Another week in Texas

Transfers come up again next week.  I'm only guaranteed to be here until a week from Thursday... Same drill as last transfer. I'll be here all this week, but I'll be able to let y'all know whether I'm staying or moving next Tuesday. So yeah, anything that get's sent this week is good, but anything going out Monday or later next week should wait for my go ahead on Tuesday.

 So I am getting pretty good with my cursive writing because that's all I've been using to write in my journal and notes for studies. I guess good probably isn't the best word... but it's much better than it was haha.

We had a pretty cool story this week. On Sunday, this random kid showed up to church who we'd never seen before, so we went to talk to him, and it turns out he wasn't a member.  He just kinda found God over the summer and has been going from church to church, trying to find one to be part of.  None of the ones he went to felt quite right, and he didn't really feel very welcome anywhere... so he ended up asking around at his youth group thing, and one of the kids there gave him the address to our church, and he happened to show up at just the right time for the ward that he lived in to start.  He saw a few people he knew from school, and our awesome ward pretty much smothered him with welcome.  So he went to priests' quorum (he's 17) and we went and taught the lesson fo them.  He is also pretty good friends with a girl about his age there... so we have another lesson with him tomorrow. We should've asked him to be baptized yesterday, it went so well, but we weren't thinking... so we're going to do it tomorrow. We're shooting for the twelfth. He is super open and likes it all, and expressed a desire to make a permanent commitment. His name is Evan T. 

We also have another kid set with a date. His mother is just becoming more active and wants him to be baptized as well. We had a lesson with him yesterday, too, and he's looking at april third, so that all his family can be there. He's zak.

Those were pretty much the best things that happened this week, but we did have some other good goings on. There's a man from Mexico named John, who we met with.  He and his wife, Fabiola,just got home from their honeymoon. They had met with the missionaries before, but it was hard to get anything solid done because they were planning their wedding and such.  We are going to commit him and fabiola to a baptismal date this week as well.

Also still keep Chandler in your prayers,along with Abel and Toby M..  We had issues lining up schedules this last week, but there is a lot of potential there.

 

Anyways, I've got to go now. Hope everything is going well out there :) Love Y'all

Love Elder Katzakian

Amada Familia

Amada Familia,

 

yeah, things are going pretty well here. This week didn't have the appearance of being a very good one, but we learned a lot. We actually did get in to a pastor's house (without knowing who he was) and then he proceeded to tell us that he had read doctrine and covenants, and here were the problems he had with it. It was a little funny.

 

 We've got dinner with a pretty cool family today, and apparently we're getting valentines cake or something like that... Should be pretty awesome.

 

Time is moving so incredibly fast out here. I don't even understand how we are able to get anything done because there is never time for anything. My list of things I'd like to do and study just keeps getting longer. The work never slows down haha.

 

I had briscket for the first time, too. It's not bad. They don't really have tri tip down here ever, and that was something that I saw all the time at home.

 

So, if anyone has any good ideas of ways to find people between eight and nine o'clock, that'd be really cool. All we can think of is knocking on doors because everyone is just at home then, but that pretty much just gets us yelled at and ruins people we might've had a better chance with during the day because it's getting kind of late then...

So yeah, I dunno really what else to say. Nothing super exciting happened this week. We worked really hard and everyone fell through. We are still meeting with Chandler and Toby. They're looking pretty good. There's also a boy who's mother is just being reactivated, so we're going to teach him. His father doesn't want missionaries in the house, but is okay with us meeting elsewhere... So that's what we'll do.

 

That's pretty much it. Hope y'all are having a wonderful time, and I can't wait to write again next week :)

 

Haha I've also definitely picked up "howdy" and "y'all."

 

Love Elder Katzakian

I saw my first gecko in Texas!!

We had a day with a high of like twenty nine degrees, and the humidity was at ninety percent at one point... What's up with that?

  

So this week we got a couple of good referrals. We pretty much had to start from scratch on our teaching pool because nobody was progressing or doing anything, and these guys were really great. One's name is Chandler and he's dating a mormon girl in Salt Lake. He is a landscape designer, and works in the building. He also owns some cattle on a ranch a little ways away. He is Methodist by faith, and very firm there, and has a couple little problems with the Church of Jesus Christ, but is open and willing to learn and pray about it. He concedes that he may not be right, and is very open and excited to learn because he feels he owes it to his girlfriend and to the church in general to at least give it a shot.  The other man is Toby. His brother-in-law's family is mormon, and he considers them family. He feels that he should learn more about it because it's part of his family now, and also notes that every Latter-Day Saint he's ever known has been an upstanding person, so it's got to have something to do with the religeon. They both are excited to learn, and want to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it to know if it's true, because that would be a significant peice of information. Toby actually is starting from the title page and wants to read the whole thing. So that's all basically super awesome :)

 

Our new place is pretty cool. We get our own room, bathroom, and basically the upstairs loft to study. Brother Glory (the owner) has travelled a lot with the air force, so he has a bunch of cool decorations from around the world, but mostly Japan.  It's sort of funny becaus eI was looking for a frying pan to cook some eggs, but he basically just has woks. That's cool though, because they are great for cooking, which I do from time to time (not often, though, because it's pretty time consuming if you're cooking anything good). 

 

Yesterday was stake conference here, and it was a regional broadcast by President Monson, Elder Ballard, and President Monson's daughter (who's name escapes me at this time...). They pretty much talked about keeping the doctrines simple; so faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Lot's of people get way into other things and forget these basic principles. Everything else in the church is basically just garnish upon these things, for that is Christ's gospel. President Monson also talked about rescuing those who are lost. There are so many people who just need the warm hand of fellowship to be extended, and they will come back into the fold. Though the Gospel has left their lives, it isn't necessarilly gone from their hearts.  Remember those who have strayed, and be their friends so that you can invite them back into Christ's fold.

 

Running pretty low on time now... Let me know if you've got any specific questions or anything you want to know. Talk to you next week :)

 

Love,

Elder Katzakian