Week Sixty Four - Catching Critters and a Baptism in Lakewood!

The trio!  Elder Packham, Elder Patton and David!

Bowling!  I think David was King Laban!

Elder Patton and Elder Packham and the frog!

Baptism of Williams in Lakewood with Elder Haskell!

The trio at golf!

Free lemonade, anyone?

David, Rachel and her companion and Elder Patton.

Hola!

We had a good week here. We taught a lot of lessons and worked well with members, more and more splits! 

   The Sisters had the idea to do a lemonade stand outside of the Church one afternoon, and we helped them out.  In an hour we had like five members come get lemonade, and only three nonmembers.  Could have gone better, could have gone worse.

   On Thursday we had our first attempt at a weekly branch soccer night.  Not a lot of people knew when and where, but we had about twelve people there in total.  Elder Packham is a surprisingly good goalie, but us elders are pretty bad.  It was still lots of fun though!  I don't know what it is about Hispanics, but activities with them are so much more fun!  Hopefully this next week will be better and we can get some investigators and less actives out there. 

 We had an interesting weekend with food.  We had tilapia twice, and the eyes were still on it, and we had to eat around all of the ribs, but it wasn't bad.  Then I tried some catfish head soup for the first time, as well as a habanero pepper.  I only took a tiny bite, and I cried and suffered for way too long.  I never need to do that again! 

   One night this past week as we were walking to our apartment at the end of the day, I spotted a decent sized frog!  We had quite the adventure trying to catch it, and we succeeded.  Then two nights later, we saw a large cockroach running across our wall.  It was dark when I first saw it and I thought it was a mouse.  That's how big and fast it was!  So we tore the apartment apart trying to catch that thing, and we succeeded.  It definitely added some excitement to our day. 

   On Saturday we had to go to Lakewood to see the baptism of William G., and 11 year old kid that Elder Crockett and I found almost a year ago.  He is the one that we could never get to talk unless we talked about Pokemon.  He is a very quiet and almost emotionless kid, but he said that the missionaries changed his life and I am so happy for him!  His mom can't drive, can't read, and is always working.  She is a super nice lady though and hopefully she will get involved with the Church soon.  As for his dad, I only met him once, and William's mom always told us that he has an "ugly character/attitude", so who knows where that will go.  So because his parents are not able/not willing to get involved with the Church right now, the ward waited awhile before they let him get baptized, just so people could get to know William and he could get a good support group.  I am confident that the ward will keep him active and he could be a missionary some day! 

   We have a couple of recently returned missionaries coming to the branch right now and they are absolute studs.  They were both practically AP's, one in Paraguay and one in Colombia.  They have been coming out with us for splits and I am learning a lot from them.  The one that served in Colombia served in the same mission as a friend of mine, Jesse Walker.  I asked him if he knew an Elder Walker.  "Elder Jesse Walker?' he responded.  "Yeah!" I said.  Turns out the Elder Jesse Walker was the missionary that took this guys spot as AP when he came home.  No way!  It's crazy how small the world is.  I am not surprised that Jesse is an AP.  I'm not sure if y'all ever met him or knew him, but he is probably one of the happiest, kindest kids I know.  So that was cool to learn.

   I've been sick for the last few days with lots of flem in my chest and a bad sounding cough.  I don't cough too much, but when I do it hurts.  I've just been taking lots of vitamin C and some dayquil, and I think I am getting over it.  I got it from Elder Patton, so hopefully I can pass it off to Elder Packham now. 

   The trio is great.  Elder Packham is strange and often in his own little world, but he makes us laugh often.  Elder Patton is awesome.  It is nice to teach again with somebody that speaks Spanish fluidly.  He knows how to have fun and make people laugh.  Something about him reminds me of my best bud, Ely.  I'll be honest, sometimes we get a little distracted, but we also work really well together and are getting a lot done. 

-we had a cold front come through this week and we had few days in the low 80's, and one day in the 70's!  I'm quite sure that is almost unheard of for this time of year in Dallas, so we enjoyed it.  This week is supposed to be back up into the hundreds though. 

-I don't need anything.  I really like the CD's you sent me though, so thanks!  I also got the package from Grandma Pratt and those yogurt gronola bars are delicious!  Tell Grandma and Grandpa thank you for me!

-We are 100% car right now, thank goodness. 

That is all I can think of for this week.  All is well, I am happy, and time is flying!  Thanks for the email.  Love and miss everybody!  Godspeed. 

Elder Williams