Sweet Is The Work

Mon, Jun 27, 2016                                                                Kingwood, Texas

"Yesterday, Darren called us. He is an inactive member, but is super cool. He asked us if we could help him out cause his house got flooded. We tell him yes and he said he would pick us up tomorrow at 11:00. So he picked us up and the first thing he does is buy us lunch. After lunch we are driving to his house and we  ask if his two daughters are baptized and he says, no. The he proceeds to give us hints that he still knows it's true, but he just isn't living the right life to come back. He told us that his biggest fear is that when he dies, God will look at him and tell him, "Darren, you traveled halfway across the world to teach people the gospel(he is a returned missionary) , but you didn't even teach your own kids."

We get to his house and he has already gutted everything out. He brings out this sideways jackhammer to remove the tile. His house is not that small of a house. He turns on the oldies country station and grabs gatorades, and water and Dr. Peppers and puts them in the cooler. We started to work and it took over 5 hours with a couple of breaks to finish. He told us funny story after funny story. He wanted to take us out to dinner but another family signed up for today, so he's feeding us tomorrow!

We taught Michaela for the first time since her baptism, cause she was on vacation to Greece. When she came back we started to teach her new member lessons. When we saw her she had more light in her eyes and looked different than she had before and acted different, too. The cool thing is that her boyfriend (who is a member) has been coming to Gospel Principles with her every week. He said that since she got baptized, he has felt happier and feels a greater connection with the church. It has been really cool to see them change.

We found out that one of our converts, Jennifer, had slipped and broken her ankle a couple of days ago. So they signed up to feed us today and her husband Clay drove us to this New York style pizza place. He bought us this really good but expensive pizza from this small corner shop that was packed with people. Like you had to fight for a table. We were constantly having to say sorry cause people were trying to get around you. 

Clay says, "Man, this shop right here has literally been my life since Jennifer broke her ankle. It's been so crazy, and I just want the calm again." I just wanted to tell him, "Clay, you just got baptized... Sorry, man. It only gets harder from here on out." But we just told him that we would stop by and share a message or send him a text to uplift him. He was super thankful that we would do that.

Today we had an appointment at the edge of our first area, first thing in the morning. We biked and it was super hot and humid at 8:00 am, like what the heck? We finally make it there and their home so we go in and they are pretty solid and everything goes great. After we biked home and it was even hotter. I literally had sweat pouring from me. 

We then went to a non members house and helped her paint a room. Man, painting is hard! Like who knew? It is a lot more work than I thought. We planned to go back and she told us that when we come back, we could share with her our message if we wanted to. Of course we said, yes. The bad thing is that she is moving in a couple of months. The good thing is that she could be baptized in a couple of weeks, so yeah.....We're killing it right now!

So today I woke up and as I was getting outta bed, I felt a little different. I then got a prompting to take one of my Vitamin C packets. My first thought was Dang it! I'm fixin to get sick. Sure enough within 4 hours I had a full blown sore throat. I suffered through that and it's about 7 p.m. and we have a lesson scheduled. We are teaching this family and it is going good and then my nose starts to run. By this point I am sick of it. Like I can deal with a sore throat and a stuffy nose but not a runny nose. Many tissues later we somehow made it through the lesson. 

Love,
Elder Saunders aka 'The Cowboy Down Yonder' 
*note from mom and dad-no pictures this week. He must really be sick.... *