Today While The Sun Shines, Work With A Will

Monday, May 23, 2016                                                Kingwood, TX 

" Today started out as challenging. My companion and I didn't get along and so it made for a long day. I led out today and we ended up teaching two lessons and we got 1 new investigator. After the last lesson we were biking to dinner at a members home. After dinner we played with these stick things and the member said he could order some if we paid him back, so I'm thinking about it. I'll take a video when I get good enough!

So a member in our ward has a son whose girlfriend came back from college. Three years ago, the missionaries taught her everything but she wasn't sure about it so she said, no. Well flash forward to now and she has read the whole Book of Mormon, twice, read all of the Doctrine & Covenants. She is thinking about being baptized! We recapped everything and she knew everything. She asked us questions like, "Why didn't the blacks have the Priesthood and polygamy and other things. So we explained those things to her and she understood. We committed her to be baptized in a week! She agreed even though she seemed to still be a bit unsure.

We went and helped a member's friend (who is a non-member) do a garage sale/move, today. We went over and helped move stuff and we see this huge anti Mormon book in her bookshelf, so I stealthy grabbed the book and put it in a bag with a bunch of other garbage and threw it away. We helped her out for awhile and then she was done so we rode home.

Elder Moos hopped in the shower and I am sitting in my street clothes watching church videos on my i pad. I am still in my street clothes and I get a knock on the door. So I answer and it's a package for me so I sign and take the package and remember that I didn't have my tag on. I felt so weird knowing that I just answered the door and that person just thought I was an average person. I then put the package down and there was a knock at the door again. I answer the door and see a guy and a girl about mid 50's and I didn't know who they were. The guy looked at me surprised and said, "Hi, Elder. (and immediately I thought, crap, this looks bad. I am in street clothes and it is 2:00 in the afternoon and they know I'm a missionary). So I stand up straight and say hello. They tell me they are there for apartment inspections! I'm like okay. Our apartment is quite a mess at that point. What's funny is that me and Elder Moos knew it and talked about it today and agreed to clean it tomorrow. So now I am here in my messy apartment, in street clothes, and my companion is in the shower! Of course they inspect what they can see cause they don't want to go into the bedroom in case my companion comes out of the bathroom. They chastise me, and just me, cause I am the only one there. They tell me to clean the apartment. I did what I do best and started to talk to them and made friends and at the end they changed our rating from a 3 to an 8, with the exception that we actually clean it tomorrow. So I get that mess figured out and we head out. It's as humid as heck and I am soaked. We bike around these mansions and people don't really like us, but we contacted all day and got nothing.

On Friday, Elder Snow came and spoke to us. He was President of the Seventy, and now he got called to be the church's historian. What is funny is that I met him in Port Arthur a couple of transfers ago when he spoke in their Sacrament meeting. But....I didn't know who he was. I shook his hand and spoke to him and I thought he was just a member of the stake presidency, haha.

We ended our week with another rough day. At the end we taught a kid and we battled with a guy who told me that my faith was false and as the bible says,"I'm putting a millstone around my neck and I'm drowning myself in an ocean of (outer darkness) for the things that I believe. I didn't go down without a fight. My rule is I never argue unless a person attacks what I know to be true. Eventually we had to go home and I made amends with him and we biked home in the dark. 

Love,
Elder Saunders

Picture of one of the fountains in Kingwood. Someone put bubbles in it. May 2016

Mansion in Kingwood, TX May 2016

Every things big in TX-even some of the homes.... May 2016

turtle invasion! May 2016 in Kingwood TX

Tons of turtles.....

and more turtles!...

**note from Mom and Dad-I asked him to send more pictures when we got the bubble picture.... Well, he sent pictures... first a big squirrel. next a huge black bird, and then many turtles, Ha ha. Son, we just wanted more pictures of you...