FLUSHED!?!?!?

My goodness what a week! Some crazy changes! Keep reading to find out more 😉😉😉😉😉😉  

Fall break! I forgot that is a thing! There are only 2 types of days in the mission field, pday and not pday well I guess 3, there's also Peve (pday eve)

Looks Like the biking is looking all good at home!    To see that photo of Connor was so weird!

**Pictures of Connor we sent Cameron**

I literally thought it was me! Hahaha except I would never wear that helmet with my xc stuff now so it makes sense.  The leaves don't fall off here so it still seems like summer sometimes haha! But The weather is heavenly right now. 

Monday started off the baller week. We had a huge bball tourney down in Port Arthur with 2 other districts and we went all out! I mean seriously, we went all out! We spent most of our day scouting out the other potential players on their teams and then made some game plans. After a lot of blood sweat and even tears we came out victorious and we crowned champions of the mission! #vidornation 

We finally were able to get in with our investigstors Becky and Billy for dinner on Wednesday but that was the day I went on exchanges with Elder Baker so I missed our only set appointment haha! Who knows when I'll get to go and teach them! But me and Elder Baker had a really good time. We did service almost all day on our exchange so it didn't seem much different. We were helping someone with their house of course but the home owner was wearing a weekly bike race series shirt which I saved at home! I was like what the heck?? Turns out he worked at Sundance. He was a super awesome guy. Me and Elder Baker then went and knocked some doors since the lady we planned to meet wasn't home. It was lots of fun since me and Elder Baker both just got out this last transfer so we just talked to people and tried to share a little message with them but just got rejected the whole time. Lots of fun though! 

Exchange with Elder Baker

Thursday we did some service alllllll day at this non members house which was awesome! They live on this street where all of our active members live and they have been pretty hard hearted towards them and the church. But we mucked out their house and took a ton of sheet rock and cabinets and all that and aired everything out! They were super grateful and the members said the have been at least talking to them…..so, progress! 

Friday, we went to go teach this guy named Dylan and he had a whole squad there! There were 4 of them all together! When we pulled up they were all smoking weed and asked if we wanted to join them. We declined and then tried to teach them but they were kind of out of it haha! This one guy stuck a cat down his shirt at one point.... it was pretty funny. And this was the night our friends got their flush calls........drum roll.......Everyone in our district is outta Vidor except us!!! We survived the transfer!! I am excited to be here with Elder Bott another transfer and see what we can do!  Elder Bott will become the new district leader and there will only be 2 sisters in our district since the other area got closed down and the Zone leaders will pick up their area!  Because he is a District leader we get a car which is SUPER nice because we won't have the Vidor 2 Elders to take us to district meeting, laundry, shopping, church, ect. anymore.  So, we are grateful for that.  Basically our work will probably be just biking around and trying to help people and pray that they will be touched to bring up the gospel so we can and have someone to teach. But really, it's interesting because we don't want to just be biking around and having people think we are just taking advantage of the hurricane to convert people.  We will be all good….it’s just an interesting situation and me and Elder Bott are trying to work with members and go to home teacher appointments with less active families.

#RIP District

The best story of the week: we went to go visit Randy and he has just tons of old cars he's restored and modernized so he can drive around. I brought my camera and I was taking pictures and he said do you wanna go take it on a drive? So he drove us around in his Ford model T! It was awesome! It had this old horn and everything! So baller!

Saturday we helped our ward mission leader with some stuff in the morning and helped the other Elders clear out their apartment since there was so much stuff! 14 years of stuff is gone now! That pretty much took our whole day and then we went out for a while but we didn't have much time. 

Sunday is always a good day! I can always feel the spirit at church and love being able to partake of the sacrament and renew my covenants each week!  We had lunch at the Nation's house and it was awesome! They were so nice and they talked a lot about their son that is serving in Korea! He left the for the MTC the same time as me and he is still there hahaha thank goodness for speaking English! We talked to a lot of people after church but nobody was really interested with our message. I love talking to the people here though, they are all so kind and love God! We got to go over to Randy house and read the scriptures with him. Me and Elder Bott both had the same passage in mind to share with him and it went really well. His wife gets back next week and then we can try to work with her and see where she is at and what she is struggling with. 

I'm grateful for the chance I have to be here in Vidor again! Like 90% of our area is not available to proselyte in but I know the Lord is keeping us here for a reason and we will just keep working hard and having fun along the way! Love you all and love hearing from you! I started saying y'all mostly as a joke but now it feels weird to say you guys... also I love just listening to some of the things people say haha the people here are really funny and super nice. Anyway, hope y'all are doing good! 

Elder Larson

Picture with me!

Mom’s Questions

Did you get your piano music and your Halloween cards from the Paul family party?

I didn't get the music yet. I'm not sure what's up with that but I hope it comes at some point. Was it supposed to be here already? I did get the package from the family and I loved it! It was so fun to hear from most of the cousins! And I love having pictures to look at! 

How did your district change with transfers?

So, like I said earlier we were the only ones that survived! The zone leaders are technically part of our district but they have to go to all of the district meetings in the zone so they don't come very often to our meeting 

How long has Elder Baker been in the mission field?

Elder baker came out with me 

How is the weather in Texas?  Have you adjusted?

The weather in Texas is so nice! The last 2 weeks it had been super super cool and dry which has been awesome! It actually feels a little like fall now!  It's crazy to think I've already been out for 2 months! It had gone by so fast and so slow at the same time... it's weird Halloween is next week and I'm still wearing short sleeves and all that and everything. 

Sounds like the members are taking really good care of you.  Have you gained any weight?

Also about weight that's a super sensitive question to ask... just kidding! I am like 151 pounds so yes, I have gained like 10 pounds or something since I left for the MTC. It's probably pure muscle so I'm really not that worried about it!

                                                                            

How was the zone basketball game last pday?

 Pday was a baller day last week! Our district won the tourney thanks to me and elder Anderson (our zone leader that is from Panguitch) he played high school ball in like a 3a school!  We looked baller too....

How did the work go this week?  How was your first appointment?

The work is still so much service. We only went out and did normal stuff all day on Sunday.  I had to miss the Wednesday night dinner! Exchanges were set on that night so that was a bummer! But we sat down and talked with Randy about his wife and read the scriptures with him and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ to him so that was lots of fun 

Members text me and ask me about what your favorite meal is, what should I tell them?

Tell them to feed me something to make me not fat... just kidding I really don't care they all cook so good so it's always super yummy!

What has surprised you most about mission life?

I thought mission life everyone would be like crazy different but you forget that missionaries are normal people too haha! So, I'm glad we still joke and have a lot of fun!

Elder Bott and Elder Larson