Life As A Missionary Is A Rich Experience

Monday, May 9, 2016                                                             Kingwood, TX

"Today after P day, a member picked us up in this brand new 2016 Cadillac, I mean man I felt like a million bucks riding in it. So nice! After dinner we went back to the church to give a church tour. We got President Drake to go with us. So we give our investigator, Ashley, a church tour. She's super solid and even President Drake thinks she is super solid. We finish and we get in Presidents van. He's like, "Elder Saunders, when I led in with talking about Christ being baptized, I thought you were going to invite her to be baptized." Honestly it never hit me to invite her, mainly cause she's still living with her boyfriend and some other reasons. I can't tell President Drake that or else he would say something like, Where's your faith? So I looked at President and I said, " Ya know, President, that would would've been a great opportunity . I messed up with that." He didn't say anything after that comment, so I count that as a win and I really need to work on that. So we get home and we have 4 missionaries in our apartment, two of which are Elder Strong and Elder Lawrence. They are there for MLC -Missionary Leader Conference- for leaders. So I am talking with them and they ask how our lesson with President went and I made a joke saying well at least I accomplished one thing....making the President disappointed in me and they laugh as I tell the story.. They know I have learned a great lesson.

We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders today. I went with Elder Knebel (aka my dad-that is what you call your trainer) . Honestly, it was a really solid exchange. It was kinda an awakening for me cause I realized that I was kinda a punk my first transfer. He is a super guy. We had a great day and it was good for me to kinda realize. We biked through this swamp and got eaten alive. We contacted everyone. 

We contacted this Jehovah's Witness that only spoke Spanish and I am sure a little bit of English. I said some things to her in Spanish and she went on talking super fast for like 10 minutes. We understood absolutely nothing. She stopped, turned toward me, and asked a question. I didn't know what she asked me but I responded in broken Spanish, " We love Christ, and we are servants of Christ." (thank you Spanish Elders in Port Arthur). She again went off for 10 min talking in Spanish and waving her JW pamphlet. I'm like no, 'El Libro de Mormon, which is the Book of Mormon and she got mad! Here we were on this busy road being yelled at in Spanish by what is now a mad Spanish lady. Mid sentence I cut her off by telling her in Spanish that I do not speak Spanish. She was so confused because I had been speaking in Spanish, not good Spanish but Spanish. She kept asking questions in Spanish so we finally told her we had to go. 

Next we contacted some more... you guessed it- Jehovah Witnesses. They spoke English. I started out nice but after a while I got tired of them constantly telling us that our faith is wrong. I asked them how I could find out if their faith was true. They started stating false doctrine that a man wrote and I am like, "Well, anyone can can say anything but I would like God to tell me." Is there anything written by a prophet or apostle? They said no and I could tell this was going no where, so we left.

Our recent convert, the Snows, took us to Salt Grass today. Salt Grass is this super expensive steak house. I got the Rib Eye and it was amazing. It was so full of flavor and I felt bad because it cost a pretty penny. That was a major highlight for two missionaries. We also found out why our investigator, Ashley, didn't show up for the Relief Society dinner yesterday. I guess her boyfriend and her got in a huge fight and when she went to leave to go to the dinner he 'laid his hands on her' and she called the cops. This isn't the first time he's done that. It's been a challenge cause we are trying to help her, but we can't get involved and she keeps asking us what to do. So we're gonna have to involve the bishop and try to solve this mess.

Today we really didn't have anything planned and so we're biking around trying to talk to people outside and there is absolutely no one around. We keep biking around forever and then I see this house with a bunch of pretty decorations and stuff like that. I see a guy come out and then turned around and started to go back in his garage. In my mind I'm like, no imma gonna talk to you. So I zoom down his driveway and right to his garage door (which is open). It's then that I realize that he is having a party and I kinda just crashed it. I'm sitting there and there is about 15 people people-all in swimsuits- and drinking beer-staring at me. So I'm like, "Howdy, y'all! We're your missionaries!" I just start talking to them and they are celebrating Cinco de Mayo (which is weird because they are all white). He offered us some ice beer and we said no. After that the house owner comes and I tell him why we are here and what we share and we got a return appointment with him. 

After that we biked to a recent converts house and she was talking to us about other faiths. She's like, 'Elders, we have gotta go to the 2nd's baptist church before you leave. " She proceeds to tell us that the church is gigantic and it has concerts and laser tag, karate lessons, paintball and a whole bunch of stuff. So us and the recent converts are going to go to it. Man it's fixin to be so fun, ha ha.

We were going to these formers and I found one that seemed really promising but she lives a ways away. So we bike for an hour straight and we come to the richest neighborhood in Kingwood (which is saying something). We find her house and her house is one of the biggest on the street. Like it has to easily be a multi million dollar house. It is right on the river. So we go up to this huge house and it just so happens to be full of cars, so they are probably having a party. We knock on this giant door and this 18 year old girl answers which surprised me, cause I wasn't expecting her. I asked for Michelle (her mom). She goes to get her and she leaves the door open. We look inside and see a huge water slide made outta stone by their huge pool. The house was so fancy and everyone inside who weren't in the pool were wearing super nice clothing. It made us feel under dressed. Her mom comes and she's super nice and says we can come back and sets up a time and day to meet. It was so surprising cause usually rich people aren't that nice to us. She was nice so that was super cool.

Today is Mothers Day and I got to call home and all that good stuff. We had a feast, like man they cooked a lot of steak and chicken. I had a loaded baked potato, and they also had a ton of craw fish-so we ate that, and shrimp. Man it was so good. I got so full! After that we just visited some member's homes. 

Love,
Elder Saunders

This is where we bike and not have to go next to the Busy road- Greenbelt in Kingwood, TX  May 2016

So peaceful taking this trail. It gets really dark at night so our bike lights come in handy. It is not lit up at night.....Kingwood, TX Greenbelt May 2016