Tuesday, May 26, 2015

A Terrific Baptism and Surviving the Floods!

Memorial Day Hot Dogs and Chips
Alexis and Alfredo
Alexis and his family
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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