Week 18: Celestial Peanut Butter and Big Red

March 06, 2023

Week 18: Celestial Peanut Butter and Big Red

Hey yall! One week down, 88 to go! (Ok what the what? That's way fewer than I thought it would be.) This week was pretty good! Different, but good. We did a lot of service, had some really good lessons, and talked to some cool people. Overall pretty stellar. Alright, on to the weekly!

As our first order of business, I would like to reiterate how awesome the temple is and that ya'll should go if you can! Last week was a super good experience and I'm so glad we have a temple so close. The San Antonio temple is absolutely gorgeous. (Gilbert temple is still the best though!)

Also Kneaders is pretty good, so shout out to Elder and Sister Freeman for the post temple trip grub. Greatly appreciated.

We had our weekly district meeting on Wednesday which was an experience as always! This week, to spice things up, we held it in the basement office area of our church. Our building is...uh unique! A very interesting place for sure.

That night we had a lovely meal with a sweet older couple in our ward (we had lasagna...we get a lot of lasagna.) and I tried a very popular soda that I had seen but never tried.

I would like to now address said soda (called Big Red). My question is thus: ...who thought it was a good idea, not only to make a bubblegum flavored soda, but make it RED and not PINK?! Bubblegum = pink. This is a simple fact. I have many questions. If you like Big Red I won't judge you, but heh it is not for me. Big Pineapple is also a thing. Tastes like uh...fake pineapple! Imagine that.

So we are now landscapers. Ok quick story time. A member in our ward hired a landscape architect to redo their yard. (not a small yard, mind you. This is a niiice neighborhood) The thing is...its just the landscaper and his wife! He started his business in a different state and felt prompted through prayer to move to San Antonio! So he packed up his little family and moved. The problem however is that he hasn't got employees yet. So what did we do? That's right! We offered to provide a few hours of service to help him and his wife get the job done. The members had gotten to know him and his story and really wanted to help him out. He's a great man. Technically we were serving the member, but it was also a great opportunity to make a positive impression on this wonderful non-member man. He's such a cool person. We invited him to church too! They go to a church they like already but he said he would definitely keep it in mind though. We did that service Thursday and Friday morning and it was a blast. Lots of digging holes to plant stuff and spreading rock and mulch. Not what "normal" people would call enjoyable, but we had a great time. You really appreciate these kinds of things that break up the monotony of life.

"Ya like jazz?" - Barry Benson

Well, we do! We have a friend named Jaz (with one Z) and we were finally able to make our schedules work out this week to meet and teach a lesson! Jaz is an awesome young man who was born in the church, fell away, but is coming back! He's had a pretty tough life, but he's got that desire to learn and to change. He's great. Real jazz is also great. My opinion.

We had a lesson with our friend Jesus and came to the conclusion that the gospel = celestial peanut butter froyo. If you want a further explanation ask me another time. Use your imagination for the time being. I just thought it was funny.

Crawfish: Mission failed.

So there is a family in Elder Reynolds last area and they are just the funnest little family you'll ever meet. Before he left the area though, they promised to take him to eat crawfish because he hasn't had it before (apparently they LOVE crawfish) So our plan for yesterday was to go to dinner with them to acquire and consume. We went to this fun lil place called Two Bros BBQ aaand then they were all out of crawfish. We had some absolutely smackable brisket and smoked Italian sausage though! They promised to take us out again for a successful crawfish run another day though. They're amazing people.

(There was also a live band playing that night and now my dream for when I'm an old man some day is to have a band and be super cool like these brothers.)

I think this was the first "fast Sunday" that has actually felt like a FAST Sunday! We had a great sacrament meeting and I had the opportunity to share my testimony which is always fun. This ward is awesome though. Super good people.

Spiritual thought that I somehow always forget. I was reading a talk by Elder Rafael E. Pino from the October 2022 conference called Let Doing Good Be Our Normal, and a quote stood out to me. It says, "If we are steadfast and immovable in doing good, our customs will be in accordance with the principles of the gospel and they will help us to stay on the covenant path." Pretty simple. If we strive to do good continually, we will be living the way God wants us to. The principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ only lead us to do good. Therefore, the gospel = peanut butter. I'm just kidding (sort of). The point is, when we live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ, our moral compass is set on True North, guiding us to return to live with God by way of the Covenant Path. I love that.

Well, that's pretty much it for this week! I appreciate all of you and hope that yall are doing well. Thanks for reading and I'll catch ya'll next week!

Love from Texas,

Elder DeWitt