Sunday, January 17, 2016

A Missionary Birthday, Texas Style

Mon, Jan 11, 2016

"Honestly I don't know how this email was just as long as the others, cause I was sick outta my mind for all of it, but I guess it was a pretty good week. 

Today I woke up and I was dead. My throat was killing me and I was super weak. The whole day I was down and Elder Hunter went on splits with people, so we could teach all the people. 

We went down to Vidor cause Elder Venche might of had pink eye. We came back, did some more missionary work and then some of the less actives wanted to play basketball and the Elders Quorum came. Honestly we found out that all the good basketball players are from Utah and we were talking and it's true. Everyone who comes from Utah knows how to play basketball. I got a little crazy and gave Elder Lawrence a black eye. We had bluebell ice cream and pie for lunch. We went out to follow up on some more appts for the rest of the day.

Today was my birthday, so I woke up and opened some presents and read scriptures, etc. We went to district meeting where they sang to me. At lunch I picked out this all you can eat pizza cafe and then we quickly went to a pawn store to buy something for my birthday. They didn't have much but we saw this member who was there from Woodville. He told us how every couple of weeks he comes down to all the pawn shops and looks at their guns. He knows everything about guns, so he can buy guns there for a super good price. He told us he has about 60 rifles and almost 40 shotguns. We did some tracting and then it was dinner time. We had a dinner appointment at the Lovelaces. They were mad when they found out it was my birthday, and I hadn't told them. They made BBQ and also a whole gallon of Bluebell, so honestly it was a great birthday dinner. Later that night we had another birthday party and the other elders came over and we baked a cake that my parents sent and it started to have these huge thunderstorms and then it poured down rain. 

The sisters had a baptism today. We had to bike to the church because it was spoken pedal. We went to the baptism and it was okay. The sisters chose this one person to speak on a assigned topic for 5-7 min. Instead, she took 25 min and covered baptism, Holy Ghost, scripture study, church, some temple stuff, and faith. The bishop took us in his office and and told all of us how to set up a baptism. It was horrible. We then biked back to our apt in the freezing wind. 
We ended the night going back to the church again cause they were having this chili cook off. I had chili that had boar in it and it was really spicy, but so good. Then I had another that had deer meat in it, also great. We played a volleyball tournament and we got to the finals but lost to Team Bishop. We lost 13-15. We did beat the Relief Society which was good because they were talking crap and we beat the Young Women who came in wearing knee pads and shorts and stuff. After that we played basketball and and a member bought us all gatorades. 

Towards the end of the today the bishop tells us to go to this Youth Conference. We go there and they have the meeting and Bishop says, " Will the birthday boy stand up?" Then he looks around and looks right at me and says,"Yeah, you, elder." So I stand up and they sing, then they carried out a cake and other things. It was great! Then we had to drop some stuff off at the other elders apartment. Saw some people trying to steal a car and when they saw us they started to walk away. So it gets pretty fun out here!

I will answer a question in closing: Yes, they do celebrate Mardi Gras down here.... and yes it is great.
Love, 
Elder Saunders


My Texas birthday with the birthday package my parents sent.  Orange, TX January 2016

Celebrating with my missionary buddies. Elder Lawrence, Elder Venche, me, and Elder Hunter in front. * Notice that we are wearing the cowboy party hats my parents sent :)   Orange, TX January 2016 



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