Pascua

got this new investigator a few days ago. hes a super awesome guy he has 3 kids and works in the oil field. his name is gilbert. we talked to him and hes super interested and said he is down to go to church but it might be hard to convince his wife cause she has strong catholic roots. we are like thats fine thats fine you know i bet the best thing is to lead by example and she will come around. he was like that sounds good you guys should try and catch my wife while she is home. a few days later we stopped by and she was there. we started talking and everything was good. asked if she read over the pamphlet and she said yeah just a little bit. kept talking and then she says yeah i was baptized in your church... we were like uhh... what?? wait.. the church up the street? she was like yes my elders were so and so. we are like wait... mormon? shes like yes yes mormon. so then we are like no way!! and talked on how we are going to get her family into the church and she told us why she stopped. and after as we were walking to our bikes this little girl throws a huge rock at my bike and hits it. im like ay!! ( in spanish) whyd you throw that. she says porque no quiero que estas aqui.. we asked why she says porque estan feos.. then her tia (the women we just spoke to) says tu papa es mas feo!! and we all just burst out laughing hahah it was great!
through out the week we had a ton of food.. like meal appointment after meal appointment.. it was kinda fun haha but great. sooo elder acosta and i live with elder herrin and anderson they are the english speaking missionaries and we are spanish. well sometimes we invite them to meal appointments. well anderson is a diabetic of one year so hes still getting the hang of it. well we had this meal appointment with hermana grimsley this little old lady who loves to feed us. well we went over there and we had a back to back meal appointment after so we are all like okay we will just have one plate and not 3. well elder anderson isnt much of a big big eater like us.. so we get there and anderson starts telling the hmna not to put too much cause hes "diabetic" ha! and shes like no its fine im a diabetic also and this meal is perfect for you... so we all get our plates and then. he says well hermana i have to wait at least 3 hours after i take my insulin. and she was like okay well when was the last time you ate.. he says 11:30.. it was 3:30 she counts 1-2-3-4. youre fine and boom drops the plate infront of him. anderson es muy timido. and we have never seen such a look on his face full of fear cause he had to eat it haha it was hilarious. alright so yesterday was pascua
we bore out testimonies in church and then after church we went to go do some contacting before we had a couple carnes to go to. so we went and contacted this door.. and this old man opens it wearing nothing but a diaper... HAHAHA ive never been so ahhh! haha idk it was just kinda funny so we ask him. Have you been enjoying your easter and he says have i what? like ten times.. he couldnt hear us. haha it was a great contact hahah. then later we show up to this carne and theres just a big family grilling everything. they had some good potatoe salad and we smashed cascarones with everyone it was great haha all ganging up on the youngest son of the family and just covering him. we also hit a few piñatas! the people of laredo are the best!! i love Laredo!! then after that we went to another carne and ended the night there. be wise everyone god loves you and the mission is the best.

chloe the girl who threw the rock!

compa and i with a beautiful sunset before a carne

Cascarones!!

at the Mackenzie family carne

Lamb Of God

started out the week eating at a Blanca's house. shes a super sick member. well we were eating dinner and her son was just acting up a ton. kept raising the volume of the tv while we were eating. she tells her other son luis to go get her belt. luis is like 12. he casually brings out the belt like it was an honor hahah it was hilarious... but no one got spanked that night. hah.
its starting to get really hot. it was about 100 for a couple days. you seriously walk outside and its like putting on a blanket. its great and everyone is just like holy cow you sweat so much!! and i just stand there dripping like yep i do... now let us inside so i dont die.
had an exchange with my district leader. we were riding to a members house and for some reason this oldddd investigator kept popping up in my head cause the fam lives on the way and it just kept popping up and popping up. im like okay okayyy lets go over there. so we got there and she "isnt" home but her sister is so we talk to her. then Finna (the old investigator). her husband comes out and we start talking. we end up inside teaching him and sharing a scripture. thennnnnnn Finna walks in furious. yells at her husband and he stands up and we are like woahhhh this is crazy...its like a Jose Luis episode or for you americans... Jerry Springer it was kinda funny. but things calmed down and we start talking to finna and she tells us everything why she wasnt baptized. i learned how awesome the spirit works. well we were talking and talking to both of them and shared some personal experiences and then talked about the gospel and BAM set a bd with her. it was so sick cause at first she said she was never going to go back and now she wants to get baptized haha. a couple days later acosta and i were riding by this neighbor hood and there was this very elderly lady gardening. so we pull over and start helping her. turns out she is 90 and likes to garden. haha what a trooper. well we sat for a while and talked about the gospel and we sat in her covered patio. When we got there we could hear thunder so it sounded like it was gonna storm pretty bad. well when we were leaving the storm was just barely getting to us. but nothing had fallen yet. well we were riding our bikes out of the driveway thats covered by trees and we could hear things falling. my comp says: its probably acorns falling. we keep riding onto the street and thats when i realized.. thats not acorns. thats hail.... the size of shooter marbles. we were like oh crap lets go! as we start riding it just pouring this massive hail. we are getting hit all over. we could hear all the cars just getting nailed!! bang bang bang! it was sooo crazy! but fun. also i have this cool experience that happened yesterday. at night we were contacting some houses. well we got a referral for this one house.. at first we were going to go to the other side of the street to go to some houses first.. but i stopped my comp cause i could hear something.. i was like woah wait... that house 2 doors down which is a referral is playing something on the radio.. something... heavy... and just like that i was like elder its Lamb Of God we gotta go there this guy is awesome. so we walk over there just as he is turning it off the first things i say are hey no way! you like lamb of god thats so awesome. and just like that we had this crazy cool conversation about his life and family and the gospel. haha walked into his garage.. BAM just the sickest Ducati ever. we keep talking and he tells us that he believes more on extra terrestrial stuff and big band than god cause there isnt that much proof about books that we bring or anything... sooo imagine this... a big ziploc bad with a disassembled radio inside. every part of the radio is in the bag to make it work... now shake the bag and try and make the radio... hah keep trying and trying.. im pretty sure that youre not going to be able to make the radio.. thats pretty much what would happen with the big band without god. its just that simple. but its so crazy at how many people just want a super crazy complex answer like WHY!!
but that leccion was pretty awesome. i feel like some other crazy cool stuff went down but i cant really remember. oh well have a rad week chao.

the hail that fell down.

compa y yo

that guys sick Ducati 

grandma Gonzalez that little old lady we met gardening 

dinner at the Gutmans for a carne. estamos muy animado.

Para Que Sepa

this week was alright, met the Serna family on monday. this guy in ysa came out with us and is friends with their son. none of them are members so we are like sweet! so we go and meet them and they invite us in. just the parents were there and they sit us down and we just start talking for a little bit and then they leave the room for like 20 minutes to do some business idk what. then they come back and we find out they are catholic and are strong in their faith but was we kept talking and teaching. the spirit was so strong...they started listening and really paying attention it was so cool. then hmno serna scratches his beard... and i kid you not.. a worm flew out.. i was a little bit freaked out and wanted to burst out laughing cause it was just so weird hahaha. but the lesson went on and near the end they were like do you guys have something for us to read before you guys come back next time. they are so sweet!! its so cool to see the change during a lesson.
a few days later we came across this guy who was super big into science we had a super great discussion and it all started out with talking about his bumper sticker that said he was an eagle scout. a funny moment that night. we went to go contact a referral we got that night. and at the door they have a sign in spanish saying that they are catholic and dont accept other religions to their house or messages and propaganda. (a lot of houses here have that sign) so we knock the door and this girl comes out and we start speaking english and everything is going chill, we are laughing. she then tells us shes catholic and points to the sign and we are like "uh we dont speak spanish" and then acosta (my comp) starts trying to read it saying "what does no aceptamos mean?" he read it in a super gringo accent. the girl didnt know what to say.. she froze.. she said.."well.. its not saying that wedont accept anything.. well.. it means.." and then we burst out laughing and told her we speak spanish then read the whole thing. it was so funny.. she started laughing too. but yeah she wasnt interested. you know theres a lot of people that will be rude to us cause of what we do. its important to make the best of it and just have a good time. hahah. i have another funny contacting story.. so a couple days later we are at the top of our area. we went to go contact this house. we knock the door and this guy opens the door. everything is going super well and then he stops and says "hey we are actually doing a bible study right now with jehovahs witness" i was like"woah thats so rad is it alright if we study with you guys? cause i was actually reading in the bible this morning" he looks at us and is like umm give me one second. and then we stood there for a few minutes and a couple different people came to the door and asked if we needed something and we said we are waiting to see if we could study with you guys hah.. they seriously didnt know what to do hahaha. then finally his wife comes and tells us we cant study with them. it was so funny and weird haha. that night it started raining super bad so we rode in the rain and were completely soaked. it neverrr rains in laredo but when it does. the sides of the streets flood. haha it was great and my comp wrecked it on his bike it was hilarious hahah. hes a trooper haha.

 

 this cool neighborhood we rode through.

Just Like Heaven

A week of events, visited the robledo family they are recent converts of a month. they are super awesome. well we went to visit them and the husband had his sister over and she was curious about the church so BAM we started teaching her. the next day we had a zone exchange with the south zone. i stayed in casa blanca and Elder skinner came up while my comp went down to west abundancia. we found Javier outside painting his house. we started talking to him and he was a super cool middle aged guy that is down with everything. he sprays while he talks and i think i got like half of his concha on my shirt but he's a carnal so its all good and we set a baptismal date with him. earlier that day we had been looking through the area book to contact some old investies. Found this family that almost got baptized. yeah we found out they lived super far so we started riding. it took like 30 minutes to get there. The Tovilla family is who they are. As soon as we got there the mom said hey i need you to go visit my daughter she lives over here. she really needs you guys. we think shes addicted to drugs. we then started teaching her and her son. they are super sick. we later met the husband gosh they are so rad! later that night we had a carne at the robledos and juans(the husband) his other sister was there with her husband and kids and we started teaching them. on thursday we switched back. this week i have realized how important it is to pray for safety. at least twice a day someone tries to run us over while we are on our bikes. on saturday we were riding to the church to help clean it and as we were crossing this street. this women ran the red light hauling it and some how she stopped like a foot from us and then looks at us like its our fault hahhaa! her tires didnt even screech. milagros man haha. we also started teaching robledos brother. hes addicted to heroin and really wants to be a teacher. we are trying to help him a ton. he graduated in the top ten of his class.. but the devil got him.. and he knows it. he needs the gospel more than ever.. on sunday israel and jackie got dunked. we have a saying in laredo. " no dry weekends in laredo" we gotta work hard cause the faunt should be filled every sunday. all thanks to the miembros y dios. we had a missionary fireside we sang be still my soul and there is a great scripture that goes along with it. Psalms 37:7. president lavulavu of the 3rd branch asked us to sing a song with his family,. it was the tongan hymn Folofola Mai 'A Sisu. the spirit was super strong like unreal. we later finished with sisters of zion and we"ll bring the world his truth. you could see the spirit in everyones eyes. Laredo is the best! oh also this week we saw a guy driving a stolen car down the street haha it was kinda funny cause we knew it was stolen cause the alarm was still going off haha. we've met so many cool vatos here. transfers are tomorrow and we hope we are both staying here. i cant believe its already the end of the transfer. like there is no time to waste cause it just goes by soooo fast. we were walking to the bike shop to take my comps biek there so we could get it fixed. on the way home this "white" dude rolls down his window and asks if we need a ride somewhere. both in our minds we like heck yeah so we jumped right in. we started talking and come to find out he hasnt been to church in 10 years and he almost went on a mission. said he had all the money all saved up and prayed about the church and never got an answer so he left. moved out and took all his savings and never went back. this guy was awesome, hes married to a cuban and his 3 kids we talked about the church for a while. you could tell in his own words that he still had a testimony and knew the church is true but something is stopping him from going back. he lives in san antonio and was only here for work. it was such a good experience like who knows maybe just from him talking to us he will go back to church. also we found out his mom works in the south jordan temple how crazy!! haha. we also met and started teaching the Elizondo family and met this guy named Roberto hes a super nice guy with a small family. he asked us to pray for his son who is going to try and swim across the rio and come over. we had the member that was with us do it. it was great!! hahah the mission is so fun. like... something ive really learned a lot of his how to learn. how to get the most out of everyday so it can benefit you for the future. quote of the week "gracias a dios" people say that after anything its kinda funny sometimes haha.

this is my district leader elder young. he crashed his bike while he was on the phone talking to us hahaha.

it was my comps birthday yesterday haha so some elders brought over a cake and i shoved his face into it. haha

elder Eisenhut and i were helping this lady move some stuff into storage and one of the things was a massive glass table it was super thick too. well as we set it down we started propping it up against a wall and it just straight shattered in our hands like exploded it was so nuts and we got cut up. hahah i didnt feel bad at all that it broke cause it broke so crazely haha.

elder gallegos, watchorn, acosta y yo

Folofola Mai 'A Sisu

i dont have any time to write, a lot of stuff went down this last week. i'll try and send it later. chao. also the subject is a tongan hymn we sang yesterday