November 8

Hello everyone!!! Greetings from La Porte where the weather is trying very hard to become Winter, but can't make up it's mind :)

Monday this week, we had a Zone Preparation Day over in/near Pine Trails at a really AWESOME park. It was combined w/ 3 zones so we had lots of missionaries there and it was lots of fun. It was named the "Tri-wizard tournament" and did involve playing Quidditch. Our zone leaders are incredibly creative and we all had lots of fun. The park itself had so much cool equipment that was large and durable enough for "grown-ups" to have a blast. I can't describe most of it, but it did have a type of zip-line that I had far too much fun playing on... so much fun I became very sore and rather bruised from the experience. The soreness has since subsided and the bruises are healing ;)

I had a great deal of fun playing w/ Hermana (Theresa) Harris. I'm not ready for her to go home, but that's exactly what she's doing in 2 weeks. It helps to know that she'll be there in Orem waiting for me when I return. She and I have made practically no effort to remain friends since our days together in high school Spanish, and yet the Lord has just kept placing us in each other's lives. We've now determined to put some effort into it :)

That night our appt. w/ J* E* fell through (she had a migraine... I SO understand.) as did our back-up plans, but the Lord told led us to be effective. We received a voicemail from T* I* who we haven't seen in a couple weeks, and so she was on my mind. (We were really excited she took the initiative to call us!) I told Sis. Hatch that even though it didn't make sense miles-wise I felt like we should go visit her. It made no sense to me, but kept coming to mind so I said it. She agreed to it. We went but when we pulled up, we didn't feel like we should go knock- NUTS!! I was thinking, "I'm trying so hard to follow the Spirit, but maybe I was wrong... I don't know why we're here!" I knew though, that there must be a reason, so we prayed and pondered and headed back in the direction of apt. completely confused as to whether it was right or not. Sis. Hatch asked if we need to gas up the car, and I said "Yes. That's a question I can answer." As I sat in the car waiting for her to do the fueling, I was prompted that we were here for a reason and that we needed to go inside and buy a drink. Sis. Hatch again agreed and we went in. We knew instantly it was where were supposed to be. A young cashier named U* was on shift- someone we've had gospel conversations w/ a couple of times, the most powerful of which happened this past Monday. It was awesome. As we pulled into our apt. parking lot that night, we ran into one of the residents, R*, who doesn't talk to us much. He was recently diagnosed w/ cancer and asked us to pray for him. It was very apparent that the Lord wanted us there at that moment as well. Even though following promptings from the Holy Ghost can be tricky- it's always worth the effort!

Tuesday we tried to visit lots of potential investigators with very little results. It was a pretty long, hard day. We had a very entertaining visit w/ an elderly, less-active member, Sis. H* S*. She's a little nutty, but very sweet. Visiting her is always an adventure. That night Sis. J* S* cooked dinner for us. She made chicken spaghetti- a signature dish of this area, made w/ chicken, spaghetti, velveeta cheese, and cream of chicken/cream of mushroom soup. Every local makes it a little differently, but it's always delicious. We also enjoyed green beans on the side and giant chocolate chip cookies for dessert. She even sent us home w/ a pretty decent stash of Halloween candy. We've eaten it all since, haha!

Wednesday, Elder Packer had exchanged places w/ Elder Fonnesbeck for the day, so we made a trip to Texas Donuts for free food so Elder Fonnesbeck could get the full Deer Park missionary experience. Then all 4 of us went to help build bikes again. It was fun and productive as usual. I'm now a fairly skilled bike assembler. This time we took a lunch break w/ some of the volunteers and were able to actually have some solid gospel conversations w/ several people. That was REALLY fun. I love being a missionary. That day we had two SOLID investigator lessons that went VERY well. We taught E* B*, read w/ her from Alma 32. She really loved it and she seems to actually be progressing now. I love the Spirit! We taught F* M* and watched the Restoration DVD w/ her... SO GREAT! She loved all the nature in it, and what we've taught her so far seemed to click for her. She said she really wants to read the Book of Mormon :) We also had some good visits to set appts. w/ other potential investigators, and the whole amazing day made the whole difficult Tuesday totally worth it.

Thursday we spent most of the day doing our weekly planning and spent the evening having plans fall through. We did get to practice the our music (Sis. Hatch piano, me singing) for a baptism on Saturday, so that was good.

Friday morning, we had an AWESOME zone meeting. The Spirit was very powerful and taught me much. One of the things we did was watch a video (I think a new(er) seminary video) about John Tanner, one of the early and incredibly inspiring members of the church. It was really moving. That afternoon we were able to do quite a bit of tracting as well as visit w/ a less-active member, T* S*. That went unexpectedly well given that we were interrupting the fact that she had company in town and such. The T* family (our awesome bishop and his fabulous wife) fed us dinner that night- delicious chicken and pasta and salad. We learned a lot from them as we discussed the our recent general and stake conferences. We were able to visit the F* family (awesome members) that night too and get to know them better and share a message w/ them.

Saturday, we picked up the elders and went to help Sis. A* B* move. She's one of the few active members that lives really close to us and we just love her! She doesn't live close to us anymore, as we just helped her pack up and move in w/ her daughter in Dayton. Our help was appreciated and we had fun. We're going to miss A*! That afternoon one of the elders' investigators Sis. P* M*, was baptized. It was such a spiritually powerful baptism- one of the most moving I've been to. I sang a special musical number- Lord, I Would Follow Thee, w/ Sis. Hatch accompanying, and it went well. Patricia is awesome and we're SOOO excited for her. :) We stopped by Little Ceasar's and picked up a pizza on the way home. It really hit the spot for us. That night we had another FABULOUS lesson w/ F* M*. It was completely led by the Spirit, and we totally taught in unity, and Frances is totally progressing- YAY!!!

Yesterday was a fairly normal Sunday. We went to church and attended lots of meetings and such. P* was confirmed a member of the church and given the Gift of the Holy Ghost- so that was awesome. I bore my testimony... it's really grown a lot on my mission. We had some great success tracting yesterday after church and have some return appts. for this week that we're pretty excited about.

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY SOOOOOO MUCH!!!

Be good everyone and smile lots and send mail and make good choices!!! (I'm a fan of run-on sentences today :) )