March 30, 2015

Hey Y'all!

This week was really good for me and Elder Smith! There was no food challenge involved this week, which is good. We were able to receive a lot of referrals this week from the Spanish Missionaries. So we have been trying to get in contact with them this week. One of the hardest things with the referrals is getting in contact with them. Especially if we are only given a name and an address. Because we could try all sorts of times of the day and they could be working those hours. So it can be tricky to get in contact with them. We were able to contact one guy who's name escapes me right now, but he seemed way cool and could possibly become a solid new investigator this week.

On Wednesday we went to a mission meeting where they installed trackers in the cars. The Church is doing this because 18-21 year olds are supposedly crazy drivers sometimes and either get tickets or like to try and see what a Toyota Carolla or Chevy Cruze can do. I know weird right? So these trackers can tell whether your speeding, driving aggressive, and if you have your seat belt off. Obviously it doesn't affect Elder Smith and I, but the other missionaries that drive us around weren't too excited about it. But I guess from what they've said it's not as bad as what they thought it was going to be. 

So as for our investigators, we haven't been able to get in contact with Sean and Lauren this past week. We are hopefully going to be setting up something for later this week with them. They have kinda disappeared since we gave them a church tour. So hopefully we can have a good spiritual experience this week with them. We were also able to see Chirsti this week. On Sunday, one of the wards in our area is putting on a devotional before General Conference and Glenn Beck is going to be speaking there. So we invited Christie to come to that and it seems like she is wanting to come to that. 

We were also able to see Kristie, our recent convert this week and she is doing really great! We were supposed to have a family history night on Friday with her and Joe and help them get going on the Family Tree, but it ended up not working out with the family we were going to do it at. So we went over and talked with her. She had some questions about the Spirit and being able to recognize it and it ended up being a really great experience. I was nervous because I was with another missionary who doesn't talk too much and is really shy. So I was worried how the conversation would go with him there. But it went really great!

This week was have our first choir performance for Easter on Friday in Fort Worth. I'm pretty excited for that! I'm also looking forward to General Conference. It's pretty weird that next Conference I'll be watching it from home. Ha! I'm sure my family will get trunky from that comment. But that's all to report on from this past week. Thanks for the emails and have a great week!!

Love,

Elder O'Brien 

March 23, 2015

"11 Pounds"

Hey Y'all! 

So we were able to have a pretty good week this week. To start off the week, we felt that it was necessary to do a food challenge. So we went with a couple members from the Tongan wards and ate a 11 pound burrito. So originally, it was supposed to be 5 people because that challenge is you have to eat the burrito in the fastest time. So the time we had to beat was 5.40 from another group of 5. So there was us 4 and there was another member that was going to meet us there to do this challenge. However, after waiting for awhile, he ended up bailing on us. So we decided to do the challenge with only 4 people. We finished the burrito in 9.20, which i want to say was the 3rd fastest time overall. And that was with 4 people. Every other group had 5 people in it and we ate it faster than most. So we were pretty disappointed that we didn't get the fastest time, but there will be a return appointment in the future with the 5th man because we can easily cut that time in half with 5 people. That was our start to the week and the transfer. Haha!

This week we were able to find a new investigator named Kristi. She has had missionaries over in the past and seems to be interested again. She is also looking for a church. We weren't able to teach her too much when we came over because she was getting ready to have company over. But we talked to her about what the Book of Mormon is and why we have it. It went really well. She seemed really interested in it. I'm not sure exactly what the past missionaries taught her, but she didn't have a good understanding of what it was. She committed to read it and we are hopefully going to be stopping by tonight or tomorrow to follow up and share more with her. 

We were also able to go home teaching with some ward missionaries yesterday. We were able to get in contact with a family we have been trying to see for a long time. They are Tongan and she just recently got baptized not too long ago. They both want to come back to church but have been really lazy on getting that process started. We let the ward missionaries teach a majority of the lesson because it was their family  and they had set up the appointment. But we talked about M. Russel Ballards talk from October 2014 about staying in the boat. And we were able to read parts out of the talk and we mainly talked about ways or things they can to do stay in the boat spiritually. They talked about them coming back to church and also Charles, he is the husband, to get the priesthood. We are excited for them to start coming back and we hope that we will be able to get in contact with them.

We were also able to give a church tour this week to Sean and Lauren. They really enjoyed the church and actually pointed out some of their favorite pictures that were in the church building. They were going to come to church on Sunday, but one of Laurens good friends past away. So they went over and helped support her instead. We hope that everything is all right with her. We are going over on Wednesday to see how they are doing. 

Other than that, that was all this week had to offer. Hope yall have a great week! Love yall!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

March 16, 2015

"Back to the Foot-Mobile..."

Hey Y'all!

So first of all transfers are this week and me and Elder Smith will be staying in Hurst for another 6 weeks. The really upsetting thing is that we aren't going to be having a car anymore. We are going to be on Bike and the good ole Foot-mobile. But we will make it work. This past week was pretty great for us though besides us losing our car.

So the Temple trip was a success! Joe went and he loved it! When we got to the Temple we were lucky enough to run into a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Foster, and also the Dallas mission President! They saw us and came right up to us and asked if we had a recent convert with us and we introduced Joe and they got to talk with Joe for awhile. So that was a great experience for him. We also got a couple pats on the back from Elder Foster saying that we are doing a great job and to keep it up. But after the Temple, Joe texted us and thanked us for inviting him and that he had a wonderful experience. So we were really happy about that! 

We were also able to teach 2 of our investigators, Sean and Lauren. We have been teaching them pretty consistently every Monday and we ended up teaching them on Wednesday. Lauren has really been doing great! She is almost out of 1 Nephi and is enjoying it! We have really been trying to get them to come to church though. They almost came yesterday, but had something come up and weren't able to make it. We were pretty bummed out about that because the member that comes over every time was teaching Elders Quorum and that probably would've sealed the deal for them coming each week because it was a great lesson.  But we will have to try to get them to come next week. We were also able to get a really solid referral this week named Joe. He seems really solid and he has been to church before as well. So hopefully we will be able to start teaching him and be able to get him coming to church again. It's amazing what a difference it makes when people come to church. They seem so much more happier when we come back over. There's a reason why it's a commandment to Keep the Sabbath Day Holy and come worship at church. 

This week we are going to be trying our best to bike to all the people that we usually see. It's going to be different planning because it'll take longer to get to people, but we will make it happen. Today is our last P day as a zone and we are hopefully going to be playing some games. Love yall! Sorry this one seems short, but those were the key things that happened this week. Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

PICTURES!!!