Week 29: New High Score!

Hey y'all! Happy Monday once again. This week actually felt kind of long but still really short too. Quite a bit happened though, so I got stuff to write about haha. I'll just get on with it then. Lets start from the beginning! 

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The date was February 13, 2004, and after a long 9 months I finally arrived! As I drew my first bre- Oh wait sorry, a little too far back. How about last Monday. That'll do.

Alright there isn't much to say about a lot of the day (largely hanging out in the apartment playing card games and talking to family) but after P-day ended, we actually had a lesson! We were able to teach our awesome friend Joe all about the restoration. He really liked and understood the message, but he and his family are pretty strong in their church so he told us he is hesitant to change religions. But he agreed to read out of the Book of Mormon and pray about it! He's a great man and we really hope he acts on our invitation.

We also had dinner with out group leader which went FAR longer than we intended it to! Get a Texan talking about BBQ and you'll be there all night long. Basically we're experts now. 

Tuesday was zone conference! It was an excellent meeting and seeing other missionaries was such a heaven send hahah. Out here in Cotulla we see the other four missionaries in our district about once a week and that's it. It's always awesome seeing a whole bunch of us! We had to drive 1 1/2 hours to get there though (which absolutely wrecked our already low miles for the month) because we had to get an oil change at the Toyota dealership. So lame. After zone conference, we piled into a transit van to go pick up our vehicles. We got there and...they weren't ready. I can't remember how long we waited but it made us late for our lesson later that day! We had to reschedule it, but it worked out for us both in the end. 

Wednesday we had our district council and we had some delicious meatball sandwiches courtesy of the McDowells! They seriously spoil us. After our meeting, my companion (since he's the district leader) conducted a baptismal interview for someone the sister missionaries are teaching and he did great! 

That evening we had an awesome lesson with our friend Ezekiel! Zeek is so awesome. He's about our age, he's a cowboy and a roper (so basically he's really cool) and he's close to the spirit. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to be baptized and he said he wants to!!! We haven't settled on a date yet, but he's so fantastic. An honest seeker of truth.

The next day was kind of a blur. The only really notable thing was we taught our friend Mariah about the Family Proclamation! She loved it. She's a young single mom so she really appreciated what it was all about. So cool!

(Ah this email is getting long)

We had a double lesson cancelation on Friday but we were able to stop by and talk to a member named Jason! He and I are both into cars and we hit it off there hah. His brother Jesus is his roommate and he's a firefighter! I didn't meet him till Saturday, but they're both great people. (just hadn't been to church in a while) 

Speaking of Saturday, wow this was a busy day! We started off by making impromptu deliveries of bags of vegetables from the food bank to the people we're teaching! (They love us at the FB because we volunteer so much.) Then we had THREE lessons! And we didn't even plan one of them! We ran into our friend Jesse and taught him the Plan of Salvation on the fly and it was great!

Later we met with Mariah again and taught the 10 Commandments and that went super smooth! Her daughters were a bit crazy, but it was great. 

We taught Zeek again and ALSO taught the Plan of Salvation. He is such a sponge for the gospel and loved it! I think he's gonna go places.

And THEN. We were doing some stop-bys in an apartment complex and we rode by some people playing basketball. And whaddya know, it's Jason and Jesus (and a bunch of little kids lol)! We had just finished up for the evening so we decided to stop and play with them for a bit. Super great people and a surprisingly intense game of ball.

Elder Ashby and I celebrated with Subway because we had a gift card :))

Sunday we had three people we're teaching at church! And Jason and Jesus showed up! That's the most we've had in a while. Church was great and we had dinner at a members house for some grubby tacos.

Spiritual thought:

I just restarted the Book of Mormon (oh yeah I finished that this week too ahah) so I'm reading 1 Nephi again. We hear about how when going to get the plates of brass he says, "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." That one gets quoted a lot because it's awesome! It's a great demonstration of Nephi's faith. He didn't know beforehand what to do, but he trusted God. I also love the beginning of the next verse which says, "Nevertheless I went forth...". I like this because it is a reminder that faith requires action. He didn't just sit there and wait for an answer of what to do, he WENT FORTH and trusted he would be directed. Nephi is a fantastic example for us. 

Alright I'll end this here so I don't take up more of your day...sorry this one ended up so long. It was a busy week! I hope yall are doing well and that you enjoy your Monday. Catch y'all next week!

Love, 

Elder DeWitt 

Cosmic Brownie break!