes it work out.
Then with Rumalda, we taught her the restoration and out of no
where she went off about her crazy past and how she came over here after a C-
section so she walked through the desert for days bleeding out her stomach, and
just a bunch of other stuff about her dealings here and in Mexico, and with the
cartels, and then in the middle of all of this slips in that she has the gift
of prophecy... Turns out that she sees things before they happen. But yeah, she has seen/dreamed things and then
it happens like two days later. Or most
of the time, she gets promptings to tell her family not to do certain stuff and
then her family goes off and does it and bad consequences happen. It was super funny when she told us because
she had this "I told you so" attitude the entire time. So now, we just need her to use her future seeing
powers to see her baptism and she will be set!
So after this week, I have decided that one of my favorite
chapters in the Book of Mormon is Alma 36. We taught it to a few people this week and the
spirit comes super strong in it! It is
all about Alma the younger's repentance process and the joy he feels
afterwards. It’s a great pick me up if
you have a bad day or even if you just want to read in the scriptures!
We also had to give a few people “spiritual slaps in the face”
this week. That's what we say in our companionship when someone needs to be
called to repentance, haha. But we
always make sure to make it more of a "warning slap" before any
feelings are hurt. Sometimes, people
just need to be told boldly and lovingly that what they are doing is wrong and
not allowed.
We had the best baked potatoes to ever exist on this planet. A member bought them for us and they were
giant potatoes filled with cheese, sour cream, bacon, steak bits, chives, BBQ
sauce, and probably some other stuff. But we all felt super full and sick afterwards,
haha.
So enough of all the little things, the crazy day was definitely
yesterday! We spent the whole day on bikes and let me tell you, it was a little
hot. Like 90 something degrees with a
bunch of humidity and biking as fast as possible. It’s weird because while biking it feels super
nice with the breeze and stuff, but right when you stop is when it gets super
hot! And then you realize that your
clothes are all soaked from sweat and your skin is just glistening. Sometimes I have no idea why people let us in
and let us sit on their super nice plush couches! When that happens we always try to sit as far
on the edge as possible and not let any of it touch their couch, haha. Plus,
there were the strongest winds ever. We
would pedal super hard and be barely moving.
During the day we taught a bunch of people! We were super blessed in that every person we
tried was home and let us in. But the
real fun didn't start until about 8 that night. After we had our traditional Memorial Day
dinner of hot dogs and BBQ chips, we went over to Hermana Valdez's house. She then took us in her car to a lesson and we
left our bikes in her garage. It hadn't
rained at all that day. By the time we
got to the lesson, it was raining a decent amount for Texas (for California it
would have been pouring). So we started teaching
Sami, the cousin of the Sierras. We did
it in the garage because he was waiting there for someone else to come by.
Well about halfway through the lesson was when the heavens opened
and it rained for real! Let’s just say
that if I ran from the garage to the car in the driveway, I wouldn't have any
dry spot on me... And there was major lighting, the kind of lightning that sets
off all the car alarms on the street... It was intense! So we had to end the lesson quick before
everything started flooding, but the Sierras needed our help with something so
we sent Hermana and her small van to get home while she still could. Then we had Hermano Sierra take us home in his
big F-150 and good thing we did because we got to the point where water was up
to his bumper.
We definitely had some Divine help in getting home last night. It’s sweet because when it rains like that the
whole mission goes into emergency mode and everyone makes sure that everyone
else gets home safe. The people with
trucks go and rescue the Missionaries in little cars, if needed and possible. Most missionaries have to park their car in
someone’s driveway and then walk home through all the flooding. We got home safe and the Sierras and Hermana
Valdez did too. Then we just sat and
watched the sky strobe with lightning on an average of about one flash a
second! I wouldn’t have been surprised
if God was super mad and just wanted to destroy the world. Craziest storm ever! Everywhere was flooded at least 3 feet, with most
places way more.
But the craziest part is when we get out to work the next day
and there is almost no water in the streets. Houston is amazingly good at redirecting water
and within a few hours of the rain stopping all the flooding is moved through
sewers and drainage to the nearby lakes, ponds, rivers, bayous... So now there
is no water in the streets, but all the ponds here are super full and like 5
feet above what they normally are. And
like half the trees here blew over from all the winds. Now all the landscaping companies are going to
be super busy today!
But that's my crazy week! Hope yours was a little safer!
Love
Elder Lund
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