Wichita Falls, Texas- Week 31

Hey,
Ok so first, Monday and Tuesday was mostly me packing so I guess not that many eventful things happened during that. Now on to Wednesday, that is transfer day. It was nice to see everyone at transfers, I miss Blanchard and everyone there, but I know I’m going to Texas for a reason. So the drive from Moore to Wichita Falls took about 2 1/2 hours, so that was a long ride. After that, we get to the Zone leaders place where our cars where, so we load them up and Elder Rodriguez hands me the keys, so I’m like great..... Can you drive to our place? His response- Nope, I can’t drive..... sooo I drove to our apartment, and I did it, doesn't mean I liked it but we lived. Still not fond of driving. All the areas in Texas, Wichita Falls, Vernon, and Seymour are one zone, so it’s big area wise, but not that many missionaries here. In my district there is me and Elder Rodriguez, Elder Quist and Schwartz (yes, Elder Schwartz my companion from the CCM!!!), and Sister Ellis and Sister Young. The next day we had to take our car in the shop to get fixed, so we will be on bikes till we get that back. Wichita Falls has a pretty big ward. Largest I have ever been in out here, not sure if I like the small isolated places like I’m used to more or the larger wards yet. I’m thinking the smaller I like better because you get to know everyone in the town and they know you as well. The members are nice here and they feed us often to that is awesome. We have been doing a lot of work here, mostly with the less actives, there are so many here so we are busy, but we have had great success in bring them back, so the ward is growing :) I got to meet the "famous people" here, in all of my areas, missionaries always talk about Mike and Steve, so I got to meet them, and they are awesome! On Saturday we got chased by a dog on our bikes again, didn't get bit this time so yeah! Evasive maneuvers!   How can dogs run so fast? Elder Rodríguez kicked it in the face when it got close, didn't even faze it, as he said it felt like a brick wall. We went back to that area the next day and the dog wasn't there, so hopefully that was just a random thing that happened. Oh and on Saturday there was freezing rain all day and we are on our bikes all day as well, so by the end of the day we were covered in ice, we stayed warm though, so that was good. P-day was a lot smaller then I’m used to, the best p-days were in Norman, all of the zone came every week, but this was just our district and the zone leaders, so we played sports all day. And on Sunday, it snowed all day so the roads were pretty bad, that's why I’m emailing today instead of yesterday. I love you guys, and time is going by so fast.

The Norman Zone at Red Robins!
 It was a baptism in Norman, and all the Elders that showed up (Some from other places in the mission because they previously taught the ppl being baptized) went to Red Robin. And HOLY SMOKES! So much fun! And then there happened to be a bishop in the stake there, and he secretly paid for all of us! HOLY SMOKES! A huge blessing! Easily $250. He's a generous man. So many Blessings!

Elder Mulitalo and Elder Corbin!

Blanchard, Oklahoma- Week 30

Hey,
This week was a great week in Blanchard, we were walking around and I notice that at the Elams house, the camper is back! They got back from AZ a month early so we are so excited to start teaching them. They met with the missionaries 6 years ago in Arizona, then moved to Oklahoma before they were baptized, so that is so cool that we even found them. We also got to talk with some of our other investigators for about a hour and a half, and that was really good, getting to know them a lot better. After that, we start heading back to our place for dinner- we are at the far south end of town, and our place is all the way north- and Elder Multalos bike somehow got two flat tires.......... so........ 45 min. later, we finish walking back to our place. We did service at the library again, this time we peeled off stickers from books that they were selling, took a while, but it was different then what we have been doing so yeah. Ok, so Thursday night, was the best night ever! Newcastle Elders were going to spend the night with us, then we can all go to district meeting together and after that have exchanges, so we get back to our place before they get there, and I don't know if I told you that we found a lamp cover on the street, so we took it back to our place and it's our "crystal ball"... so ok back to the story, Elder Mulitalo and I dressed up- he is in this pale yellow suit that we got from a thrift shop, and wearing a Chinese medallion and a nerf gun tucked into his belt, and he is standing outside the door, and I wrapped my head up in a scarf and wearing a rainbow poncho also wearing my Chinese Medallion, and I'm in the back room, looking at the crystal ball and I have lights under it so its flashing lots of colors and we turned off all the lights in our place. So Newcastle pulls up and Elder Mulitalo leads them inside and to where I am, the whole time they were very confused, then when they saw me everyone started laughing! So on Friday me and Elder Lloyd went on exchanges it was fun, taught a few people. Then on Saturday we all went to Norman to go to some baptisms other missionaries where having, it was sooo cool to see. Also I'm moving to Wichita Falls, TX on Wednesday!

Moving!

I left a surprise for Elder Mulitalo's new companion

Our crystal ball!

Blanchard, Oklahoma- Week 29

Hey!

Sorry the emails have been a little shorter, I am going to try to make them longer. Going to the temple was awesome, it was really cool, I think I talked about it in my last email, but it was a smaller temple, but still cool. Blanchard is about 30min  away from it I think, so its not that bad. My last area, Clinton, was about 2 hours away. We were not able to meet with the dust bowl lady last week, we plan on doing that this week hopefully. Our progress with the treasure hunter is actually getting better! We watched The Testaments with him, I we think he felt the spirit, so that's great :) Exchanges are usually once a transfer so they don't happen too often, unless the zone leaders are also doing exchanges. To answer a questions about that picture of us locked out of the New Castles place, I live in Blanchard, but on Mondays and Fridays, we get a ride up there in the morning so then we go with them to p-day or district meeting. When we got there, they were not back yet, so that's why we were locked out. I don't know when tornado season is, but it's not for a while so I still have time to prepare to be a storm chaser! Ok, so we had a really fun P-day!!!!!!! we went to the Museum of Natural History!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome! Dinosaurs, space, science, everything! Knowledge! And I took lots of pictures for you! Don't worry I'm in them too. One of the workers there was talking with us for a while, she was 80, but she didn't look like it,  and was walking around all over the place, and she was really funny. She was trying to convince Elder Mulitalo to crawl through a small tunnel that was there into this cave, and then told us all about the dinosaurs and where they came from, it was really cool! We got to have another lesson with a less active and his daughters, his daughters like us coming over now and are sharing spiritual thoughts, so that is a lot of progress, and there dad enjoys us coming over too, so we are really excited about that. We did service at the library again, there wasn't that much to do, so they told us go to our favorite section and check out some of the books there :) that was fun. On Saturday, we had the funniest service project ever! We cleared brush and trees all day with machetes!!!! How fun is that!?! Now all I want is a machete! I didn't get any pictures of that, I wish I did, but we got a lot done, and the place looks so much better. So today we are all playing baseball so that should be really fun. Elder Mulitalo and I have been quoting the sandlot all morning, and I am bringing the baseball which was "signed by Babe Ruth" hahaha, so its going to be a fun day. Have a great week!

I have decided, in my house, I'm going to have a room full of stuff like this:)

That is a wierd looking squid bug thing...

That's just scary

This would be a good jump scare hahaha

I feel so small!

Fish are friends not food.... maybe except this one.

Kevin!

Into the belly of the beast......

Sunday morning was wierd, lots of fog, and the sun did not help, it was blinding.

 

Blanchard, Oklahoma- Week 28

Hey!!

This was a good week, we didn't have enough miles to go to Norman last week so we spent our p-day in Blanchard and played basketball at the church, since this is a new month, we have enough miles for today so that's good. We almost had a lesson with this lady that was born in the dust bowl, but she wasn't feeling well that day so we said we would stop by next week, she seemed interested so we are excited about that. We had dinner with the Tanners, so that is always really good food. We are still meeting with the treasure hunter, and he is finally progressing, very slowly but progressing. We talked to him about the history of the Book of Mormon, and are going to watch the Testaments with him, we think he will like that. Every Wednesday we go to the library to do service, so that day we took apart a lot of Legos, if only they had us build with Legos, that would be so much fun! On Thursday we got to go to the temple!! I have never seen the Oklahoma City temple before so that was really cool. It is a smaller temple, but it was cool because since it wasn't very tall you can see the Angel Moroni better on the top. Then we had a lesson after with Bryce and all his friends, it was a really good lesson, we took a less active with us because he was younger and thought he could connect with them really well, it went great! Our member dropped us off at our place after the lesson, then went back to hang out with them some more! On Saturday, we went on a church exchange with one of our investigators, so we went to Life Church, it was different, more like a rock concert. They started out with Michael Jackson and confetti everywhere, it was fun. But he finally came with us on Sunday! and brought his nephew, and it turned out the nephew really liked going to our church! Have a great week!

Elder Guzman and I

 Elder Mulitalo and I at the Temple!