Kingwood!

Marko March 12, 2013 1 Comment

Dear Family and Friends,

Man, it’s been kind of a wild past week. I don’t even know where to start. First off, I’m still dealing with the shock of going from the poorest area in the mission to the richest.

My new Area

Oh yeah, I should probably tell y’all. I’m now serving in the San Jacinto River Branch. It covers the entire Kingwood Stake. So, we cover the towns of Livingston, Cleveland, Kingwood, Humble, Atascocita, Porter, Bender, Foxwood, New Caney, Splendora, and a bunch of other towns that I don’t even know. It’s a pretty big area. It’s not as big an area as Beaumont (because back there we covered two stakes), but we have more miles here so the area we actually work is a lot bigger than what we worked back in Beaumont. (That’s another thing. I have used the phrase “back in Beaumont” probably 89732913523 times so far this week. I think my companion is sick of hearing about it haha.) So we have been driving a lot! Let me tell you a bit about the area.

Not Beaumont for Sure

We actually live in Kingwood. Actually, right down the street from the mission office and the mission home and all that good stuff. It’s pretty crazy because I have never been around here. It’s like, we are right in the middle of all the action haha it’s weird. We see the AP’s and President and Sister Crawford all the time. It’s weird.
We don’t really work in Kingwood very much because it is a SUPER RICH, SUPER WHITE area. It’s ridiculous the houses that are here. But it’s such a nice town. It’s like this fancy community built in the middle of a forest. It’s called “the livable forest.’ There are trees EVERYWHERE. SO MANY TREES! It’s crazy. But it’s so nice. Every morning we go for a jog in a trail in the woods and listen to the water rush by in the stream and the birds sing. It’s a striking contrast to running in Beaumont and breathing in refinery smoke in the mornings.
So Kingwood isn’t very good for the work but there are some nearby towns that seem to be nothing but one huge trailer park full of Hispanics. Heaven, right? So we usually drive out to one of those areas and work there throughout the day. Outside of the Kingwood/Humble area it’s super country! Those Hispanic trailer towns are surrounded by lakes and forests and have dirt roads and all that jazz. It’s so pretty! Texas pines everywhere. I finally feel like I am in Texas. To be honest, I haven’t felt that way before. All my previous areas were pretty urban. And where we live is pretty urban. (But really upper class). But the areas we work are pretty rural. It’s awesome. I’m glad we actually have the miles to cover all that.

The Branch is Big and Nice

The branch seems pretty cool. Whenever I go into a new ward or branch and they learn that I’m from Spain, they either love me or they hate me right away haha. And they always ask if I go for Madrid or Barcelona. So I answer honestly, that I can only root for the best. Then I let them answer the question (Barca of course). We actually meet in an actual chapel which is a big change, it weirded me out. And they have over a hundred people at sacrament on average. So, honestly, I felt pretty out of place in church yesterday, just barely coming out of Beaumont. But, I know I’ll get used to it. It’s always hard meeting new members and trying to build relationships with them from out of nowhere.

My Companion, Elder Owens

Next up… my companion!!! His name is Elder Owens. He is from Kuna, Idaho. He’s such a boss! haha He has been out on his mission for 7 months now. He was actually trained not too long ago in Broadway, where I was trained. He has been in this area for one transfer. He is the complete opposite of Elder Jones. He is still obedient and works hard, but he has a stress level of zero. It’s really nice, not having someone stress out at/with you all the time. Elder Owens is really calm and collected (I started typing “tranquilo”) and kind of a gentle giant. He’s a little taller than me and he is a pretty big guy! I think he played football or wrestled or something. But he is really quiet at first. After a couple of days though, he really opened up and now we talk a lot! I think that is just his personality. He is really quiet and gentle, sometimes he whispers really quiet but he is such a funny guy, he has had me laughing all week!!! He is awesome!

Investigators

Anyway, we have several investigators who have been being taught for a while and are coming to church that we just need to commit to a baptismal date so that’s what we are working with right now! I am still trying to get to know them so I will let y’all know more about them next week! But things are going good! I will tell y’all more next week!

My new Address

Also, our address is:

actually, Elder Owens doesn’t know our address haha he is so funny!
But, we live on Havenbrook drive in Kingwood and the name of our apartments are The oaks at Kingwood. Our apartment number is 1705. So, hopefully my dad can look up the address of the apartments on his handy dandy phone and replace this text with the real address 🙂 thank you!!! 🙂

His address is:

Elder Carlos Viitanen
3415 Havenbrook Drive, Apt. 1705
Kingwood, Texas 77339
U.S.A

His email address is:
carlos.viitanen@myldsmail.net

 

Love y’all
Elder Viitanen

p.s. pics next week. I forgot my camera.

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