November 25, 2013

"Chance of Snow in Texas??  Oh man..."

Hey Ya'll!!1

Happy early Thanksgiving! I cannot wait for Thursday! For those that know my love for food, it is truly one of my favorite holidays of the year! This week we had a lot of appointments cancel due to the crazy weather we have been having down here. But we still had some awesome lessons this week!

Keva Scott has let us down this week. We had an awesome lesson about Church, Prayer, and Reading. Our mission President calls it CPR. Me and Elder Hyde have really been focusing on this for most of our investigators. Keva has been reading and praying, but won't come to church. It's frustrating sometimes. We had an awesome lesson on Saturday and got a strong commitment for church. We literally killed every excuse that she could make up. Her kids can go to primary, we can have someone pick them up, she can wear normal clothes to church, etc. Church starts at 11, and at 10:38, she says she isn't going to come today. Holy cow we were pretty disappointed. All we can do now is just pray that she comes next week.

We were able to teach Ramon this week. This guy is awesome! He really enjoys us coming over, but he has too many questions and doesn't know how to stop talking. We were able to figure out that he doesn't know how to forgive people. So we are going to be focusing on that as well. We had an appointment scheduled for Thursday evening for Thanksgiving, but he just texted us like 2 minutes ago that he can't do it. So we will hopefully be seeing him this weekend.

It has been freezing cold this past weekend. On my odometer on my bike, it tells temperature and it got down to 34 degrees on Friday and Saturday! It seems colder down here because of the humidity  in the air. Tonight there is a chance of snow here as well. So this week we are going to be relying on the members to be driving us around. We have a member tonight and one tomorrow already signed up to drive us. It's too cold for biking so when we don't have members driving us, we will be walking around. Which is still good for us. Today for P. Day we are going to the Tank Museum on Ft. Hood. So we are pretty stoked for that! Yes there will be pictures for yall to see.

So for Thanksgiving we are going to be sharing a mormon message on giving thanks to members and some investigators. We figure that if we go tracting on that day that we won't have very much success. So we are hoping to get some referrals from the members as well. We have for sure 2 dinners already. One in the afternoon and in the evening, and hopefully more to come! I hope yall have a fantastic Thanksgiving! The work is moving forward here! Love you all! 

Elder O'Brien 

November 18, 2013

"Below Freezing in Texas?? Who Knew."

Hey Ya'll!!

I hope everyone had a fantastic week! It was great week down here in Texas for sure! This week we were able to do a lot of service for some of our investigators. There names are the Worley's, and they have a very interesting house. They have 2 dogs that shed like crazy and they hardly pick up the hair. We have been moving furniture for the past couple weeks for them and starting this week we have been scrapping up their floor and are going to be laying tile for them. There are 4 of us Elders doing it, and 4 of us Elders are not very experienced at tile laying. So this will surely be a service that none of of will forget. haha!

This week we were able to come into contact with the Deleon family! Ramon had ACL and MCl surgery at the beginning of October. So we haven't been able to catch him because he has been pretty loopy on drugs. We were prompted to stop by on the way home at 8:30 and just to see how they were doing and set up something for the coming days. We ended up staying a lot longer and started to talk about church with him. He believes that he doesn't need to go to church to get closer to God, or to gain more faith. But after us talking about the importance of church, he commited to come this week with his whole family! It was a really cool experience and a awesome lesson! The only this that went wrong is that when you commit to do something, you should do it right? Well, he didn't come to church. But we finally had a break through lesson with him where we actually did a majority of the talking. He's a Texas talker for sure.

We also had Zone Conference this week on Friday. It was from 9-4. So basically all day. We had to drive up to Waco because the last conference was down in Killeen, so it was only fair. It's about 45 minute drive north so not terrible. Our first conference was also President Ames first conference, So it was a new thing for him and for all us missionaries. This conference felt more planned for and also ran a lot smoother. We talked about President Ames's vision of the mission, The Work of Salvation, is what he called it. Where it's now just our job to preach the Gospel, it's also the members too. So he wants us to really work with the members for the rest of our missions. The only problem is that almost all of our members are in the military, and are always busy until 5. So me and Elder Hyde are working something out to start involving some of the Priests as well. Then it's less biking for us too. Haha!

Which speaking of biking, a while ago, I thought that we were only going about 10-15 miles a day. Well I found out that that's not correct. I got a odometer for my bike to start keeping track and on Sunday where we only prosilite for 5 hours, we went 15 miles. So this week I can figure out probably on average how far we go now. Haha. Biking this week was terrible though. On Tuesday and Wednesday, it got to be upper 20's after 7 o'clock. Thankfully, one of the members bought us some hand warmers and we already used like 10. Haha!

Me and Elder Hyde are starting to get along great! We have a lot of appointments coming up this week with a lot of potential for sure! Today for P. day we are going to be playing basketball, and I will be going into Black Mamba mode and start draining shots. Haha! I hope everyone has a fantastic week! I love you all!

Love Elder O'Brien

November 12, 2013

Hey there yall!!!

So I guess I'll start off by talking about my spider bite since that seems to be the talk of the day in the emails. The hole in my back is almost filled in. So the anitbiotics are working. I got 2 new ones on Monday night. The doctor said that once it fills in that it will look like I got shot. So I can say that I was knocking on a door in Texas and I went to walk away and got hit. Haha! What a story right? 

This week we got a lot of referrals given to us. The first referral was going to be our next baptism. It was a member referral and he is 27 years old. His name is Brandon. We went and just had a good sit down just to get to know him. We come to find out that he has been taught L1 and L2 by the member already. We were able to share a scripture for the night from the Book of Mormon and it really hit him hard. Infact he wanted to get baptized next weekend because he knew that it was the right thing for him to do. He has already been to church and loves it! That was on Wednesday. On Saturday morning, we find out that he is not our investigator because he is between 18-30 years old and he is single...so we had to give him to the Young Single Adult Sister missionaries...We were upset that we lost him.

Our next referral that we got was a guy named Jason. He is in his 30's and is from Jersey. He moved out here because of the army and in really interested in the Gospel. The Zone Leaders had already taught him part of the first lesson and I went on an  exchange with one of them, Elder Russell, to go meet him. We had a member come with us because he lives way far away and we didn't want to bike out there. He is a really cool guy and is excited about us coming over next week! Eventually, he could be baptized. 

Keva Scott hasn't really showed much progress lately. She keeps saying that she is going to come to church but she never shows up. This week her excuse was that she slept in. It's like she is interested, but not at the same time...Tonight we finally have another appointment with the Bonilla family if yall remember them. We are going to be talking about the Plan of Salvation with them and eating dinner as well. Food is always a good way to get missionaries over. Haha!

One last family I want to talk about is the Menard family. Jason, the husband, was excomunicated from the church and his wife, Danielle, isn't a member. We found them on the ward list one day and decided to drop by and see them. Turns out that they are really prepared to receive the gospel! They let us right in once we were there, gave some food and we were able to share a lesson with them. It's amazing how these kind of people get put into our path and we never would have known that would happen either! It was quite the miracle!

This week was fantastic! We have Zone Conference coming up on Friday. I can't wait for that! I will finally get to use my Cold Stone gift cards because there is a Cold Stone in Waco!! I hope ya'll have a fantastic week and thank you again for your letters! 

Love Elder O'Brien

November 11, 2013

Its Veterans Day!  This means no email..  so instead I'm posting pictures we received this weekend.