Utah St.

Hello!

This week flew by really quickly!! Feels like last pday was yesterday!

Week want tooo interesting. Did find a few people to teach. They aren't too solid however. Both Catholics and are a bit stubborn. One has lots of interest though, at least in learning about us so that is good.

Friday we were going to lunch to chick fil a but my companion wanted chipotle just across the street. So we parked at chick fil a and went to chipotle. On the way back though as we were walking, a guy pulled over in front of us and asked for a Book of Mormon. He got to asking about us and where we were from. I originally told him I was from Utah, but then he told us he's from Wyoming! So I told him I was born in Cody, and that's where he was from!! So we told him we would meet him at chick fil a to talk some more. He got in and we talked about the Book (Dad, he's Jewish  and is fluent in Hebrew) then we got to talking about Wyoming! He lived there till he was sixteen then his family moved to Thermopolis, but still had family in Cody and visited often. He worked at some family owned steakhouse. I don't remember where though I think it was called Cassie's or Kaseys I don't remember.. we talked about all sorts of Wyoming stuff! Apparently there is a car in the reservoir by the dam, and it was his fault haha. He said he was camping but left his car in neutral and it rolled into the water and was lost haha. It was so cool! Too bad we had to refer him though. He loved just outside our mission by humble and was only in Baytown for work. If my companion never wanted to go to chipotle we never would have met the guy!

I was super super sick on Wednesday. Like really sick! Couldn't move or anything without just being in a ton of pain. It got better that night and when I woke up I still felt real sick but was well enough to do stuff. Didn't feel fully better till Friday.

Tuesday was fun. That was the day we went to Utah street and down to the docks. It was a blast! The docks were so cool. It was in a neighborhood and all the houses had properties that led out to the water and they all had their own dock. But there was one that was not owned and without a house. Just a property with a dock so we went and got to look at the bay. It was a cool view from where we were.

Those were the highlights of the week. Not much else has happened. Just working hard! This week we get to go to the temple so that will be great!

Have a good week. Love y'all

"Guys, I'm in Utah!" 

"We build chairs for members"

"On the docks"

"Just Chillin"

Catching Lizards

 Hello hello

Things were good this week! We were able to find some new investigators, none of them are super solid but hopefully that'll change. 

This week wasn't too shabby. There were a few funny things! So on Tuesday we were out finding and we stopped at a some formers house. We knocked and no one answered, and no one appeared to be home. But then something caught our eyes... lizards! There were like ten of them! We decided we wanted to catch some! The only problem is that they were on the man's house and in his bushes. Well we thought he wasn't home so we continued our efforts in trying to catch a lizard. We got one and were going after another when the front door opened. This big black guy was standing there and said, "it's a little weird that y'all are hanging out here by my window." It was so awkward! We just told him we were catching a lizard and left haha! It was pretty funny! 

Elder riches got pink eye this week. Doctor and Sister drake had us stay inside for 24 hours. That's wasn't very fun. But we went to the English elders apartment and that is where we combated a spider problem. They had been having a problem with wolf spiders all over their apartment. So we went in looking for the source! We never found it unfortunately, but we did kill a few other bugs so that was cool. And luckily I have an awesome immune system and didn't get pink eye too!! 

We had zone meeting this week too. It is a treat to get to go out to Pasadena every time for it. It's always fun to get out and about. 

We had our usual basketball tournament service activity. Then that night we had stake conference adult session in broadway. We were pretty close to downtown Houston! At the end of the session, the seventy that was there, Elder Stoddard, called up all the missionaries to the front to answer a question. We all went up and lined up and he got a microphone for us to answer. Elder Martinez and I were at the very end of the line and he walked over to us to start. He came up to us and we looked at him then I looked at Martinez and then pointed at Martinez and patted him on the shoulder. Saying you got this. So he chose Martinez to answer and not me hahaha!! Then he continued down the line randomly choosing missionaries to answer. I got lucky!

That Saturday night we were walking to our apartment and a bunch of frogs were out hopping and gathering by this tree (it had been raining for quite some time before this) there was a puddle by the tree with lots of them in it! So we went and changed then went frog hunting! We caught a lot of frogs! But we let them go. It was fun. 

Sunday, we had stake conference and it was really good. We went with some of our favorite members here and afterwards ate tamales that some members gave us at our apartment. They were pretty good!

Other than that we just worked with members this week and did some finding. Everything is good here!

Have a great week. Love y'all

Battleship Texas

Hi y'all

All is good here in Texas! Didn't get to meet with Nicole. We fasted that someone would listen to us and that Nicole would be there at our lesson, but it fell through so we dropped her. All our appointments with her has fallen through. So annoying. 

We haven't seen Delos in 2 weeks unfortunately! We miss that lil guy. 

Went to Battleship Texas last p-day! It was so fun! We met up with some other Elders and took a tour of the place. It was a legit battleship that had been used in WWII. It was even in the d-day invasion so that was really neat. We got to go in it and all about the deck. Then after we went just on the other side of the park to the memorial. It's a huge monument like the Washington monument. We took an elevator up to the top and got to see a cool view. I finally broke and got a belt buckle. I must be a Texan now weird huh! 

We had zone conference Wednesday in Pasadena. That's about thirty minutes from Baytown and basically Houston. Afterwards we drove back to Baytown and met up with a recent convert from Beaumont, who I had become close friends with last two transfers. He took us out to Cheddars. It was really good! I got a lemon pepper whitetail fillet. Yum! His name is Rudy Ramirez. He is super cool, and actually lives closer to Baytown than Beaumont. About twenty minutes from us and an hour from Beaumont, but how the boundaries work he is in the other branch. He wants to come out with us to teach sometime he is off work! I feel like we will be lifelong friends! 

Riches and I have been working really really hard this transfer...but we are having no success whatsoever. We've tried what we think is everything! But no solid people has come from our hard work. We have gotten so much rejection lately. It's tough. So pray for us that we will find someone who is ready to hear our message! Tuesday we got rejected almost all day. Only got to talk to one person just briefly. 

Riches and I have been obsessed with talking like president Monson. We don't know why we just think it's funny haha. 

Last night our branch put on a fireside for the Elders Quorum. It was set up to be like the school of prophets, a reenactment kinda. They split us up into three groups and we had three classes where our  groups learned all about the priesthood. One we learned about the Aaronic, then the next was  

Melchizedek, then we learned about the oath and the covenant and some other stuff too. It was really cool. President Rascon was there and all sorts of cool stuff! 

Hope y'all have a great week and are doing good. Love you 

6 MONTHS!

Hello hello

I'm doing alright. Knee is doing okay. Wish I could describe what happened it was weird... just walking and it gave out. Sometimes when I run or jump it loosens the patellar tendon and then in turn makes it really easy to dislocate. I didn't injure anything however, pretty used to this injury now so I can tell. But like I was saying there is a surgery where you can get the tendon tightened so it fixes the problem. Maybe after the mish.

We are teaching a few people, no one really solid. Problem with Baytown is we can get a lot of return appointments, but then they always fall through. We have a set appointment this Thursday for a lady named Nicole, pray that it'll happen!!

I wished dad happy birthday, but tell him again. He's getting old!

Well this week was interesting... it went by super super fast! So yesterday we met this guy named Spencer. We were out contacting and I was limping pretty bad, really obvious. So he walks up to us and says he's a power evangelist. And told us Jesus told him one of us had a bad knee and needed to be healed. (he obviously saw me limping) So he asked me if he could try something so I said sure. He then put his foot on my foot and was like you're healed. Then he asked if I was feeling better. I told him nope still hurting and he said he was surprised because he has healed thousands and I was the first to not be healed. That man was crazy!

Wednesday nights we play basketball at the church with the English. It's super fun, everyone comes.

Not much is new this week. It was too exciting!
Love you guys

Asay and I! Small world. (Elder Asay is our brother-in-law's cousin!)

"It's been a good 6 months folks." (Elder Fraley burned a tie in celebration)

Delos

Hello mom! 

Things are great around here. Me and Elder Riches are having a real good time! Being in the Bible Belt is hard at times, I have to be on my toes and know my bible. So that's difficult, but easy at the same time because people think they know what they are talking about, but we regularly prove them wrong, using the Bible so that's funny haha. We dropped the crazy guy. Can't be wasting our time. 

Apologize to my siblings. I get busy on pdays, and distracted. We just have too much fun out here! 

So here is the story with Delos. We were tracting while in some intense rain while we see this little old puppy come follow us around. He was wet and shivering, so I got a rain fly a dried him off a bit got him warm. We had to leave though, so we biked to our apartment and he followed us all the way there. We fed him some hot dogs and built him the house haha. But we let him go that night. The next day we were out tracting again, same place and found him. He came up to us and was suuuper happy to see us so we took him with us haha. Put him in our car and went to chipotle. He was good in the car, actually fell asleep in it. Then we took him to our apartment and chilled with him. He slept out on our back patio. He loves us. But Sunday we let him go again. So I wonder where he is, but when we find him we will feed him some more hot dogs!

When Elder Riches was in the shower on Valentine's Day, I quickly sprang into action. There was a Christmas tree in the closet, bam I began to set it up. I was so fast, threw on ornaments, fluffed it, and set up some presents under the tree. I also set up other Christmas-esque items around the apartment. I then hid in the closet and waited for Riches to get out. When he did I hit the beats. Turned on it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas from my Christmas playlist. It was funny because it was a total surprise. Long story short we are a few months behind on our holidays.

You have seen the video, but I have a thing called the cat counter. It is where I throw a cat on a roof and tally it. When we go to trailer parks I try and find cats that will let be pick them up, and then up they go on the roof. It is super fun, and obviously brightens up our day. And the cats seem to like it, one cat let me do it to him twice haha. 

Elder Riches was really sick this week, so that wasn't too good. But he's better now! 

Thursday is my six month mark as a missionary! We are going to celebrate, and burn a tie to commemorate. Y'all should have a giant party back home in my honor! 

When you next send a package you should send some gift cards too!

I would like to get some things dry cleaned so if maybe I could get some extra money for that, it would be great. I don't know how expensive that is though. 

We are working with a couple people right now, no one is really that solid, but hopefully we can get some progressing. This last week was really good, can't believe this transfer is already week three! It is going by really quick. I hope you guys are well. Have a great week!

The Book of Mormon is TRUE!

Hello mom. Baytown is not too shabby at all. My companion is Elder Riches, he's from California, San Jose. We get along super well. He's super cool and we work real hard here. Baytown is neat, lots of hispanics but they mostly live in the hermanas area so that sucks. Have a car but still bike a lot because we have little miles.

Spending time with family is good, glad to hear it. Dad needs to send me the recipe for the fettuccine Alfredo. I miss it.

This week was a lot of fun. Except there's this one guy that we taught twice. The first time was fine and the second...wow, that was something. So we taught the plan of salvation, and afterwards, extended a baptismal date. When he heard it, he basically said no. He wasn't going to change and then he actually invited us to be baptized in his church. We continued to talk and I felt the impression to say something pretty bold. I was straight up with him and said that I knew that God wanted him to be baptized, and I told him that he could feel it right at that moment. I knew he felt it, because the spirit was extremely strong when I was testifying. But he just would not change. We left sharing our last testimonies and dropped him. But last night he told us that the BOM was a lie and Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet. Called it the grand deception of the world. Or something along those lines. Again, we were super bod and told him he knew our message was true, and could feel it. We knew it, he knew it, and God knew it and that he would be held accountable for denying it. I'm grateful because I learned the importance of listening to promptings and being bold.

Some people just are crazy. No mere man could have written the Book of Mormon. It is another testament of Jesus Christ and I know of its truthfulness. And I will never deny it.

Have a good week! Hopefully next week I will have more updates. Love y'all

Aaron and Taylor or Elder Riches and I?

Below are the pics of Aaron for comparison. Haha

Squirrel huntin

Doing Service at a basketball tournament and riches got to Ref!

Fancy Mexican parties do exist