Crayons, Chess, and fake cowboys

Yes he did, Luke 2:40, that one was a bit deep so, what does this quote mean?

“Come as you are,” a loving Father says to each of us, but He adds, “Don’t plan to stay as you are.”

Also hope all of you elders in Florida are safe. Nasty weather to be having. 

So we got a savings thing [coupons I think] for labor day from the local store it had pictures of meat and it was like great on the grill but I was like those vegetables look so much better, I went up to Elder B and I was like you know what looks good on this page right now? And he was like the vegetables. Missions do weird things to you. Shopping is so much fun, we get to have new things to eat in the house.

District meeting was great, we were having problems as a companionship with getting people to keep their commitments to come to church, so that was something he focused on. Turns out the other companionships had problems with that as well. We ended up getting our main focus on coming to church to actually come. The P family, the mom is less active, and works alot so it is hard for her to wake up for church. So it is hard for her two kids, one 9 and one 8, to come to church. And bishop says he will only let them be baptized if the mom can come to church so she can continue to support them and keep them active. They have had the commitment to come to church since before I was here. They didn't show up until 50 minutes in to church so at first we were so sad, than they showed up and we were like, woooooooohoooooo. The 8 year old is super excited to get baptized and fairly outgoing, the 9 year old is a bit shy. But they both seemed to enjoy themselves immensly so that is exciting.

Our lesson with them was great, the 8 year old had came to church last week with her grandma, and we promised we do some coloring. We talked about temples and how great they are. We then all drew temples, I gave mine to Josh, and he came to church!

Also since the Saturday we were all over the place we used up three days worth of miles in one day [they have a daily limit of miles on their car], so we have been doing a lot of parking then walking around for a couple hours, just like the old days. We have met some really cool people that way. We are still about a day behind but we are working on it.

Also we have been working hard, one night Elder B left the keys to our house and car, in the door we just sort of ran into the house and plopped down. Thankfully we were not robbed or killed in our sleep.

Our just serve thing at the Santa Claus Inc is awesome there are so many elderly people with great personalities. Also they always force donuts on us because they get so many and they can't eat them. I had 4 donuts.

I had my first missionary dream Thursday morning, I woke up to me teaching the wall the restoration. I was confused, very, very confused. I also did stretching again for exercise time. I failed to touch my toes this go around. But I learned in personal study that mother are the best! Alma 56:47-48, if you don't have a Book of Mormon, ask my family, or order one on mormon.org.

Elder B had some deep stuff as well. He was reading about Samuel the Lamanite, Helaman 13 and 14, and he had the epiphany that we were just like that on our missions. We are a stranger from a strange land, sharing a message about God to those who have a faith in God, but not the full gospel. Side note, most people here are Catholic. We accidently found someone who didn't believe in God yesterday which was a bit weird. We talked to him about how important family is instead. That was hilariously enough my best contact so far. He wasn't interested in God so I just talked about family instead.

The animals were weird on Thursday. We saw a dog that looked like a bunny, we saw a dog that looked like an ewok, a cat walked up to me and headbutted my leg like twice, than walked away. Also I saw the cutest dog ever, usually I don't notice, but it was a blind diabetic dog, and it looked like it was smiling ALL OF THE TIME. It also wasn't too small or too large. I liked that dog. The owner Adrian was also pretty cool his parents were Catholic, he wasn't sure whether he believed in God but he was awesome. He chatted with us, said he would glance at the Restoration pamphlet. Then a homeless man walked by and said "se hablas español?" And Adrian went over and started talking to him. So we walked on and came back about an hour later and they were still talking. He was trying to give the man, his name was Javier, directions but he kept forgetting them. So we offered to take him, so we walked with Javier and we didn't have much to give him, we are missionaries, but we gave him a picture of Jesus and he was happy and kissed the picture and said, "He watches over his children" after we translated it. And we were like YES SIR! Awesome faith right there.

I also learned that In-n-Out Burger puts scriptures on the bottom of their things. It was also very tasty. Also we visited the nonmember husband of a super active lady. He is a very good chess player and so our plan that i was to play him and prolong the game and Elder B was to talk to him about the gospel. Unfortunately he had no interest in the gospel but we played a really good game of chess, I made only two tiny errors, but because of those I lost. It was a really good game though. His wife told us at church, that he told her I like that one missionary, he can come back again.

Friday was NUTS! Elder B said it was one of the weirdest days on his mission. Our car battery was giving us trouble for a bit, Tiwi [software on car that monitors speed, etc] even started yelling at us about it, so we went into the dealership in Redlands to get the battery replaced for free, it was still under warranty. We thought it would be two hours tops. It was a 5 hour dealio. We did lots of looking through the area book as well as calling and texting people. We saw on the TV there that apparently the world is ending with all of these hurricanes. We decided to get a snack at Chick Fil A and on the 5 minute walk there we were honked and waved at about 10 times. One dude, he was about our age, rolled down his window and hollered, "HURRAH FOR ISREAL" [quote from The Other Side of Heaven movie].  I also read some general conference talks, one from October 2010 by Elder Holland called "Because of your Faith". I learned yet again that my parents are awesome. It seems to be a running theme. YOU GUYS ROCK! Anywho after we got the car back at 3:30 we went back to the Mission office to turn our receipts in. Then we got asked to help with moving furniture back into an investigators house, that had been raid bombed for bedbugs earlier. We had to wear masks. And for those that are worried, yes we cleaned up and threw the clothes in a black bag and backed it in the sun, no bedbugs in our apartment. But we then realized we were late and since we were given a ride to the house we had to race, aka run, back to the church, change, and go all the way to Devore for dinner. Sidenote this was another 60 mile day that set us back a lot on miles. But we ate dinner with the H family. He heard I was from Silver Spring and so he gave me a referral for his family there. They live right behind the metro garage on Georgia. Unfortunately that is out of our stake. Also he was a gold prospector, and he found the lost Mormon mine. Some look that up and report that back to me.  [No idea]  But regardless they had lots of really cool stories. But we had to go to a lesson. Unfortunately there was other plans for us. We ended up sitting in traffic for an hour, the one exit out of Devore that we needed to get to was open but there was huge traffic to get there. We ended up postponing the lesson. We were wondering what it was for. We saw lots of people walk past though,  ALL OF THE GIRLS WERE DRESSED THE SAME, COWBOY BOOTS, JEAN BOOTY SHORTS, FLANNEL SHIRT AROUND WAIST, SPAGHETI STRAP TOP, OR ACCORDING TO ELDER B, CITY FOLK WHO THINK THEY ARE COUNTRY, HE SAYS "THEY ARE GARBAGE". That was a perfect finish to a crazy day.

Saturday we listened to "Seven Deadly Heresies" by Bruce R. Mckonkie. It was enlightening about core doctrine. It was also quite the throwdown. Also no injuries but Elder B did roll over the toe of my shoes with the car. Also for some reason everyone was having a party last Saturday, I saw so many bounce houses. Also Elder B shared Matthew 25 where it is talking about serving others is serving God. It is awesome because I will be serving others, and God for the next two years. I will be doing nothing else. 

Sunday I had a weird dinner, we had authentic Filipino food with the A family, it was a soup with chicken, with a squash like thing, a root, maybe ginger, and a bitter leaf. Than they gave us leftover pizza. It was a strange combination. For the message we started talking about Matthew 25 and all of the sudden Brother A was doing the teaching, and he bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon. He is an amazing member. Also we went to visit someone and we here lots of people talking and so we knock on the door, and we hear everyone go quiet, than we hear someone right behind the door say "dang it's the Jehovah's Witnesses, ANYONE WANT TO TALK TO SOME JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES?". Then a dude peeked his head out the door and said, I already have your Book of Mormon, you are them Jehovah's Witnesses right. And we were like close, we are Mormons. He even said something about Joseph Smith, so that was cool, we do leave impressions hopefully they are all good. 

Also for those hardy enough to make it down here, we have someone in date [to be baptised]. It was set for the 30th [of September] so we will have enough time to get her ready then we were like, oh General Conference [big twice yearly meeting where church prophet and apostles give counsel]. So we asked her if she wanted to move it back or move it forward. She said "I am so excited I can't wait to be baptized". So now we have to crunch everything in so she can get baptized on the 23rd. At first her parents were against it, but they were like, we got to let you live your life, and they are even coming to the baptism. It is a bit stressful preparing people for the start of the path to eternal life but it is also super exciting. 

Also our mission has been chosen... to pilot the "Accelerated Proslyitng test". No idea what in the world that means but, hey sounds exciting. It was dropped by an AP [missionary leader - assistant to the president] at the zone conference that something was happening. Now we know it's name but no idea what it means. Also we won't know for about 2 weeks. They basically said get ready for something.

Also we have a TEMPLE TRIP ON WEDNESDAY. I love to see the temple. So pday will end at 3, but it is so worth it. I wish we could go to the temple more often.

And I am excited for today, we get to visit Luis B, he couldn't come to church because someone living in his house had a medical thing so he had to help with that, but he called us to let us know, and he seemed really sad. So I like him.

Man this mission is exciting so far.