Exchanges

I’m a little bummed to be missing the olympics. At least I got to see the summer games before I left. We have mattress covers because of bed bugs. It’s a problem down here. In just a few days I’ll hit the exact six month left mark. On the 15th. I’m pretty excited. Time has flown by. 

This week wasn’t too crazy and sadly I don’t think I have too much to write about. Who knows though, maybe I’ll write a lot.

Monday Elder Barnum hurt his ankle so we spent the evening in the doctors office. Sister Hewlett did take us out to eat though. We went to carrabbas. I had some good salmon. Doctors orders... my comp can’t do anything for 2 weeks. The mission cleared it too so looks like I’ll be spending a lot of my time in the apartment.. gross! Luckily this past week we did a lot of stuff, and the other Elders saved me by going on exchanges.

This week I went on exchanges with both Elder Taylor and Elder Riches. Both times were super fun! On my exchange with Elder Taylor, it was his birthday! We all went together to a Chinese place. Then that night I took him to the Fuentes and the surprised him with decorations and a cake. We had flautas and the cake was really tasty. We had a good district meeting too. I gave another segment. It’s fun to plan them with Elder Riches. We have a good time doing it. Friday night we had a Valentines party at the church too. There was some good food there. On Saturday we saw Daniel, who came down from Oklahoma. We went to a members birthday dinner too.

Sunday was a good one. After church we ate with the tenorios like usual. They always have something really tasty there.

Other than that I sadly don’t have anything exciting to write about. Hope y’all have a good week!

"Got Elder Taylor on his birthday, but he got revenge!" 

"Los Chulitos"  

Splits and good food

Hello!

My week was a good one! I’ve enjoyed the pictures. Keep on sending
pictures of what’s going on. Sad to hear about great granny. But she’s
in a better place now. I heard the Eagles won the super bowl. That’s
good. I hate the patriots. I got the card in the mail! Thank you mom!
I’m going to enjoy some chick fil a! Transfers are in a few weeks.
It’s week 4 in the transfer so two more to go.

Last Monday was sooooo good! Elder Riches got a new companion. His
name is Elder Taylor and he came halfway through the transfer because
he got injured in the MTC and then he came back out. He’s brand new
and super cool. We played lots of games at the church which was fun.
After that Elder Riches and Taylor came with us to a family home
evening at Carmen’s. It was so fun and the Fuentes family came too. We
had a blast!

Tuesday, Elder Taylor and Elder Vandermark where with us all day
because their companions were in a district leader meeting all day. We
did some service and helped a lady move their house, ate tons of
pizza. Afterwards we headed over to Carmen’s, taught her, and then ate
pupusas. By this time the meeting was over so Riches and the zone
leaders and everyone came over to eat pupusas together. I was so full.
I ate way too much. After that we went to mutual.

Wednesday we did more service in the morning. They bought us pizza
again too. After that we visited some people and had a soccer game
that night. I scored some goals it was super fun. That day the zone
leaders broke their car so they were stuck in Cloverleaf and couldn’t
go anywhere. We were the only ones with a car so we lent it to them.
That night it was way too late and we were all stuck in Cloverleaf so
we had to have a huge sleepover with the zone leaders. It was fun!

Thursday we  took the zone leaders to their car when it was finished
and then we had breakfast with a member. It was good and I ate lots.
After that we did studies and visited some people. That night we ate
over at the Fuentes family. They make the best Salvadorian food. Then
we went on exchanges and Elder Taylor came with me.

Friday morning we had district Training. That’s a training the zone
leaders give our district once a transfer. It was good! After that we
went to lunch. So before lunch I placed my iPad on a seat in the car.
Someone wanted to sit there so they took it off and placed it on the
hood. I however did not know it was on the hood so I drove off. We got
all the way to mod pizza, 20 minutes away, and I noticed it was gone.
I was so upset. We ate real fast and went looking for it. I used find
my iPad and sent a message to my iPad saying it was lost. Minutes
later someone called me and told me they found in in the middle of a
busy road but that it was all fine. When I got it back nothing was
wrong with it! The case is even more banged up but the iPad is fine.
That case was a good investment.

Saturday we went to Salvador’s soccer game again. It was fun and we
sat by his dad. His dad is hilarious. A member took us out to chick
fil a after and then we had some studies. We went on splits and Elder
Riches and I blitzed their area. We hiked around in the freezing rain
for two hours. I was soaking wet but we were able to find some new
investigators. That night we went to mod pizza again. That place is so
good!

Sunday we had church and it was super fun. After we all ate with a
family and had some good chicken and rice. We had to take the other
Elders a few places. I felt like a taxi driver. Other than that we
didn’t do much.

I definitely gained weight this week! We ate way too much food. The
week was a good one! We had lots of fun. Love y’all!

"The homies"

Ice Cream Parlor

Hello!

We were on Carmen’s roof taking down Christmas lights. Her daughter was snap chatting us so I had her send one to Aaron haha. I’m excited to go to various restaurants with dad. Riches is going to BYU so he will be close. He already says he’s coming over every day so be ready  it was actually a hamster that I was holding. It was cool! 

Last Monday was terrible! I won’t go into details but I just had the worst pday of my life. Just absolutely a wreck... that night though I left on exchanges with Elder Thomas so Tuesday was a good one.

Tuesday I was in Galena Park with Elder Thomas. It’s a weird area for sure... that morning we had a lesson with some crazy lady in a sketchy neighborhood. It ate up most of our morning because it was a little further of a drive. I cooked up some bomb sandwiches for lunch though! They were so good. We had some good studies together too. Their neighbors are really loud and obnoxious. We were eating and all of a sudden all these loud noises came from their house. Ghetto areas are crazy. That afternoon we tried lots of people which was fun! We went to mutual that night like usual and exchanged back there. 

Wednesday wasn’t too bad. It was actually one of my favorite days in the mission. We visited Lupe in the morning and that was fun. We ate lunch and then went over to the Fuentes. We went with hermano to his son's soccer game. I’m really close with that family so it was a blast! We also went because a lot of the kids on the team are our investigators. We’ve given most of them Book of Mormons. We sat next to an investigator too. Darwin. Unfortunately Salvador and his team lost. It was a good game though. After we ate at their house and had rice with meat and avocado. It was tasty. Then we hurried down to pine trails and took Riches to a lesson. While they were teaching we went to the park and had our weekly soccer game. Good day. We went on exchanges afterwards. I went with Riches.

Thursday was super fun!!! We went on exchanges so Riches and I could plan the district meeting for the next day. We stayed up late talking Wednesday night and so we were tired in the morning haha. We spent most of the day planning but we had good studies and visited some people. We bought these cool hats for our district meeting. I’ll explain later. We had dinner with a super cool family too, the Rendons. Other than that we not much happened! 

Friday was also in my top days on the mission. We started by going to district meeting. I gave a funny segment in the first part. After that we got to the fun part... so the topic was creating spiritual baptismal services for our investigators (the assistants come up with the driest ideas... annoying). Because we had a lame topic, we decided to make it fun! I came up with the idea to have a fake ice cream parlor! The hats we bought said "dragon" on them and have cool Chinese writing so we customized them with sharpies, and wrote the names of everyone in the district on them so we would all look like workers. We had ice cream and different toppings. They would receive an “order” and would have to create an ice cream sundae based on what the investigators would like in their baptismal service. We assigned each part of the service a different topping so it turned out to be some tasty ice cream! For example, I got an order for a guy who wanted hymns, a special musical number, or whatever. I would start by scooping some Ice cream and then add toppings accordingly. It was super fun and everyone loved it. After district meeting was over we served the other district some ice cream! I’ll include pictures. After district meeting Elder Riches and I went on splits and taught Carmen and her daughter! It was super fun. She’s such an awesome member already. She’s always bearing her testimony and it’s funny because she is always pushing members to do their best haha. She’s going to be the relief society president one day. After that we all went and ate with the Fuentes. It was sooo fun! We played games and ate hamburgers. They are my favorite family here! 

Saturday we did some service in the morning. We helped some people move some things. After that we had lunch. It was good. That afternoon nothing happened really. No one really would talk to us. Oh well. Life goes on.

Sunday was super good too!! Church was awesome and Carmen came as usual. She’s sooo cool. The gospel principles class was good as well. The other Elders had lots of investigators at church so it was good for them. After church we ate dinner with the Tenorios. We had meat and rice with juice of tamarind. It was tasty stuff. After that we drove allllll the way to Kingwood with a member for a monthly mission presidents fireside. We invite investigators, less actives, and recent converts to hear some awesome talks. It was really good and i saw lots of friends. It’s crazy, the hermana that came out with me goes home in 3 weeks... time has flown by! 

This week was super good. I hope you all have a good one! Love you guys!

"I bet you can't find me..."

"Riches' mom sent me bread!!"

"photo shoot"

Add caption

"We hit up a member's high school soccer game. Super fun."

"Ice cream parlor district meeting!"

Feeling better!

Hey guys! 

The window broke in the cold weather. We were picking up a hoodie that another Elder made for me and I rolled down the window and it just wouldn’t roll back up! So we drove out to Kroger and bought stuff to shield us from the freezing cold. When it is humid, and cold, here it gets freeeeezing! We got probably less than an inch of snow.. it was more like ice anyways. My foot is almost all the way better. It’s still sore. My week went by really fast. We couldn’t really do anything due to the cold weather. I definitely will hangout with friends from the mission. The group I came out with is all really close so I will hangout with them a lot. Definitely Riches too. Probably Riches the most. We already have so many plans. My favorite fast food place is probably Chick Fil A. It’s so good. 

Last Tuesday was p day and it was a crazy one... there was sleet and all the roads iced over. No one here knows how to drive on it either so they were all going 10 miles per hour haha. It was cool. It was super cold too. That night is when our window froze shut. It was a pain driving back with no window. Super cold and noisy. 

Wednesday morning we took our car over to Firestone to get it fixed. We were there for forever..... we walked over to chick fil a because we didn’t have a car. We ate lunch and then walked around some more. There was a sports clips so I bought some hair product. I was super low. We walked around and then waited the rest of the time in firestone. Only one guy there could fix the windows so we waited a long time for him to show up to work. We were there for 5 hours.. after that we went to dinner and had soccer again. I didn’t play much. 

Thursday we visited some people. Went to Lupe's and visited Carmen as well. Other than that nothing really happened. It was a slow day. 

Friday we had district meeting. I always help Riches come up with good ideas. Lol. I gave the purpose, which is a little segment each district meeting on what our purpose means. I took us on a little safari and related animals to different parts of our purpose (like charity, working with members, unity, obedience, etc.) it was hilarious and our district was laughing so hard. I even had a cool safari hat. I also came up with the idea to play jeopardy with our district meeeting topic. The topic was about the baptismal interview questions so we put together different questions related to it. I drew it up on the board and it was super fun. It’s funny because I’m not even the district leader, I just like coming up with fun activities to do with Riches. We always are planning something crazy together. After that we met with Carmen again. We taught one of her kids that wasn’t baptized. Her name is Julianne. She’s coming along. She just is praying about baptism. We have a date for her so pray that she will follow through. Carmen fed us too. She’s awesome. 

Saturday was the worst. Nothing happened that day. No success so boring. Just one of those days. A member did take us out to eat so that was a life saver. 

Sunday was super good! It was ward conference and it was amazing. We had meetings in the morning which were good. The ward needed the help from the stake. Lots of people showed up to sacrament. Lots of people. President Rascon asked Carmen to share her testimony too and she did. It was sooo good! She’s already a missionary too! She invited her friend to church. She’s already such a good member. She got sooo many compliments. During second hour a guy from the stake had me explain something to everyone.. that was cool. Don’t remember what I said but people said it was fire haha.  We ate with the Tenorios. It was good as usual. 

This week was pretty good! Have a good one. 

"Hi Mom!"

"Window broke..."

Half Alive

Man I am half alive ... I am staying here another one so that’s cool. We weren’t able to find anyone this week. I’ve been way too sick. The weather here sucks right now... it’s like snowing ice it’s the worst. Everything is shutting down. People here don’t know how to deal with the cold... it’s 28 degrees right now. 

Last Monday wasn’t too great. Nothing really happened. Just the same old same old pday. Kinda boring if you ask me. 

Wednesday night is when it began... we were playing indoor soccer and there was this metal fixture thing right next to the ball. The ball was covering it so I couldn’t see.. I kicked as hard as I could and bam there goes my foot. It hurt sooo bad! I played a little longer before the pain really set in. That night I couldn’t sleep at all. The pain was next to dislocating my knee, of which I am far too familiar with. So when I woke up I called our nurse and told her about it. We set up a doctors appointment for 4 o clock. 

Waiting for the doctor was the worst! That’s when the flu symptoms started to settle in... I started loosing all of my energy and was really light headed and freezing. Finally 4 came and we headed to Kingwood. On the drive I got a really bad fever. We got there and I had an x ray and everything. After that we drove to presidents house and he got us dinner. I was laying on his couch freezing cold and he brought me a new blanket and tucked me in hahahahaha  it was hilarious! He said, "you’re just like one of my little boys!” It was super funny. We left and that’s when I called you guys. We went to the pharmacy but there was a problem where they put the wrong date of birth so it took forever to get my meds. Once I got home I popped some pills and knocked out. We didn’t get home till 9. 

Friday I woke up with some pain still but most of my flu symptoms where gone. Some was still there but not much. I was supper groggy all day and had 0 energy. We just chilled and rested. Didn’t go to district meeting because of it. My foot still hurt though. Couldn’t walk still. An Elder brought me crutches though so that was cool. And you guys already know I’m a crutch pro so that made things easy. 

Saturday I felt so much better. We went to the doctor again and I was in and out in 5 min. The swelling and everything miraculously went down and I was fine enough to hobble around. 

Sunday was good. Carmen’s daughter came to church so that was super good. Other than that though not much happened.

Big Baptism Day

Hey guys! 

This week was nuts! Yeah that was Carmen and two of her kids that we baptized. My week was super good. The weekend was so crazy stressful though.. I’ll get to that later. We actually did have snow again. It was kinda like snow rain though. Kinda weird. We had a super freezing cold front for a few days. It was so cold... not used to it. What’s an insta pot? Transfers are next week. I’ll find out Saturday if I’m leaving or not. It’s pretty 50/50. I could stay or go. I am 50/50 on my feelings about it too. I don’t care if I go or stay. Both have their pros and cons. We just baptized three of our investigators so right now we only have one solid one and a bunch of potentials. I’ve been sick too. My body has really taken a toll lately! I feel like an old man. My joints are terrible. I’ve had a slight cough and runny nose for a while now. 

Last Monday was actually pretty boring. We did our morning routine with the English Elders. We tried to eat somewhere but everywhere was closed... we live in the rich part so I guess that’s why. As soon as we went down to the ghetto everything was open haha. We went to the church and played ping pong. We had some ping pong tournaments and I came in second place. I’m pretty good. You all should get a ping pong table. 

Tuesday we ate with the Rodriguez family and they taught me some Mexican dances it was super fun. We had mutual too and that was cool. We played chair soccer.

Wednesday was an interesting day. At around 2 we got a call from Elder Montesino down in Denver harbor saying that he broke his ankle. He’s in a bike area and needed a ride all the way up in Kingwood. We were in the northern part of our area so we were really far...we picked them up and drove up to Kingwood for his appointment at 5. We got there at 4:50. He did his thing, luckily it was just sprained, and then went to dinner with the mission nurse. Then we drove all the way back down to Denver harbor and took them to a pharmacy. Then to their house. After that we drove all the way back to our house in Summerwood. We got home at 9:45... that’s a long time to drive. I was driving and drove 130 miles that day haha... I drew a visual representation for you guys and will send the picture. In the picture the black is our beginning, driving to get him and then to Kingwood. The red line is our return trip. It was long and tiring... 

Thursday was just as nuts. We had a lesson with Carmen and we decided to focus on the kids because she wanted to wait to be baptized so they could understand. So we taught them the restoration and after Daniel, the boy, told us he wanted to be baptized. We were all shocked. So then Carmen did the unthinkable. She told us that she wanted to be baptized with her kids because they were ready. We pulled out a calendar and I tried to set the date for the 13th but she insisted on this Saturday. We said okay.. that means we had two days to pull it off. Afterwards we made some calls, set up a Facebook event and everything. Super stressful

Friday we were scrambling all day long. We had to go over and teach Carmen’s kids everything before they were baptized. We had a mega lesson that lasted for forever. Elder Riches came with and did the baptismal interviews right there too to save time. We made pupusas though! After we set up the baptismal program and invited everyone. It was nuts. We were super stressed out.

Saturday we finally had the baptism. We had a hard time finding them baptismal clothes but finally got some the right size. Lots of people came and it turned out really well. They loved it. The spirit was super strong. We had cookies afterwards and that was a huge stress reliever to have it over with. It’s not easy setting up a baptism for three people in 2 days. 

Sunday was really good. We had church at 11 now. Carmen and her kids were confirmed and they were awesome. We had a good second and third hour too. After church we had dinner and tried some people. That weekend was crazy. 

My week was good. Hope y’all have a good one. Love y’all 

Here is the visual representation of our drive on Wednesday 

Happy New Year!

Hey guys!! 

 My week was good! Pretty chill. Not much happened. Yeah the call was loud. Everyone was talking at the same time. Today is pday. Pdays on holidays are the worst! Everything is closed we can’t do anything. I got the brace. It works way better than my other ones! The house was amazing! I loved it. I’m excited. 

Monday was good. Christmas was a fun day. We passed out stuff to the homeless and went to eat. Calling yall was good. When Riches called his family I sat next to him and the first thing they said when they joined the call was, "hey it’s Elder Fraley!” They are awesome. They are going to send me a loaf of bread haha. 

Tuesday we didn’t have much. We had a lesson with Carmen in the evening but other than that it was slow. The holidays are rough because everyone is out of town.

Wednesday we were in firestone alllllll day! Our car had a problem and they were fixing it for forever! Luckily a member owned pizza place was near by so we walked there and ate there. We played soccer after that and all was well in car world. 

Thursday we had weekly planning and it was alright. Nothing happened that day. We had another lesson with Carmen and it went pretty good. 

Friday we had district meeting. I gave a segment on extending baptismal dates. It was so hilarious. I played different characters and they each explained a step. It was funny. I’ve never seen the hermanas laugh so hard haha. After we went on exchanges and I was with Elder Patton. We visited some people and hermano Rodriguez fed us! 

Saturday there was a baptism from the hermanas. We went to that and it was really good! Carmen couldn’t make it though so that was a bummer. We prepped for Sunday too and made some calls. 

Sunday was awesome! Carmen and her family came to church again. They loved it! They feel apart of the church now. After church we went and ate with the other Elders. We didn’t have a dinner that night though. That was rough. We stayed up till 12... drank martenellis and then went right to bed haha. There was some cool fireworks here too. 

This week was pretty good actually. I enjoyed it! Love you guys!