" We started out our P-day shopping at Ross and then we went to Chili's and saw our Stake President there so he paid for us. We were so thankful.
We were doing hour of power and we come across this lady who tells us that our church is false and we are going to the Devil and stuff like that. So we are still nice while she is attacking us and she had the cutest kid with her. He was about 6. We finally get away and when we were walking away we hear the kid say, "Mom, those guys were really nice and I like them!" Ha ha. We knock on some more doors and then we are walking past her house again and she comes up to us and wants round 2, I guess. She wants to ask us a question and I said okay. She starts in again on how our church is false and I honestly am fed up with it. So I told her I know that the church is true. She then said that she will pray that we find Jesus because we are wrong. I told her we were right. We still are being nice and she said she did not mean to argue( oh, she was arguing, alright). I told her trust me, I am not arguing. She keeps on going and her kid comes up and gives me knuckles. She goes into all this anti-mormon stuff and I'm thinking man we need to end this. She then looks at me and says," I don't know how y'all can believe that John Smith was a prophet." I looked at her and said," Honestly if you really want to argue with us you should do your research because we believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet and John Smith married Pocahontas. She was taken aback and Elder Strong had enough time to come in. So he asks her question after question and she can't answer them. Her kid comes up to me again and starts blowing kisses, ha ha. He asked me if I can come back and play with him another day. She keeps arguing with Elder Strong and says the Book of Mormon is false and Elder Strong asked her if she had read it. She said no and then Elder Strong said asked her how do you know it is not true then? She said that she didn't need to read a lie to know the truth. We pressed her a bit on that and she said she has researched it....Big mistake....I asked her some names in it, where and when does it start and she couldn't answer it. I look at her and said, " You really should read the book and not just believe what your church tells you."
Her husband comes driving down the road and in a last desperate attempt she tells us that if anything she has said has caused us to doubt, we should look into that because that means that your church is not true. I looked at her smile and said, " Well , I guess that means that our church is true because not only did I not feel one shred of doubt, but I felt confirmation that what we said was true." She was about to say something but I asked her a question. I told her now when we die and we go before God to be judged and one of us is right and one of us is wrong, I have had God tell me that this is right and so where do you stand? We then walked away.
We then walked to the next house and a guy answered and we were able to teach him. Yeah!
After that we went to a place called, Gangis. (It is a Mongolian Grill that a member gave us cash to go to cause they signed up to feed us but couldn't at the last minute). We went there and there was this 18 year old waitress from New Zealand. She was funny. She is down here for college and so we talked with her and her boss got mad so she had to go. We got our food and we were eating and it was getting late so the place was almost closing. She comes back and pulls up a chair and wanted to ask us a question. She told us that she has some friends that are Mormon and she was always too scared to ask them what they believe. We answered all of her questions. She went to help some more customers and finally we are ready to leave. She comes back and invites us to this college party and we told her that we can't go to parties. So we were able to teach her more about what we can and can't do and more Church doctrine. Elder Strong then said that there are missionaries at Lamar and when you see them promise us that you will go and talk to them. So she promises us and we head out.
Today we had a choice to watch Saturday conference or go to Deweyville to help out with the flooding. We felt we should go to
Deweyville and help out more with the cleanup. It wasn't just us that went, they called everyone in the Texas Houston East Stake to come and help. We all met at the Deweyville High School. There was like 1,200 volunteers who showed up wearing their yellow Mormon Helping Hands shirts. It was so cool. They split us up and told us which houses to go to. So we hop into this members truck and head to these houses in the deep, deep woods. Three of the trucks got stuck and we had to get them out. We finally got there-all thirteen of us! We helped gut this house. About half way through, they pulled half of us and we helped with this other house. It was a disaster. There was mold all over the walls and clothes. The clothes were soaking wet so we got trash bags and gloves and breathing masks and cleaned up everything. We took out the floors, cabinets, sheetrock, everything. We had time to go to a third house and did the same thing. It was so sad to see all the devastation.
We left and ate at Chucks-this hole in the wall BBQ place. The have these things called, Redneck Nachos. They are baked potato skins with bbq sauce, brisket, cheese, jalapenos, onions, and special white dressing. It is this huge plate and honestly it is the best thing I have ever had( Okay, I know I say that a lot) It is super famous down here even though it is a small shop. We came home and showered and headed to the Priesthood session of conference and it was super good.
It was especially cool to hear President Monson. President Nelson's talk was so cool because a couple of months ago he told us the exact same story! After that we had Blue bell ice cream, blackberry cobbler and I think I got fat, today.
On Sunday we had the last part of conference and after some members gave us these boxes of MRE's(which are military lunchables- pretty much). So us and the Spanish missionaries tried some of them....And they were pretty gross! After that we saw the afternoon session of General Conference.
After Conference we went and taught Joann and we had a sweet lesson with her. She told me that if I got transferred then she wouldn't get baptized. I told her well she better get baptized quick and she said a prayer that I would stay in the area cause she feels that if I stay she will maybe get baptized. So that was pretty cool. Joann by far is one of my favorite people that I have ever taught. After we taught her she gave us some hats from where her husband works. They are pretty sweet hats. I got this camo hat. Yeah, pretty legit.
Love,
Elder Saunders
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| Our Lady of the Guadalupe Shrine in Beaumont, Texas. It pays tribute to the Mexican American culture. It is believed in the Catholic religion that the Virgin appeared to St Juan Diego. One of the artists was a man from Port Arthur, TX Apr 2016 |
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| There were 1,200 + volunteers that showed up at the Deweyville, TX High School to help with the flooding cleanup The yellow shirts are Mormon's helping hands that were given to the missionaries and others helping out. Apr 2016 |
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