The Best Week Of My Life!

Howdy y'all!!

First off I want to say sorry for not sending out an email last week. I was so busy that day with traveling and did not get a chance to sit down and type out an email. But this last week was amazing so I will try to keep it as short as possible but because I missed last week it might be long. Also i am incredibly bad at emails and always busy so I am sorry if I don't respond. Please don't feel bad.

The rest of the MTC went really well. We all got closer and continued to destroy people in sports and just had a good time before everyone left. I'm going to miss my MTC family but I was also ready to get out of there. On Monday morning (last week) I got up at 3am and grabbed my things to leave for the airport. Our flight wasn't until 8:30 so I don't know why they decided to torture us but it's okay I forgive them. We flew out of SLC and had a layover in Vegas. I've never been stared at more in my life, it was so cool. But just getting off the plane we ran into someone who served in lubbock TX back in 04. He was so happy to hear we are going there and shared some awesome stories. Then we ran into the Grandma gang (grandma's gone wild picture) they were telling us they liked what we were doing but they liked to party more. They were awesome, I hope I have a grandpa crew when I'm older. Minus all the drinking. But the youngest lady was 87 and I haddddd to get a quick flick with them. Then while waiting to board our flight we met some sweet family that had Texas Tech clothes down to the socks and they were not members but so interested in hearing about what we were doing and they were so supportive and really really kind. It was crazy the amount of experiences we had just BOARDING to go to Lubbock. I was so incredibly excited and happy.

We touched down in Lubbock, met up with everyone and our Mission President and he took our luggage and dropped us straight into the college to go preach. I was so excited, I was looking forward to it. Me and a group of Elders took off and started finding people to talk to. I gave out 2 book of Mormons and also got a handful of contact information from people to continue teaching lessons and share the gospel with them. I was blown away with how natural it felt and how easy it was for me to be confident and comfortable sharing. We had a new missionary dinner together (Rudy's BBQ a childhood favorite, take that Dad.) And then settled in his house for the night. I learned I was going to be going to Odessa west. And my companion Elder Ili, (pronounced Eel E) was the district leader. That night was fun we all just pranked each other and had a good time. This was all on Monday.

Fast forward a couple of days. On Wednesday I told my companion that I wanted to just jump straight in. Tuesday was another travel day and i was sick of it. I didnt want training I just wanted to TEACH! So that night we taught 4 lessons to non members. The first guy we taught was Joseph. I was so impressed with him. He was a gang member and has a small family. He manages a gas station and felt like there was more to life. He told us he felt so happy when he saw us and kept his promises to read the book of Mormon from the last people that taught him. He read the whole book of Nephi from just one previous visit. He said it made him feel so good he gave up smoking and drinking and said he wanted to get baptized. Me and my comp almost fell over dead. He was the nicest most down to earth person I ever met. I was blown away by him and it made me so emotional. We taught to Marissa after that. She is a 17 year old girl who is having some health problems and struggling with school and her faith. She met with us outside becuase her family didnt like us. She wasn't very responsive or listening much at first, until I shared that I had health problems that took away from a lot of my junior and senior year of high school. Her face lit up and she looked at me the whole time and was so interested and kept asking questions and it was so wholesome. The spirit was so strong. I'm glad I was able to relate to her and have the spirit guide me to tell her that through Jesus christ, she will be comforted and healed.

I won't share every lesson or every person. That would take forever but feel free to message me if you want to hear Them. This week we also did a lot of service at the food bank, mowing lawns, and helping people move. I love serving people so this was fun. The member dinners here are always interesting. We have been very blessed and fortunate to have gotten one every night. Just the other night we were with a Hispanic family (80% of people here are hispanic) and they were all just messing around having a good time and making fun of white people. 3 of the elders there were white and her husband is white so it was funny. But she called me a Chi Chi niño, which I will not translate, but now it's stuck with me and it's hilarious. We also have the perks of free Wingstop and Jack Jordan's everyday because the members own it but I am sick of eating Wingstop. And I get to eat whataburger again so that is so awesome. I'm learning Spanish for fun and I'm getting pretty good at it. I use it everyday. The area here is pretty rough and there's lots of really poor areas but it's amazing to see people happy with so little and they all want to learn more about the gospel. I also got my first rejection and I was happy because I followed the spirit so it was a win in my book. I'm loving the work and if I'm not busy I get sad because I would much rather be out there serving people and working then sitting at the apartment. This week ended a little rough because all the people in our zone got covid and we all had to quarantine. So much for wanting to work hard. But now I will be on Facebook searching for people.

I could go on all day and share more and more incredible stories and miracles that I've seen this week. So many stories with teaching lessons as well. But I wanted to end by saying this week was genuinely one of, if not the best week of my entire life. I have been so happy and worry free and busy. I take joy in helping these people. There's nothing I would rather be doing with my time. I would go through everything and more that I've gone through 3x, just to be able to relate to and comfort these amazing people. It really helped me understand and love my savior more. He's gone through everything we have gone through so he can relate to us and comfort us and help us through anything. And I feel that way with everything that I have gone through, being able to share my experiences and relate to people and see them be so uplifted with peace and joy and comfort is so rewarding. I'm grateful for every trial I've been through, every hard thing I've had to endure. I may not have liked it at the moment or understood why I went through that at the time, but I see why now and like I said before, I seriously would go through it all over again 3 times to see what I see now and to help these incredible people. These people here have nothing. But the gospel gives them direction and hope. It has already taught me so much. I love the gospel and I love you all, good bye for now.

Pictures:

1: me and elder Ili (our Mission is a car mission)

2: also Me and the comp

3: my MTC district

4: food bank

5: my zone (most of them)

6: 23599th time eating wingstop

7: elder Spencer dead on the drive to Odessa

8: MTC ROOM 421

9: Mission President and his wife

10-11: Lubbock TX baby

12: gambling in Vegas (not really)