September 30, 2013

"Just come to Church!!!"

Hey Ya'll!!!!

I'm here for your weekly Texas update! Just so everyone knows, yes it is still hot down here. No I am not happy about it but I can't complain too much. It was nice to hear that my sister Abbie tested positive on the drug test. Good to hear that my parents are watching out for her...haha! But this week was pretty interesting that is for sure. We were able to visit a lot of people this week. I have started to begin planning our days. I am running the Area on Tuesday this week. We are going on exchanges this week with the Zone Leaders so you could say this is my time to shine!

We were able to visit the Bonnilla family this week. They are still doing good. But they were searching for another church and found one of the many churches in Killeen that is not ours. This particular one is the Memorial Baptist Church. I don't understand it either because we gave them a church tour and Joe told us he felt a Spirit here that he has never felt before and he was wanting to come here every week. Then this happened. I don't understand why someone would be like I love it here but not come back. We are just like so just freaking come to church and then you will realize that you no longer need to go searching for churches ever again!! But we were able to teach them the Plan of Salvation, and broke the record for getting home late, which is not to be proud of. We got home at10:23. Yeah not good considering that we are supposed to be in bed, and have planned for the next day at 10:30. But we were able to answer their questions and they agreed.

The Deleon family hasn't made progress. Ramon, the husband, had ACL and MCL surgery I think. So he has been down for the past couple weeks. We were able to get a hold of him and to check on how he was doing. He said not as well as he planned but we are going over there this week. Maddison has been doing well. We are now not only teaching her, but her Boyfriend as well. So hopefully we get a baptism and a reactivation as well.

Now the highlight of the week is this guy named Ken Kurtpatrick. We have been teaching him for awhile now and haven't had much progress with him. We had a lesson with him this week and we really didn't know what to do. But when we got there, we had the impression to read 3 Nephi 11 with him. So we read it. Once we did, we were able to answer questions that he had that we didn't know about. Like he was still confused before about where it came from and why is it important. After reading this, he was able to understand a lot better! We then showed him a Mormon Message called "Mountains to Climb" by Henry B. Eyring. He lost his wife a couple years ago and had open heart surgery right before she died and has been struggling since. After watching this, he said he was so comforted and said he felt relieved. And all this happened because we relied on the Spirit. We had no idea what we were going to do, but it is incredible how the Spirit works.

We are also working on a Recent Convert family right now. When they were baptized, they were by the missionaries before us and they were not prepared. They were baptized for numbers. We can tell because as of right now, the dad, Antonio, is back to smoking weed. He is a rapper and all of his raps are....low spirited. Haha. So we are teaching them all the lessons again and hopefully get them back on track. It really sucks because we don't know them as well so it is hard to get that trust between us and them, but are doing are best. We talked to the Bishop and got them home teachers so now we aren't the only ones in the ward that are helping them.

Today one of the members for our P day is taking us on Fort Hood today, the military base here, to go see the Black Hawk helicopters! He is a pilot for them and said he wanted to take us there. So without hesitation, we said yes. I was also able to ride in a 1966 Mustang that was in perfect condition. Yes I will send pictures of those home.

Thank you all for you emails this week! We plan to set 2 baptism dates with Ken and Maddison's BF. We hope they will accept and then you will get to hear all about them next week! Have a great week  to everyone and remember to stay off the drugs that Abbie is taking. haha!

Love

Elder O'Brien

September 23, 2013

"Roller Coaster Ride"

Hey yall!!!

Hope you all had a fantastic week!! And I hope that Sean got some birthday wishes. Thanks again for all your emails and I will talk to you next week!!

.

.

.

.

.

Ha just kidding!! This week was truely a rollar coaster ride. Everyday was completely different. We actually got a lot of rain too. We had one day where it rained all day. So we got our Ward Mission Leader to drive us around. So we got a lot of member present lessons this week. And that was our most successful day cause everyone was home. Andrea who had a baptism date that is now pushed back, is starting to progress again. We found out that she is 27 years old. So after we teach the 3rd lesson, we have to hand her off to the singles ward. Which sucks really bad. The reason why is if we have any investigators who are between 18-30, single, and no kids, we have to give them to the singles ward. :/ Oh well, as long as she gets baptized it works! We found a new progressing investigator named Keva. She lives with her dad and has 2 kids. She is looking for a church and she totally agrees with everything. We have a ride for her to church and she is so excited!! This was on Thursday by the way.

Wednesday and Friday were the longest days ever. We taught like 3 total lessons within those 2 days. The Campos family who I mentioned a long time ago might drop us. We visited them after a long day, hoping that we can teach them and help them understand the Book of Mormon better, and they didn't answer the door. We walked away and saw a light flip on in the bedroom, so we went back and rang the bell again and the light turned off. So that sucks. The Bonilla family are struggling to get to church but still want us to come over. It just takes a half hour to get to their house. So when we go, and their not home, there goes an hour, because we have already tracted those streets.

However good has happened on those days, I don't know if I told ya'll last week but Elder Vaoga is now the new District Leader. He was shocked but is already doing a good job. No this does not mean we get a car. But we would rather be on bikes anyway. We FINALLY got a 2 refferals this week! The members are starting to trust us more and we are really starting to get good friendships as well. This being a military town, we have members moving in and out all the time, but we are still able to connect with them.

I finally got in my first legit bike crash. I was magnifying my calling by saying Hi to this guy walking down the street, when out of no where, I hit a hole in the ground. Flying over the handle bars I hit the ground but popped back up. Meanwhile the guy I said hi to fell over laughing and so did my companion. Yes I started laughing too. It was dramatic but it was awesome at the same time.

My thought of the week for ya'll is 2 Nephi 33:2. this is a really good scripture, but im not going to type it cause that would totally defeat the purpose of looking it up. Haha!! Thanks again for all your support! I love and pray for ya'll! Have a fantastic week!!

Elder O'Brien

We got an SD card of pictures today!!

His first 6 weeks in TEXAS!