Drunk people in church, accidental mudding, and a new companion!

Hey everyone, hope all y'all are doing great.

We had a pretty good week this week. Elder Guzman left and although he is missed, I now have Elder Jarnagin. He's pretty great too, and I have been having fun guiding him around the area.

My new companion, Elder Jarnagan.

Had some fun with the results of the rains we've had this past month. We were out pretty far a few days ago and as we were trying to save some miles, we cut through a mud road. Elder Jarnagin got a little excited and slammed pretty hard into a huge rut of mud, but luckily our half-jeep made it out. I reeaally didn't want to have to get out and push in my slacks.

The rains have finally subsided ... and left us a lot of mud.

Yesterday was probably one of the weirdest Sundays at church I've ever had. There was a man who gave a talk who didn't really understand much about the gospel. He kinda just read off an Ensign talk and mentioned every part that he didn't understand. It was actually really funny though. Afterwards we went and talked with a man that we had never seen at church before and as he struggled to introduce himself, my companion and I both got an incredibly strong whiff of alcohol from this guy's breath. We realized this guy had been brought in by a member but was drunk as a skunk. We took him to a Gospel Principles class, and between the senile man in the corner butting in to everything, the talk guy who didn't understand anything, and this drunk guy trying to relate everything back to Catholisicm, it was quite a juggle to stay on topic to say the least lol. But that's ok, we all learned something, and once he sobered up a little he said he would love to meet with us again later.

Making our rounds.

One interesting calling this week occurred when we performed a Spanish lesson with an elderly Catholic lady and we had an English speaking member with us. It was humorous because the lady was making fun of him for not understanding what was going on a lot.

Still dealing with the snow.

On one of our trips to the California portion of our Mission we went to a Less Active family's house and when we got there they went ahead and stashed their weed and bong and other marijuana paraphernalia because they forgot we were coming haha. California is great though.

Making new friends.

Collectibles?

We also got to meet some horses and found a man's old postal jeep collection. Anyway, that's about it for me. Hope you all have a good one.

Adios

Transfers!

Hola everyone.

We have great news! I am staying in the best area ever! Unfortunately mi papi Elder Guzman is leaving, but he will be going to Reno, so that's cool!

Elder Guzman prior to his transfer.

I will be getting an Elder Jarnagin to be my new companion in this area. Which is funny because he trained my district mate in the MTC Elder Gurr. Apparently Elder Jarnagin is a very hard worker, so I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together.

The area has been going well. A little slow on investigators, since 2 weeks ago we were given a list of 45 names of Less Active Sisters to go visit by the new Relief Society President. We wanted to get on her "good side" so we visited every name and have quite a bit of follow ups with them. She was very grateful! Anyway, things have been going well and I am continuing to see the blessings of obedience.

We were at a members house with some other less actives as well, and they wanted a picture. The members that live there have 7 kids total. The youngest one Brigham dabbed right before they took the picture. So of course we all had to get a picture dabbing. It was pretty amazing.

The Spanish is getting better slowly, I started having Spanish dreams again like in the MTC, so that is a good sign. Whenever I am transferred I am hoping for an all-Spanish area so I can actually be immersed.

Ran across this sweet ride while out visiting.

Not really all that much happened this week. Just learning and learning. I guess one thing I haven't mentioned is that I have been kind of teaching (not really) myself piano. Whenever we have free time during District Meetings or on P-days I like to sit down and just play some songs from the Hymn books. I've got Be Still My Soul, High On The Mountaintop, Nearer My God To Thee, and Come Ye Children of The Lord down to two fingers, but I gotta work on using both hands now to get the tenor and bass lines. And I'm really close with Praise To The Man! I am not very coordinated so its a little hard. But I have been practicing and now I can get most songs in there just doing the melody. Piano is fun! Now I'm gonna have to be one of those Mormons who teaches all their kids to play piano and has an upright piano in every room.

Anyway, not much else to report! Hope everyone had a great week.

Adios!

Moving on Up

Things have been preeettty cool up here in NV.

We have two boys, Frankie and Tony, set for a baptism on the 25th of Feb. Their younger brother has lots of medical problems, however, so they might have to book it to a hospital in California on a moments notice.

I had some exchanges with another Elder last week, and things were pretty wild. I finally got to drive, and I was a little rusty, I'll be honest. But I only cut someone off and screeched the tires like 4 times, so it's all good. We went to a homeless shelter to talk to an investigator, and everyone started gathering around and it felt like we were preaching a sermon haha. We passed out like 5 Books of Mormon. Also, miracles happen people. Those Elders had a pineapple investigator who was ready to get baptised, but was not doing well financially. He lost his phone and had no where to stay, however, so they basically thought they had lost him. But, as we preached the "sermon" in the homeless shelter, he walked up and shook our hand, and said "I've been looking for you guys." Crazy!

​​Zone Conference

I also was able to give a training to my district this week about learning by the Holy Ghost, it was pretty great and a good learning experience.

Last Monday our Zone had an activity in which we all prepared a meal from home. So of course I made my mother's famous turkey chili. However, I have somewhat outgrown my gringo roots and more further adopted a Mexican lifestyle, therefore I added 3x the chili powder and drowned it in Tapatio. All of the white people in my zone said it was good but almost too spicy. That was very much a compliment. And the paisanos (Mexicans) said it was good but could have used a bit more heat. What to do. Anyway, there was a bunch of awesome food there and it was sweet. We have a Sister from the Philippines here and she made some awesome chicken stuff. lit

Molletes (mexican dish)

Ceviche (ghetto mexican dish)

Elder Abbotts beautiful pie that no-one ate

In other news, Elder Guzman and I totally whitewashed (literally, like, with bleach) the old organization method and revamped it. We are now more qualified for revelation! And I think we were rewarded for our efforts, because 3 days after, we committed a young man(and soon his wife) to be baptized in March. This individual used to be somewhat anti-religion, but his heart has been softened with many experiences throughout his life. It's truly a blessing when we find those who have been prepared to hear this message.

New Board (don't worry there's more people than that on there lol)

Also, I was on exchanges again this week with Elder Young, and it was a ton of fun to drive up the icy roads of Northern California to the lake. Talk about a thrilling ride, especially when I am behind the wheel!

Elder Guzman and I have been working out and dieting every day, because he only has so much time left on mission and he still has a lot of baby fat to work off before he has to go home and find a wife. El se mira como un marrano gordito ahorita jajaja.

Final thing, this week we had some cray cray wind storms. Our neighbors lost a couple little trees that scared the crap out of us when they slammed into our window at night lol. And some people down the street lost a HUGE tree. We also lost power for a little while but good thing for candles.

There was nothing firm about that trees foundation (*rimshot*)

Hope everything is great for you guys!

Adios locos