Letter #32

Pretty awesome week! We had two baptisms! Ilanie and Ilita Rodriguez! It was deffinately one of the better feeling baptisms that ive had. Everything went as planned and the water was actually somewhat warm haha. And it seemed like Ilanie and Ilita had an awesome experience.

 

Earlier this week we went out to the Gulf of Mexico! Kind of. Its a little area called the Laguna Madre. A town called Port Mansfield. Its about a 35 mintue drive from Raymondville but its 1 of the 10 best fishing towns in the U.S. Not a lot of people live out there but a lot of fishers just go rent houses and boat around and fish. We went and visited a less active family out there and they showed us around the whole town and took us out on the peir and we watched the sunset and had an awesome lesson on the Book of Mormon. It was sweet! And the town is awesome cause the deer out there just roam around and they are so used to people that they come up to you and you can pet them and feed them! I would have sent some pics but i forgot my sd card at the house, my bad.

 

Right now Elder Nichols and I arent really working with anyone. Its been pretty hard to find people to teach. But were hoping and praying this week is going to be a good one!

 

Thanks for everything! Have an awesome week!

 

Elder Brian

Letter #31

Hey!

Its been a pretty rad week to say the least. Raymondville is awesome! Its a super small town about 35 minutes outside of Harlingen of about 9,000 people and we cover half of it and one other town named Lyford which is a town of like 500. Haha. They are super small towns. It reminds me a ton of the Ranch and down in Loa. I love it. The people are really nice. Almost no one speaks spanish and everyone is cowboy. Now i actually feel like Im in Texas haha. i just hope i dont leave the area with a rich Texas accent saying y'all and howdy all the time haha. My comp is Elder Nichols. I love the kid to death already. He reminds me so much of Ford. Super nice and hilarious. He's been out for about a year or so. But he just got to the Texas McAllen mish this transfer cause he was medicaly transfered out of Nicaragua. He had a crazy crazy accident down there. Nicaragua is pretty dangerous and to put the story short, he was jumped. Had to do an emergency surgery in Nicaragua and then he flew home and recovered for about 3 months and then got recalled to here. He's awesome! He's from Colorado.

We are in a bike area, which im super stoked about. We dont have too many people we are working with as of now. But we are teaching a less-acitve and her two daughters who arent baptized and they are all set to be baptized next week! We're pretty excited about that.

One pretty funny experience we had this week. We were teaching one of our other investigators and his girlfriend about the Law of Chastity. ;) Those lessons are always fun. And the teaching in Nicaragua is totally different than here in Texas and Nichols isnt really too used to it at all. in Nicaragua he said they teach just super straight up to people and here, if you do that you can offend people pretty badly. So we started the lesson and Nichols just breaks out and pretty much tells them both that they were fornicating (thats the word he used) and they needed to stop. haha. They girlfriend just looks at us and is just like "you guys really think you can come in here and do that" It was hilarious. I couldnt help but just laugh. It was super funny. But in the end the lesson turned out pretty good and lets just hope they took our advice and are working on getting married ;)

Thats about it. Im loving the new area! Im loving the mission. Thank you guys for the support and everything! Hope y'allhave a good week ;) Love you guys!

Here is the new address to my appartment if you guys send anything ;)

401 E. Mccharen Ave.

Raymondville, Texas 78580 #5

Letter #30

Hey!

 

Hey everyone! Transfers came! Im going to the Raymondville West area in the Harlingen zone! Its about an hour or so north from Cameron Park Brownsville area. I heard its a pure english area and its pretty rare that you have a spanish investigator. Im pretty bummed about that cause it will be a little harder to keep the spanish up but im pretty stoked for it. I dont know my new companions name but him and I are going to be white washing the area. Meaning both him and i will be new to the area so we just have to kinda get to know it some how haha. That'll be fun, im stoked for a change! Ive been in Cameron Park for about 6 months. I loved Cameron Park. Its gonna be a bummer to leave. The people are awesome. Really really humble people. But im sure there are going to be some great awesome people who need the gospel up in Raymondville too!

 

This week has been really good! Our investigator Blanca is doing really well. We've had a lot of younger people fellowship her and she loves it!!

 

This week I've been working and studying a lot about Patience. Im not the most patient kid on the block at all. And my comps are always getting after me for it haha but since ive been out on the mission, ive realized that patience is a huge part in becoming more like Christ. There is an awesome talk writen by Elder Utchdorf called Continue in Patience and its really helped me develp the Patience that i need. Its an awesome talk. If you have time, id definately give it a read.

 

Thanks everyone! Have a killer week!

 

Love

Elder Brian

Letter #29

Hello!!

 

Transfers are next week for those of you that might have gotten confused. Haha. Sorry about that.

 

Well, yesterday was fun. Super Bowl sunday haha. Texas is huge on football and im pretty sure everyone that had a T.V. was watching the game. We stopped by some members houses and we got some good Super Bowl food and saw bits and pieces of the game. (Not intended to be seen tho ;))

 

We had some investigators at church which was awesome! Mario Vicencio and his son. It was sick to see them there. We got kind of blindsided tho. After church we were talking and he pulls me to the side and says "Elder Brian, church was awesome. Thanks so much for stopping by and really helping me out. But i dont want you guys to come by anymore. im done." So that kinda hit us hard. I think the spirit might have slapped him a little too hard and he got scared of it or something. But thats not stopping us! I think we will pass by him sometime this week and just show him some love.

 

I love this Gospel! It really does change lives. I've seen it change people. Especially myself. Thanks for everything! I love you guys!

 

Con Amor

Elder Brian