Deep In the Heart of Texas

Hey, y'all! Howdy.....I'm just kidding I'm not a Texan yet! Thanksgiving was a bit crazy. Had a lot of fun. Woke up at 4:30 to go to the Turkey Trot, which is a charity 5k. We were volunteers and got free shirts. Also got stuffed out of my mind because we had not one, but TWO Thanksgiving dinners. Like, WOAH, I WAS FULL. But it was nice, and then were like, let's do street contacting because if the people are alone, most likely they are lonely! So we ended up talking to some nice people.  This week was kinda a bit harder than usual. Once you get a new companion after your trainer, missionaries call it greenie-breaking. Basically, the new missionary has to learn to do things differently because his new comp does things differently. There are new perspectives, opinions, and different personalities that you have to cope with. And learn to work with. I will say it is humbling and has helped me see where I fall short. Some things were frustrating; however, I've been able...

This was my last week with my dad! Elder Nielson was transferred to the far side of San Antonio, and I stayed in Woodlake! We spent a few days visiting people that Elder Nielson wanted to say goodbye to. Then we all met together for the transfer itself, and it was a party! Got to meet and talk to a lot of missionaries, and was pretty cool. Also met my new companion, Elder Wheeler! He's been out for a year and has a very good knowledge of the gospel. Have only had a few days with him, but it's good so far! He likes to talk to everyone and stop while bike riding so I'm doing that and it's sweet cause we are meeting lotsss of people (also a lot more of the interesting type of people). Here is the really cool story I didn't share last week. Our Elder's quorum counselor told us about his stepson and how he's been struggling a lot with depression and stress. He lives mostly by himself though his sister lives there occasionally. And he was praying to God, asking if...

Holy moly, this week has been crazy y'all! Best week so far. Started off by giving a guy a blessing in our apartment and made him break down. He has been less active since high school and hadn't had a blessing in a very long long time, so we made his day. We also went to a gated community to stop by one of our friends. She wasn't home, so we decided to knock some doors around her house. And the first house we knocked, a guy literally threw open his door and was like, "HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?!?! THIS IS A GATED COMMUNITY!!!!" And elder Nielsen said, "Umm the gate was open?" That led to the guy flipping out on us telling us that this is private property and if we don't get out of there right now, that he was going to call the cops. And then he slammed his door shut. Poor guy, I feel sorry for him. Probably has incredibly low self-esteem and had a hard life if he was going to be so rude to two 19-year-old missionaries. I forgive him, though, because ju...

Howdy, Y'all! Just your Elder living his best life out here. Had my birthday which was sweeeet. Thanks for all the emails and cards I got from y'all! Made my day, haha. It was nice, though. I got some new shirts and a member took me out to DQ! It was very nice of him. We actually just had a lesson that he participated in and Elder Nielson told him it was my birthday and he was WHAAAAT?!?! LETS CELEBRATE!!! So we got milkshakes. The Sisters who cover our area also made me cookies, which were way good. And now I just have one more birthday left on the mission, so that's cool.  We are teaching a cool lady and her daughter, and they are literally hilarious. The mom has zero filters and just says whatever she wants so sometimes we hear some interesting stuff, though she tries hard not to swear. And we were teaching the plan of salvation and the mom was like, what kingdom do you want to go to? The sun, right? Well, all you have to do is what these guys have been talking to us abo...