Small Town Fun

Howdy, y'all. Out here, I feel like I'm finally in Texas, and it's awesome. We are hours away from other missionaries except for a couple Sisters who cover our same area. So we just have each other out here. 

One thing that I've come to really enjoy is the long driving. Elder Van Leeuwen and I just talk for hours, sing our hearts out, and share stories, and it's honestly so fun. 

We have been grinding a lot out here. And it's weird. Like we keep run in into people who seem interested, and we share a message, get their number, and set a time to come back. But then we'll come back, and there is no answer to our texts or knocks. So like, technically, we found 8 people this week, but 4 of them didn't answer when we came back for a lesson, soooo yeah. Just flaky people, haha. 

We had someone at church, which was awesome!! And it's funny because we actually haven't taught her ANYTHING yet. Like it never really happened, and we just talked about church with her, and she wanted to do a Bible study with us sometime, and we were like, "We'd love to!" And got her number and texted her the church address. But then later, we tried giving her a call, and we found that we were blocked and we were kinda disappointed because she seemed so cool and really interested (turns out our phone was being weird and she didn't block us). So we decided to just stop by one last time and knock, and there was no answer, so we turned to walk away thinking she just wasn't interested, but then we heard the door knock jiggle, and we quickly resumed our stances, so it wouldn't look like we were walking away haha. And then we had another great conversation with her, and it was just great. Her husband seemed a bit bashy when he came out for the last couple min, which might make things difficult in the future....

But yeah, she came to church, and we actually had stake conference, so we were kinda worried how it would come across for her first time at church. Because we literally just sat there for 2 hours and watched a projector screen. However, stake conference when super great, and she really enjoyed it, and THEN members of our congregation came up and introduced THEMSELVES rather than having us introduce them. It was literally so awesome. And then SISTER BURGESS came, and literally, she is a TANK. She talked to her for literally 15 minutes, and they are already talking about having lunch sometime together. Like they just hit it off. And Sister Burgess is in her 70s, and man, that woman is inspiring. When members meet with our friends that we bring to church, it means to world to all of us and is so important. One of the most important things y'all can do. And it can be so simple to make someone feel welcome. (I do realize many of y'all haven't had many opportunities with nonmembers coming to church since y'all live in high lds areas, but if y'all do get a chance, please don't let it pass by:)

Anywho, God is great! Hurrah for Israel!

-Got the shades for those long drives 

-Cuero water tower

-Idk why I took this

-Oil!

-My comp and the sunset

-A super cool member owns a ranch and we hang out with her on p-days.