Tuesday, Feb. 23

Last week was a weird week. Elder Bowe got sick, I pulled out my back again, and we only had one lesson the entire 3 days we went to Fernley. Plus we are both just getting super tired. We did teach the Ugaldes (parents of the family we had dinner with last night – see below – and grandparents of the ultra smart 5 yr old girl...wife member, husband not). It was good. Hermano Ugalde has a lot of questions and doesn't really believe much about the church, but his wife is persistent. We are making progress there.

This week, started off pretty well. We had a great dinner with the Ugalde family last night. It was a super good dinner though and we helped them work through some stuff going on in their lives that has been really hard. Then we went over to a member’s house who asked us to drop by and we found out that he was holding a combined family home evening with another member family...which was super cool because this guy used to be kind of pretty far off the path. So, that was a really good night over all.

On Monday, P-day, we boxed with Hermano Quiros. That was fun. We learned form and worked hard. Then we went and played kickball with the other elders, the sisters, and a bunch of members (mostly the sister’s converts; they've had a baptism almost every weekend since I've been here). That was pretty fun too. While we were there I practiced my Frolf throws with a couple discs elder Bowe had from when he was playing a lot in Tahoe. Oh, we also cleaned and rearranged the apt. It was a way solid day. Library was closed so we couldn't do email, so that gave us a little more time.

Yes, Fallon is where the naval air base is that’s in “Top Gun.” Where we live, we hear planes a decent amount. It’s kind of like where grandma and grandpa are [near Luke Air Force Base in Arizona], except you hear a little this than that. They don’t usually fly very low.

This week we got a call from Laura y Arturo telling us that they were going to have to cancel our lesson this week. On the surface, that’s a low point, but when you realize that somebody actually calling to cancel an appointment means that they are pretty dang interested it starts to become a high point. But this one gets better. She also told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon and the Restoration pamphlet that we left her and really likes it. She also said they had to cancel because they were going to California to visit her sister...who is a member of the Church, and that they were planning on going to church with her. Hopefully they did. We will probably find out later today, and should have a lesson with them tomorrow.

We also met a new investigator this week. We are not positive but are pretty sure her name is Diana (couldn’t really remember when we left...not good haha). She is about 18 and met with the missionaries a little bit when she was living in Mexico. She has only been in the states for about a year and a half. She told us that she read the book of Mormon a little even! The really funny part was that we started to talk to her in English because that’s what we do with anybody young and she was just saying hhmmhmm hmmhmm, but then said I don’t speak English very well, sorry (which usually means that they aren’t interested). So we switched over and said pues, hablamos epsanol tambien. And she was super excited and invited us right in and immediately said that this house is your house, come whenever you want, and you are always welcome. That was definitely the most welcoming door I have ever knocked on...by far. And it was like our last one of the day. Pretty sweet. We had a good lesson and have another for Tuesday. She shows a lot of promise too.

Ok, back to Fallon. We had a really good lesson with a lady named Irma and her granddaughter named Nestle who we have taught once before. They are pretty easy to teach. They take the gospel for what it is...simple. They know the scriptures a little bit too, and think everything just makes sense...which it does. They show a lot of promise too, but we can only teach them on Saturday nights. Lucky for us, she has off work on...Sundays!!! But this Sunday they had already planned to go to Reno, so hopefully this next Sunday. Funny this is that Nestle is another 10 year old girl. That’s number 3. This is starting to get kind of weird...hahaha. Don’t have any idea why we keep running into that exact age.

Today is packed. I’ve got lunch after this, then we are playing table soccer with the other missionaries, then we are going with an investigator named Oscar to kill some gofers, and then dinner, and then we are playing soccer with a TON of less actives and several potential investigators. Most of them are less active because of soccer. We will see what we can do. Then on Friday night this week we are restarting an old tradition here of Friday night Volleyball for the branch members and anyone else that wants to play. We've gotten a lot of questions about why it stopped from less actives, so obviously we said I don’t know, you want to play Friday? That should be good. Hopefully get active members mingling with less active members. I am excited for that.

My scripture study this week included John 3-4. They are very powerful and say very directly that you HAVE TO BE BAPTIZED. Makes it pretty clear and obvious.

Last week we went to Reno. Reno was sweet. We went to the temple and did baptisms and I got my jeans at Banana for $35!!! They are great too. That made me happy. We also got our key fob programmed so that works now and then went to Scheels – the coolest place ever! They have everything! From frizbee golf stuff to skis to badmitten to every kind of shoe. Its like Dick’s on steroids. So sweet. We had a chill time.

Went to Fernley a whole bunch. We had some super good lessons, but getting people to come to Fallon is almost impossible, so we will be starting a Spanish-speaking group there in 3 weeks so that our 7-10 investigators there can go to church. We are teaching this new family in Fernley – Laura y Arturo. They are super cool. They live in a very very small trailer, but she keeps it super super clean and nice. I like them a lot and you can feel their spirit pretty well. I think they are going to keep the commitments we give them. A lot of potential with them. Then at the end of the lesson Laura told us that her parents and 7 sister and their families all live in Fernley too and probably would be interested in our message too! Crazy! That might end up being the beginnings of a branch by itself.

We also did some work with less active work members of the Church here in Fallon. We had a sweet Sacrament meeting on Sunday. It started out terrible. Nobody was there that told us they would come to church and nobody was getting up to bear their testimonies, but then one family we had worked with the day before showed up and then another! One part-less-active/part-non-member and the other entirely non-member. There was a pause for 30 more seconds and then somebody got up to bear his testimony and it wasn’t quiet after that at all. AND the testimonies were actually DECENT! Yeaaaaa!

The week before, I spoke in Spanish in sacrament meeting. I heard it was pretty good. I think it went pretty well. I did half of it just straight off my writing and half without any writing at all. It ended up being kind of fun.