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| Lakewood Spanish Elders with the ward mission leader, Brother Todd on transfer day! |
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| Elder Crockett and Elder Williams saying goodbye.... |
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| David gets a generous gift from Jess to get him ready for winter! |
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| David and his third companion in Texas, Elder Haskell! |
Buenos dias mis amigos!
Another week down here in Dallas, and let me tell you, it was a quick
one! Sounds like a pretty eventful week for y'all back home! I'm
diggin the ride, pops! Dad looks younger than ever standing next to the
beautiful machine! What color you gonna paint
it? You should paint a Texas flag on the hood... not! That would be a
horrible idea. After 6 months in Texas, I still have a hard time
seeing where the "Texas Pride" comes from. What is there to be proud of
here? I mean, it's not a bad place, but it certainly
makes me miss Utah! All you Texans out there, please don't be
offended. Ha! Just my personal opinion. I'm a Utard and proud of it!
I will pray for your safety in your trip to Brazil. Take lots of
pictures! In a few weeks I want an envelope in the mail full of
pictures! I cannot imagine how anxious you two are! You've raised a
fine young man in that there Tommy Boy. You should be proud.
Em, I'm glad I'm not the member of the family that will be missing out
on the most epic family vacation ever! We will make the padres make it
up to us here in a couple of years ; )
Elder Haskell and I had an alright week here in LakeWood. It went by
fast, but not too much success. Lately, we have just felt like
chickens running around with our heads cut off. We have been doing far
too much knocking that doesn't seem to be getting
us anywhere. We have very few investigators that are dependable,
keeping commitments, and have desires to learn about the gospel. In a
sense, I still feel like I don't know how to be a missionary. However,
Ismael, the new member I told you about last week,
is willing and motivated to help us out, so we are going to try to
execute a few of his ideas coming up here soon. But if any of y'all
have any ideas or past experiences with activities that brought success,
hit me up! Luis has now come to church twice,
but he just got a job last week so it has been hard to set something up
with him. He had to cancel on us three times this last week! It is
very frustrating, but hopefully he just needs to get settled in to the
job and his schedule will be more regular from
here on it. The good thing is that at least he lets us know and tries
to reschedule with us. He is a different cat in a good way. Very
considerate, responsible, and dependable. We are meeting with him
tonight and I'm sure it will go well.
I went on an exchange this week with Elder Welker, and he has been
out for 3 weeks. My first time being companions with someone younger
than me! It was a good experience. He was still in that
deer-in-the-headlights stage, so it was all on me! We taught
a few lessons, and he told me I teach well and I taught him more in 24
hours than his trainer had taught him in 3 weeks. BooYa baby! I may be
getting a hang of this mission thing after all! But after a day with
Elder Welker, it definitely made me thankful
for the companion I have right now! Elder Haskell is a lot of fun. He
is definitely the best friend I have made on the mission so far. He
tries to pick fights with me all the time, but I always win. Real
humble dude though. Ha!
So the highlight of this week was a man by the name of Jess Johnson.
He delivers Bibles to the place where we do service. Elder Crockett
and I met him months ago, and he gave us his card and told us to call
him to go get a burger with him sometime. We
never did. Two weeks ago, we met him again at service, and he extended
the offer once more. I couldn't turn down free food twice, so we went
to a super nice restaurant on Tuesday and he made sure we left full! He
is a very interesting guy. He served in
Vietnam. He is incredibly smart, successful, and wealthy. He is one
of those "all you need is a belief in Jesus Christ" guys. And he does
have an extremely firm faith in our Savior. I think he is too smart, if
you know what I mean, to ever accept the Church
and be baptized. But he likes us, a lot. He said he sees potential in
us and knows how to make us millionaires...? And he has given us what
seems to me to be really good advice. But something just seemed fishy
to me. During lunch he brought up many of
those most "touchy" doctrinal subjects in our church, so it was obvious
he has done research. He reeeally wants to help us out. He wants to
help us so much that it's just strange. He wants to eat with us
weekly. He wants to teach us how to smoke brisket?
He knows a lot of people and he said he is going to work out deals with
people to get us free weekly meals at restaurants.? He donates winter
clothes to vets every year, and offered to take us to his storage unit
on Saturday and help us get ready for winter..?
and then, he asked us to call him Uncle Jess?! Super strange. And now
that I think about it, that probably sounds very creepy since you guys
don't know him. Haha! So Elder Haskell and I both just had this eery
feeling about him, but he called us Saturday,
and we went to get some winter clothes! Then he took us to Marshall's,
and insisted that he buy us a new white shirt and some gloves. I
didn't know what to do, so I just let him serve me! He told us not to
thank him, but thank Christ. So he is a super
interesting guy. At first, I was worried that he was going to expect
something out of us, and I wanted to call Dad to get his opinion and
advice on this guy! But now I'm just starting to think that he is just a
kind-hearted dude that likes to serve and give
back. He doesn't seem like a bad guy to know for the future. He knows
people all over the world, and he is constantly traveling, and he seems
to have life figured out. He even has a radio show! He's gonna be in
Hawaii for the next three weeks, and he told
us he would bring us back a t shirt. I don't know what to think about
this guy. Let me know if you think I am in danger haha I really don't
feel like I am, but y'all are much more experienced and knowledgeable
than I am. But chances are that I will be moved
by the time he gets back from Hawaii, and I'll never see him again
anyway!
-No crazy storms here, but it has been crazy weather lately! Half the
week it was super cold, really crisp air, and we had coats and gloves
and earmuffs on and we were still cold! But the last two days, it's
been so hot we're sweating! Peeps say it does
that all winter long here.
-No letters or packages that I can remember. I look forward to hearing from Emmy!
-Elder Haskell has T25, which is a video exercise program, so most
mornings the English elders pick us up, we go to the church, and workout
to these videos for 25 minutes. Elder Haskell found some old
preworkout that another missionary left in another
apartment, and we took it for the first time this morning. These T25
videos are just high intensity nonstop moving for 25 minutes straight,
and normally we are so tired that we are only able to workout for about
10 of that haha! The rest of the time we just
wine and complain about how hard it is, how tired we are, and how out
of shape we are. But with this preworkout, Elder Haskell and I were
pumped! We worked out for the full 25 minutes and even jogged home to
our apartment! And now I feel fantastic! Today
I gained a testimony of the power of true exercise in the mornings as a
missionary.
-I'm still set on snack food. I think I will survive til Christmas
without a package. I can't think of anything I really need right now.
Thanks though!
Holy Tolito this is a long one. Sorry! I'm just loving life right
now, lots going on! Thanks for letting me know about Savannah, and
yes, please, keep me filled in if you can. Pray for those missionaries
and philipinos! Safe travels to Brazil. Give
brother Tom my greetings, love, and felizidades! I still love ya,
still miss ya, still pray for y'all. Until next time! Not sure when
exactly that will be, but it won't be long!
con amor, Elder Williams
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