Deep In the Heart of Texas

  Have I seen God's hand in my life? Yes, yes, I have. We are seeing member trust gaining a lot of momentum. Our friends we are baptizing are coming to church. Literally half of the Elders quorum are super recent converts that have been baptized in the last 5 months. Most of them in the past 2 months. And they are solid! They also participate more than the active members, haha. So we are just trying to keep the fire going.  Cool Story: I was grateful for my mission president, who let us call my dad in on lesson! It was really important, and I felt very impressed to call him. I was like, dang, should I actually do this? And the Spirit was like "yes". So we called him! Our friend was stressing out and had a bunch of seizure symptoms, and my dad was able to calm him down as he talked about his experience with epilepsy and how he still hasn't been healed, but he is still super happy and has such strong faith in Christ and talked about trusting God. Joe really was able to

RAMIRO GOT BAPTIZED!! It was great. The whole bishopric and elder's quorum presidency were all not able to make it, so the priest quorum first assistant was presiding. LEGENDARY. I guess that's how it goes in the hood....but he got baptized and wanted to cry. Then the following day, I gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost, and he bore his testimony ON THE PULPIT in front of the whole ward, PLUS allll the stake presidency cause it was ward conference. So cool.  We also had a cool lesson downtown but we were unable to find free parking UNTIL we found a spot that said it was free for 30 min or we will get towed. It was also a few blocks away....so we booked it between these towering buildings. We ended up having a lesson on a real pretty porch that overlooked the river walk, which was such a cool atmosphere for a lesson. The whole place was straight out of a video game with how just rustic and old but cozy it all was.  Hurrah for Israel! Elder Higginson

  Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This evening, I got to spend some time dining with some good Elders in the sky. We started with driving through the winding streets of downtown San Antonio (aka the stomping grounds of my area). Leaping out of the car we took a brisk walk toward the Tower of the the Americas. The wind was numbing our faces making our cheeks quite rosy. After a quick look at our time pieces, we upped our brisk walk to a quick jog. Opening the front lobby doors, hot air greeted us warmly. We checked in with our reservation and the elevator door pinged open. Walking in, it was unfortunately crowded with bodies. We were pressed against each other, seeking to look out the window as the elevator ascended up and up and up. The door opened, providing relief to the uncomfortable ride up. Smiling, we greeted the hostess and took our seat. Fine china surrounded us. The platform overlooked the entirety of San Antonio. Elegant buildings, magnificent churches, a towering skyline

  What a week. This week has been go go. I got to go to the mission Leadership Council which was sweet! It's very edifying, and the standards were clarified in regard to communication. They're honestly a lot stricter now which is.. well let's just say we have an opportunity to put even more effort toward being obedient. And therefore receive a great portion of the Holy Spirit. Highlights -got to go to my baby area on an exchange! Was tearing it up on my bike, haha. Super legit. Lots of deja vu. -Had an exchange with an elder who is finishing his mission in 1 and 1/2 weeks. Felt the Spirit of his conversion to Jesus Christ. Powerful. -heard just loads of gunshots. Pretty lit, they were far (ish) away, so we chillin.  -played some fuego pickleball and volleyball. -ate at Raising Canes. Place is bussin -We nicknamed our ward mission leader (who's 23, married, and a gigachad) Prophet Nielsen. He plays the part for our Ward Huddles, hahahaha. -Got to go to the temple cause m

Story time: While preparing to go out and tract, a man knocked on our window and asked us for a Book of Mormon. Reason why? Because the brother wanted to use it to roll blunts haha...asked him what he did with the last one, and he said I read it! But then sacrificed it to Jehovah. And we were like, so you used it all? And he's like, yes! (So the brother def used the paper for weed). Of course, we rejected the need for blunt paper, but to further prove his point, he proceeded to pray for us. During the prayer, he prayed to Jehovah God, yahway, Islam, father in heaven, that we would drive him to a local motel where we can talk more about You and then proceeded to close his prayer to God in HIS OWN NAME. Like in the name of Jose Manuel Jr, jehovah, and the eternal father, shalom. We were like, huh??? Brother thinks he's God. The Spirit literally was testifying of the level of blasphemy I was hearing, haha.... It was hilarious! I will always remember Jose Manuel Jr. We provided him