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