He Will Heal Us....

Mon, Sept 19, 2016                                                                    Beaumont, TX

" I've been pretty sick this transfer, which makes it that I've had more sick days on my mission than healthy days. In each of my areas I have had at least 2 sore throats which then evolved into a full blown cold, except for the MTC. I did have food poisoning there and then a cold. So yeah, fun fun. I blame it on the air quality down here but anyways here we go.

So I went on exchanges this week. We start off our day by trying to mow this lady's lawn. We decide to mow the backyard first. So we go to the gate and it's locked. We called the owner and she said to go through the garage. She told us that there's two dogs in the back yard. My companion opens the garage halfway and the dogs are in the garage, so he quickly closes it so they don't escape. He then decides to jump the fence so he climbs the fence. The dogs run around to where he is and start jumping at him and kinda nipping. Eventually he is able to get off the fence and he goes to the garage while I try to distract them. I hop the fence. The dogs are going crazy and jumping on us and all sorts of things. We got the lawn mower out and then we managed to get the dogs in the garage and literally barricade it closed. We're trying to start the mower and the dogs are pounding on the door. We realized that there is no gas in the mower! So we open the garage again and the dogs attack us again. We put them in the backyard and barricade us inside the garage. I have to hold the door cause the dogs are pushing it open. It honestly felt like I was defending against a zombie apocalypse. We found out that they forgot to get gas so we left. 

The next day we taught this kid who was high which I contacted him and he has all gold teeth. He is pretty sweet, tho. At least he said he wants more of his friends to be taught by us. 

On the following day we were trying to find this former investigator but she wasn't home. We contacted this couple outside her door who told us to come back in an hour. We came back an hour later and they were still gone, but we contacted another couple of guys outside that same door. We actually taught them and they said we could come back on the weekend. We found out from the guy we taught that the former we went to see was his wife and that the couple we contacted was his grandson and his girlfriend. So we taught the whole family that day.

Lastly on Sunday we taught at a Presbyterian church. It was pretty sweet! We had a class of about 30 . We taught them about the restoration and then we answered their questions for another 30 min. It was super good though cause some of them had crazy ideas!
Love,
Elder Saunders

**note from parents:  We did not receive any pictures so I googled some and found out the following" He kept telling us that he was one of the few missionaries that served in the golden triangle. Beaumont is one of the major petro-chemical refining areas. Along with Port Arthur and Orange, Beaumont forms the golden triangle-a major industrial area. He is one of the few missionaries that has served in the golden triangle(each of these areas). Maybe this is a big reason why he is sick so much?

Oil refineries and the Port of
Beaumont

A scripture that comforts us when we heard  he has been sick so much is the following in the Bible, Exodus 23:25: "And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and they water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. "

God Did This.....

Monday, Sept 12, 2016                                                   Beaumont, TX

"Today we taught Debra again and she is so solid. She agreed with everything in the plan of salvation. She still works on Sundays so we are working with that so she can get baptized. After that we taught this person named Jessica and man it was one of the hardest lessons I've ever taught. Not because she was a bible scholar, not because she was hard headed, not cause she didn't want to talk to us, but because of her kids. I have never heard so much crying in one lesson. It was crazy. It was so hard to teach and we felt so bad for her because she kept apologizing cause she couldn't focus. It was bad so we ended up getting a return appointment at 8:00 am so that one of the kids will be at school and the other will be asleep. 

We had a powerful lesson with Stan and he said that he could see himself getting baptized in our church. He's also said that he has had visitations and in one of them an angel told him that he would use his hands to spread the gospel. He told us that he thinks it very well could be that he needs to be baptized and ordained so he can have the priesthood so he could use his hands to bless people. That is super cool but he's still cautious about joining until he knows it's right, but he's gotten a lot closer. 

A couple of days after that we started our day by teaching a lesson at 8:00 am to Jessica again. We went in to teach her and she is amazed and saying how we were sent by God and all of that. She would stop us mid phrase so she could say a prayer of thanks to God for having us over. It was a great lesson.   

After that we went to zone meeting and then stopped by our investigator, Homer, and taught him. The we went to a less active family called the Collins. We created a stop smoking plan. At the end of the day we stopped by our investigator Stan again. His sweet wife is having a lot of medical problems so that's hard. We're trying to get him to know the gospel is true and that becoming a member can help him through it and he is slowly coming along. After that we got a call from Jessica and she told me that she didn't want us by anymore and that she was going to stick to the Bible. So apparently she got 'antied' pretty bad, so that's sad especially after our sweet lesson. But a scripture that popped into my head was Galatians 1:6, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel." It fits so perfectly with her situation so that was frustrating. 

We started off our day by giving a blessing. We went with a member who is a doctor. So we get into the hospital and he uses his pass to get into all the doors. I felt like I was part of the CIA! Everyone was staring at us and all of us wearing suits, haha. It was great. After that he bought us chick-fil-a and then we had a lesson that fell through. We biked to Jamari's house and we met his friend who has been feeding Jamari all his crazy ideas. 

We knocked on this house with this banner. I thought it was cool and wanted to take a picture with it. 
Love,
Elder Saunders

Loved this banner: 'God did this" He trusts me to share the gospel and bring souls to Christ.  God did this and I will be forever grateful. Beaumont, TX Sept 2016

                                                                               

Book of Mormon, Biking and Bibles in Beaumont....

Monday, Sept 5, 2016                                                         Beaumont, Texas

"Today is Elder Anderson's birthday, so Brother Hall took us to Kolachi Factory. After the birthday lunch we went to the church and played some games and then we had dinner with the Millers. After dinner we played cards with Bro. Hall.

On Tuesday we went to Fudruckers with Jane and then we taught Stan. It was a super good lesson. We had another appointment with a guy named Sam. He is from the Church of Christ and unfortunately he wanted to bash us for nearly an hour. Every issue he brought up we answered, but he probably could only answer half of our questions. We then went to one of our investigators house and actually helped his daughter with her math homework, so that was kinda different. We had dinner with this less active family and after that we taught them the plan of salvation. He is really hard headed and wouldn't change, so that was a bummer.

Wednesday we were biking and it was super hot. We looked over as we were biking and saw this old grandma struggling to mow her lawn, so we biked over and I asked her if I could finish. She said no, that's okay. She went to get some water and I waited until she was inside and I grabbed the mower and started to mow her lawn. When she came out, my companion started to talk to her. It was even better cause she lives on one of the busiest streets in our area, so there was so many people who saw this missionary mowing someones lawn in the heat of the day, wearing church clothes.
One person even stopped by and took a pic of me. We also taught this person named Debra. She is a referral and she is solid. We came in and she was already reading the Book of Mormon. So we taught her and she is so open, it was amazing. Only problem is that she works on Sunday, so that may be a bit of a problem but we will work it out. 

We went to Golden Corral today and then we did some weekly planning. We then did our Hour of Power and as we were biking, we see this group of 5 really big African American guys chilling off the road a bit, so my thought process was-Why not? So I biked up to them and all of them are staring at me. I tried to break the ice and started asking them questions and shook all their hands and they were legit! Apparently they were having a party that was about to start, cause all these cars start pulling in. The group I was talking to turned from five guys to twelve guys real quick and they are all big guys. It was pretty chill and I started contacting them and they are answering questions and making jokes. One of then tried to bash us and got mad when we answered him. So he told us to leave and one of my homies taps him on the shoulder and tells him to go and start the fire. So he leaves and we are still contacting them and I even invited all of them to be baptized. They were surprised but hey we planted a seed.  

So after that we contacted this referral that ordered a Bible. We gave it to her and she was so happy. Then we explained the Book of Mormon and she was even happier. We shared a quick message and got a return appointment. As we started to leave, her husband came out-completely wasted. He started cussing up a storm and told us to get off his property. I started to talk to him and he's like, "Don't talk to me. Y'all are Mormons and we are Baptists. We don't mix." I was like, "Well they do if you have the right recipe." Probably not the best thing to say to a drunk guy cause he was slurring his words and then he grabbed his wife and took her inside. She came back out and gave us both the Book of Mormon and the Bible back and said she was sorry but it's not worth the fighting. So that was super sad. After that we biked to this part member families house and we taught them and they are super solid, too.

We started off our day by our recent convert dropping off ice cream to us-sweet! We went and tried to contact a referral who wanted a Bible. So we got into the complex and we knocked on the door and....nothing. So we saw this African American guy sitting on his balcony with his shirt off and he was smoking and drinking and wearing a hat backwards. We go and talk to him and he is freaken sweet. We start talking and he's legit. He agrees with everything and even went off on his own topic that was actually doctrinally sound. After we taught him, we asked when we could stop by and talk to him again. He's like, "Well, I have to go pick up my girlfriend from her job. Wanna come with me and then y'all can teach both of us after that?" So we find he doesn't have a car so we walk with him 2 miles to pick up his girl and then we walk back with her and teach them both. They both were really solid and it was so cool. 

Today we moved three people out back to back. We started at 9 and finished all of them at 3:30. We had a late lunch and the we got a new investigator at the laundry place.

Love, 
Elder Saunders

He didn't send a picture this time-but we were so blessed when Sue's phone went off and a sweet member had sent this to us. 'Eating dinner at the McDuffs. He sure is a sweet guy."  Sept 2016 in Beaumont, TX.