8/19/2024

Crazy Transfer! ET's, Zone Conference, Interviews! There was a whole lot that has gone on in the past 2 weeks. 

Starting back where we left off, on August 5th.

We went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It was super fun going through all of the different exhibits! They had a whole Egyptian exhibit. It was a really fun time going to a museum. 

On Tuesday we had interviews. Elder Anderson and I were supposed to go last so we decided to make some visits before going to interviews. Once we got there we noticed they were super behind. We got there at 2:30 and ended up staying there until about 5:30. It was really crazy. It just shwacked a chunk of our day but that's alright. We made our way up to 4th ward to do some finding which went pretty well. 

Wednesday was Elder Cooks last District Council. He is my Eldest Mission Brother. He is the first trained by Elder Stober. As of writing this he has already gone home and we all miss him. We ended this night going on exchange with the Zone Leaders in the H1 area. Once again I got to go to a Spanish area for a day. 

Thursday Exchange. I got to have a nice language study. Having a dedicated time to learn a language is a game changer. Unfortunately it will only be while I'm on exchange. While we were out and about, a guy stops his car and roles down the windows just to yell at us to get back on the bikes and that we don't need a car. It was like 95 degrees then you add the humidity. As he drove off we got a text that said Get on the Bikes! Usually people comment that we should get a car because of the heat. That guy was super strange. It was a fun exchange with Elder Okeson. 

Our mission zooms were moved to Friday so we had that. After the zoom the other Elders called us over to their apartment. When we got there they said that Elder Sorenson was moving. This was only the start of these drastic changes. This got us wondering what would happen now when Elder Cook would go home. Would Elder Baclayon trio up with us? Anyway while we were just about to leave an apartment, someone in the pool area waved us over saying, “Do y'all wanna talk about God?” We had a great conversation and gave her a Book of Mormon. She said she will read stuff about Jesus but she is Sola Scriptura. If you don't know what that means, basically it means you only believe in the Bible as the final word of God. Which is to claim more for the Bible than what it claims for itself. It was still a great conversation. 

Saturday morning we biked all the way up to 4th ward at 10:30 in the morning for a lesson. The person we met with just is super curious about Christianity in general. She is coming from a Muslim background but is just super nice and open to learning more about other religions. For lunch we met with another friend and got some Soul Food. Basically it is just comfort food like fried chicken, meatloaf, macNcheese. Our evening saw 2 canceled lessons but that opened us up to go see Dennis so that was good. 

Sunday church! We were able to have Stephanie come to church and Kaushik went to church in Arizona. It was super awesome. We talked to a member for about an hour after church which was kinda crazy. For the evening we went to a Veterans complex to have a lesson with a guy. The lesson was alright. Not too sure how interested the guy is. 

Zone Pday Monday! I made Biscuits and gravy for breakfast and now it is probably something I will start to make weekly. For Zone Pday we played chair soccer. That got really crazy. We kinda formed an alliance where we chose to have our chairs surround Elder Child's just to protect him so he could go crazy. The Garns brought the jump rope. Back on the 4th of July we did the jump rope and I made it to the final 5 before they just ended it and announced us winners. This time we went down to top 3 and I got it. So now I am a 2 time winner with the jump rope. Now for the evening. We had a great lesson with Ruth. We asked her if she would be baptized if she found out that the Book of Mormon was true and she said Yes! She is also reading it and praying so that is super awesome! On the way back to the apartment we just tried to talk to as many people as possible which went really well. It was a great day. 

We went back up to 4th ward for Tuesday to have another lesson with our friend Bibi. She read in the Book of Mormon which was awesome and she came with questions to learn more. After that Elder Anderson had a mega flat tire so we had to get picked up by Elder Cook and Baclayon with the car. We had lunch and then Elder Anderson tried to fix his tire and the patches just weren't working so we went with the other Elders to the bike shop to get him a new tube. Now his tire works great! We met with Dennis and did some finding before coming in a little early for one of Elders Anderson's My Plans but it got moved to Wednesday. 

No District Council on Wednesday because of Zone Conference on Thursday. We had some call lessons and finding. A lot of finding. The Johnson's had us over for dinner and got us some food from this burger place I've never heard of. It was good though. Elder Anderson had his My Plan and Elder Cook finished his final day of missionary work. 

Zone Conference Thursday! I woke up nice and early to make Biscuits and gravy before going to zone Conference. At zone conference Elder Cook left with some other Departing Missionaries and we got made a trio with Elder Baclayon. Now this trio is covering the whole MacGregor ward. We met with Ruth again and she had read the first 4 chapters of 1 Nephi. It was awesome to see that she was understanding it. Then we lead Bible study which the sisters are usually the ones to lead it. We taught about Adam and Eve. However only a 1 member showed up so that was unfortunate that we didn't have any friends show up. 

Friday, the day everything changed. We had to plan for both Sunnyside and MacGregor which just took forever. We went to a contact for someone up in 3rd Ward who wasn't interested and then on our way down to Sunnyside (45 minute bike ride) the AP's called Elder Baclayon and asked if he would be willing to be transfered to the Maplewood area. He accepted and we just went back to the apartment instead to help him pack. Now we have to cover the whole ward as just a normal companionship with little knowledge of the other area. Our district is also too small so now we have been combined with the Hermann Park District. Houston Mega Zone, Hermann Park Mega District. We had to drive all the way out to Maplewood which kinda destroyed our miles. It will also destroy our miles when we have to drive out to the Beachnut Building for district council. Things just ain't normal. 

Saturday and the endless contacts. I now have the Sunnyside Sim so I can call people down there. We now have about 23 people being taught and 41 people with interest so our contacts took a long time. We also are now taking care of 8 recent converts so our days are just completely full. We did help with a ward baptism by filling the font and being the witnesses. That was a good time for us to do contacts to that helped out. We used the car for the day and ended the day with 91 miles to use for the rest of the month. It could be a struggle but we got this. 

Church was popping off! Our Sunnyside friends came but none from our area in MacGregor. After Sacrament meeting, our friend Brenda who was on date for Baptism went to the ward clerk on her own. Apparently she is already a member and was Baptized in 2006. So now we don't have any friends on date for Baptism. After church we were in until 6 because Elder Anderson had to do the Stewardship Calls for everyone in the Hermann Park District and then he had a My Plan to do. We went to Houston Methodist to visit a member who is in the Hospital after a bike accident a while back. He was super happy to see us and it was a a special time to be there with him. He is recovering great! He got baptized a few months ago right after I left Sunnyside the first time. 

Wow what a week it has been! Elder Anderson and I are the last survivors of MacGregor and we will go strong until he finishes at the end of the month. So much is now up in the air for what will happen next Transfer. As for now we are just going to keep supporting the many friends we have.