Saturday, January 17, 2015

Memorial City, Week 16: January 5, 2015 - January 11, 2015

Monday, January 12, 2015

The galleria was bomb. It’s not as big as I thought but its large. Its three levels and its a stretch in distance. I got tired just walking around it all. But, i didn’t buy anything …was tempted, but no. I wanted some new fancy socks but resisted. We just looked. We went with Chase who we see all the time and teach with. He’s such a good friend now. We haven’t been able to see a lot of our investigators.  They’ve been busy or not home.  Saw a couple investigators and worked with members a lot this week. The ward is amazing. Finally met the ward mission leader. He’s a funny and cool dude. He’s young and we click. Things are still good in Memorial.
Downtown Houston


Inside The Galleria



Outside The Galleria












Had a wacky week. So, Tuesday was district meeting. I like all these missionaries. All the companionships are working hard. They’re goofy too. That night I went Vietnamese. It was fun. I wasn’t left out at all. I bonded well with the elder. He’s half Vietnamese and is from Arizona. He didn’t speak Vietnamese until his mission. What a day... So my morning Vietnamese started out with a good workout. Then we got ready and had an early appointment with an investigator real close to baptism. He would get baptized, knows its true and is worthy, but he’s on parole so he’s gotta wait it out. He fed us breakfast sandwiches, like what i would eat at home, hot chocolate and cheesecake. Pretty nice of him, made my morning. He didn’t speak much English so my companion taught in Vietnamese the whole time. Then, at the end, I just had him translate my testimony of what we read in the Book of Mormon. I’m glad i was able to still be part of the lesson. Later, we went to the church and got to teach citizenship. Elder Vu, my comp for the day, was going to teach English and I, citizenship. But only one guy came so I taught him citizenship! We went over this packet of questions about American history and government. This guy spoke no English, but he knew this stuff in English, so we figured it out. I had a blast doing it. I even drew stuff on the board and discussed with him and he did well. Later we went to an old folks home and visited a one hundred year old Vietnamese lady. She kept making fun of me and i would just smile and she would hold my hand and what not while Elder Vu read the Book of Mormon in Viet to her. I said a few funny things back to her and my companion translated. That day we also helped an investigator. He was out at a restaurant and came back and his car wouldn’t start. We never got it to start because it wasn’t the battery. We think it was the starter or ignition. So we tried to tell him it’s gotta be fixed. He didn’t really get that and unfortunately replaced the battery.

We got a referral and things are sweet with her, she’s golden. She’s read the Book of Mormon after only one lesson somewhere else. She has a baptismal date for Jan 31. We went and taught the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement with a solid member. He clicked with the husband of the investigator because they’re both post military. Her name is Eva and she speaks decent English and is from Mexico. The lesson went perfect and the spirit was strong so there were many great testimonies from all of us. We decided to set a baptismal date for Jan 31 only because they’ll be out of town for a while. If not, she’s ready to be baptized now. She knows everything is true and is worthy. So that’s an exciting and blessed situation.

Then later we had our weekly lesson and basketball games with the street ballers at the church. We've had two way good lessons. My companion and I teach and it really lets us connect with the guys. A lot of them can recognize the Spirit, and we definitely can too because things come out of our mouths that we wouldn’t even think of. This Thursday one kid even came up to us after the lesson as everyone went to go hoop and asked us some questions. I believe that if we didn’t bear our testimonies so often and sincerely and relate with these guys, who come from not so good situations, he wouldn’t have come up after to talk to us. They need to hear that were not perfect either

Friday, we had a sad day. No investigators were in touch with us. Buuutttt we visited members and had a crazy spiritual experience with an older member named Bro Dopson who lives alone. He went to teach with us and when we discovered that no one was home and not answering the phone we just went back to his place to get to know him better and discuss the gospel. We learned a lot from him. We ended up teaching three members total that day. So, not bad at all. We just thought we would see some investigators, but we taught none the less.

Saturday we had a move first thing in the morning. Some members were moving out and needed lots of hands to load up the trucks. They had a huge house and it was filled with things that were going with them. We had like 15 members, old and young, to help them. It was necessary. It was the largest but yet easiest move I’ve seen. We had another one that we went to at 12. This one was smaller but we stayed a long time because we put together a new dresser for the family moving in.

Sunday was nuts. We had multi stake conference. It was a special one because there were some changes being made in four stakes. Elder Dan Jones from the second quorum of the seventy came and spoke at another building but everyone had the video feed and watched at their own stake center. The big news was that they have changed the stakes and ward boundaries. The first part of the conference was super boring, honestly, because he was describing the process of the new boundaries and stake make up. So I just drew in my handbook for a little. Then, an hour later, they showed the new maps. So now we have Spanish wards in our stake and our ward shrunk. Our area got cut 1/3. We lost two really cool members, the elders quorum president and the guy who ran the Thursday night basketball. He'll probably still do it though. We lost two investigators as well. We'll have to hand them off soon. So, it was boring then sad and then overwhelming. We'll live with it though, It’s the Lord’s call and new opportunities will come forth, even new people to find.

Today we had a district activity at the church. My comp and I told everyone last week and took charge of this shindig. We brought pizza, drinks and cookies. We also brought and played Uno and Telestrations. It was a good time. Never had a district activity before. Brings unity for sure. I’ll send some pictures in a sec. I also wanted to report on my scripture reading... so I finished the Book of Mormon in early December and now I’m in the New Testament, all the way to Acts. Soon I’ll be able to say I’ve read the whole Bible since i knocked out the Old Testament last year. I bear testimony that the scriptures are true. They truly show us how loving God is. They give us strength to believe in him at all times throughout the day. They increase our testimonies substantially if we diligently study. We come to know these things are true personally. But life is good. 

The District - Companion is the one in the hoodie


Love you tons,
Elder Janz