Hello everyone,
A couple days ago, I can’t remember which because all the days just seemed meshed together.. I woke up to find I am roughly 10% done with my mission. 10% that I won’t ever get back! it was a real motivation to me. I can’t believe how fast this time has gone.
Opposition
This week was definitely full of opposition! We had to get real with some of our investigators, even drop a couple. We have over 20 investigators currently and some are progressing better than others but we have a couple really nice ones.
It’s been so hot and humid here! It seriously feels just like summer back home I have no idea what I’m going to do here in July, hopefully I’m in a car by then 😉 but it’s been around 85F and we are just riding around sweating all day! Anyway… we were the Lord’s little troopers this week! We worked like crazy! Wednesday we taught 8 lessons! They were quality lessons, too. About halfway through the day, Elder Bruneel’s bike broke. His pedal straight up just fell off and we couldn’t find the bolt. But we still had a long day of work to go so I just told him to grab on to my backpack strap and I pulled him and his bike around from appointment to appointment. Up along the freeway, down neighborhoods, all over – till my bike chain broke in half. But we weren’t quite done yet! So we scooted and scooted our bikes along with one leg all around our area to where we needed to be throughout the day. Even though we pretty much collapsed into our beds right when we got home it was worth it! Such a good day.
Hayde
We’ve been teaching a 28 year old lady named Hayde who lives in a trailer with her two daughters.. she has been reading the Book of Mormon and likes it a lot. She loves the church. Â At first she had some hesitation to leave her other church but we were inspired to offer her a church tour and she loved it so she has been coming for a couple weeks straight now! She understands the importance of the Book of Mormon and the restored authority which I feel like is the most important thing and we set a date for her and her 8 year old daughter on Feb. 25th. At first she hesitated because she didn’t feel ready and didn’t feel like she knew enough. She said she knows this is what she wants to do, and finally she decided she felt ready and confident, so that’s her day!
Mexican BBQ with Los Tres Vatos
I was kind of scared about serving in such a rough area of H-Town but I must say after this week, I love it. The people are so cool and funny! A couple weeks ago we were tracting a trailer park and there were three older Mexican men BBQ-ing and we were so tired and hungry and sweaty I went up to them and said “hey, thanks for dinner!” just joking of course. They were so cool they were like “yeah go right ahead!” and insisted we join them, so we ate and taught them. We went back this last Saturday like we planned and we taught them another lesson. I must say, I’m a big fan of Mexican barbaque… it was sooo good! They told us they would be waiting for us every Saturday… they are also pretty interested. We had a good restoration lesson with them and they have all been reading the Book of Mormon.. so we have three new investigators and some good food! They always call us “primos” … “cousins” and are always blasting mariachi music from their trailer while they are eating, they are so funny. They tell us to call them “Los tres vatos” haha “The three guys”.. they are pretty crazy but awesome.
Angel
Also, we knocked into a less-active member named Angel. He let us in. He started telling us about his life and how he is the 3rd ranked “Puro Vato Loco” gang member in Houston. He said that he would tell his people to watch out for us and take care of us which was pretty cool I guess. He told us “no one out here would really bug two white boys in shirts and ties anyway,” but I’m not so sure… I hope not! He was really cool though we got to share some scriptures from the Book of Mormon and apply them to his situation. He said he wanted to leave his life behind and come back to church. We are going to keep visiting him but “only in the daytime”, he said because supposedly his appartment could get raided and shot up at any time. Maybe we will just set up meetings with him at the church. 🙂 All I know is we are going to be obedient and do what we are supposed to do and only be where we are supposed to be when we are supposed to be there and we will be fine!
Francisco
Well yeah that was my week! As for Francisco.. he said he is going to quit his job after February because he wants to come to church and be baptized.. so he wants to find a different job that will give him Sundays off. His kids have operations this next month so he needs the money he can’t quit yet.. we are going to see if David wants to get baptized in the meanwhile. It will be up to him and his dad.
Hope you all have a blessed week!
Love,
Elder Viitanen