The Voice

Well I still don't know if I am getting transferred but I guess I'll write y'all now so I don't have to do it later.

This week was honestly pretty rough, despite our hard work and many activities. One of our best investigators (Estella and Family) dropped us, over text too! Honestly not very class if you ask me. They said they want to be Catholics. (1 Nephi 14:3)

Went on exchanges and I learned a lot of good stuff. Trend of the week was bashing. Everyone wanted to bash. I love when people bash on The Trinity because it's just completely lacks logic. So I always win that one. But we have one investigator that just won't budge on the 12 Tribes of Israel. We studied it out a lot and asked some of the more knowledgeable people in the area, I feel much more confident now with my knowledge in that area.

We have done a lot of office work this week for our English Ward. It will be really nice once it's done though. I know this email is super lame. Make sure you listen to the voice
recording. I really do love and miss y'all.

Love,
Elder Trev

The Ramirez Family

New Investigators

Top 5

Hey!

Sorry the WiFi is broke at the church today and I don't want to spend forever at McDonald's to get WiFi. Honestly I really am not in the mood to write an email today. Just summarize our conversation from yesterday. You could also say in my group email that my companion fell off his bike and it was hilarious. He flipped right over the handle bars.

It certainly was fun talking to y'all yesterday but it was so weird.

Miss you lots,

Elder Trev

Top 5 FaceTime Memories

1. He hates white people food.
2. He love his mission but never wants to live in Texas (He's a true Spud).
3. "You hear about so many rules on your Mission! Some of them aren't even real!!! My companion right now has tried to tell me about rules and I have to go through the handbook and prove him wrong. Some people become so obsessed with the rules and it slows down the work. Don't get me wrong, I actually am a pretty dang obedient missionary but I always do what's best for the work of God, not what's best for the rules." 
4. "I really miss home. I just want to do something crazy and chill right now. The way I have been thinking about that kind of stuff recently is, comparing it to fasting. Basically I am fasting from all my favorite things for two years. Fasting is kinda cool though, it helps us appreciate stuff more, we get blessings for it  and gain better perspective."
5. He told us a about a man who came to church Sunday saying he'd had a dream about two guy's in white shirts that had a message to share with him... The man totally want's to be baptized. Trev can't teach him  because he lives in another district:(

FaceTiming at Nicole's so Trev can see baby Emmett

Two guy's in white shirts and the man who dreamed about them

Sludge Slinging Sunday

Howdy y'all


We had a good week. We did a "noche de hogar" with Estella and her family. It went really well, the video is of the object lesson we did with them. (See attached video) The story I decided to tell you this week is about the Familia Muñoz.


Joel has been working his tail off. He owns his own handy-man company and with the recent heat he has been fixing air conditioners all day. He's also part of a huge renovation project on a house. He literally works until 10:00 every night so we have only been meeting with Vickey this week. She is actually reading now so that's a huge improvement. I sent the sister missionaries over there to just read with her because she doesn't work during the day.


Anyways, English church starts at 9 and Spanish church starts at 11. So we had already gone to English sacrament when I realized they weren't at church this Sunday. We went to their house to figure out what the problem was. Turns out, they didn't come to church because "Joel
has a bunch of stuff to do around the house" (which he kinda did). He was about to start cleaning their pool (which was literally a black cesspool of sin and filth). We made a deal with him that if he went to church we would clean the pool. I wish I had a before and after picture for y'all. We had two pumps - an electric and a gas one. To quicken the process we literally used 5 gallon buckets to get all the water out. After we drained the pool we got down in the pool with a shovel and a buckets and heaved out load after load of black sludge. We encountered some of the biggest spiders I have ever seen and also some snakes (which I still am not sure whether they were poisonous or not). We scrubbed the pool and rinsed it with the hose. After church was over we sat on their couch, read the scriptures with them, and ate some quesadillas. We just did our personal study there because we didn't have time before church. We basically just sat and studied like one big happy family. I really don't feel bad for doing service like that on a Sunday. 


We also brought a member with us to a lesson with them this Tuesday. We ate dinner with that same member yesterday and taught her nonmember daughter the Restoration which went really well. 


Last thing I'll talk about was this awesome contacting activity we did with the Spanish ward. With the help of our bishop we reserved a booth at the local farmers market. On Saturday morning, we brought two ward missionaries and the sister missionaries as well and, while passing out free lemonade, talked to about 1,000 people. We gave out so many Book of Mormons, church DVDs, pamphlets, and pictures of Jesus. It was a huge success! It was such a great way to talk to people because they pretty much couldn't resist the free lemonade. (It was dang good lemonade too, a Hispanic woman in the ward squeezed the lemons herself). 


We have been passing out a lot of Book of Mormons in general recently and the scripture 2 Nephi 29:2 has really been going through my head. Really that whole chapter has been. People here are such knuckleheads and just can't seem to understand modern revelation. I can't tell you how many times this week I heard someone say something to the effect of "A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." People really try and bash with us and it's just the worst, especially in Spanish. Their doctrine lacks significant logic but people that bash usually aren't willing to listen with their heart or mind anyways. Sorry to rant so much to y'all!


Love,


Elder Trev


Shouts to Grandma Dixie for the Walmart gift card #TrueHomie

Cockroach Soup

We had a good week this week. Elder Corbridge of the 70 came and spoke to us. He is the author of "The Fourth Missionary" it's really cool. So we did that on Saturday. He is a very smart man.

We just did Nerf™ dart wars with PVC pipe in the gym at the church with our district. It was pretty cool. We figured out how to do it so it actually hurts. There is this red head kid in my district with
really pale skin and now he has welts all over his body...lol

We have is new Hispanic family (the Muñoz) that has come to church three times now that's really cool. We played Mexican bingo and did a really cool lessons with them. They speak only Spanish so sometimes it's kinda frustrating. The kids always ask really dumb irreverent questions

during the lessons. So from now on we are going to do our lessons with them at the church to just teach the parents and then put the kids in a different room with popcorn and a Book of Mormon movie. We are just working on some commandments with them and then they can get baptized.

So the Muñoz need to be baptized so bad. The grandfather and the granddaughter are ready but the grandmother still wants to increase her testimony of the restored gospel. Luckily Elder Holland was in town for a devotion this week, so we told her to go and see him and find out for herself if he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. We weren't able to go with them because it was "technically" out of our area. But we have faith we will be blessed for obedience. People always ask me who to pray for. Pray for them. I have been stressing out about the Muñoz though for the past week or
so, so seriously pray for them. But I mean they have had lessons with all of our stud members and now seen a Elder Holland too. Just pray that their hearts will be softened and they will receive an answer.

This week we made them a cake. While delivering them the cake on our bikes, my companion wrecked. He actually dismounted his bike surprisingly gracefully but their was a huge hole in the cake from his thumb.

This week we visited a family Elder Gay and I had helped move recently. While moving we noticed an absurd amount of cockroaches in their house. Especially in the dishes. We would move a box and 1000 bugs would just run everywhere. We went back to visit them and as we were sitting down for the lesson they put a big bowl of soup in front of us. It was hard to get the image out of my head of all those bugs that I knew were in their kitchen. Worst part is we had just gotten back from dinner with the senior missionaries so we were completely full. But we ate the soup.

There is good stuff going on in GP right now. The Lord is a very good missionary.

The video is us riding with a group of actual bicyclists. If you can imagine in your head a big group of bikers and then two missionaries following right along. If you saw that while driving by you have got to think it's pretty funny. We actually talked to them about temples while at a stoplight.

The last picture is of Adrian one of our recent converts from last transfer. He is really cool. We took him to visit this new investigator we have that's the same age. We had a really good lesson and he seems to be a very promising new investigator. During the lesson my companion ran back to the car to get another restoration pamphlet; and locked the keys in the car. It was kind of funny actually. We were teaching this investigator's neighbor the week before and I remembered seeing this group of Hispanics break into a car 😬... Anyways with our "ox in the meyer" we went and knocked on their door. Within minutes they had our car keys out for us and we were on our way. We just gave them a pass along card and went to our next appointment.

Sorry for the long email,

Love y'all almost as much as I miss summer in Idaho
Elder Trev

Adrian

Elder White Saved the Cake

Swimsuit Edition

This week we planned and implemented an idea that I think worked really well and could be really productive for other missionaries or even the wards back home. Basically the idea was to get all of our highly progressing investigators together at the church for a lesson. We put together a power point with the use of a laptop from a senior missionary couple, with several videos that really demonstrate what the priesthood is and how we have it on the earth today. We ran the
power point by way of question and answer. We also brought an investigator that we have that wants to get baptized so bad but she can't because of pending legal issues, a very strong recent convert and the stake president who is also a convert.  All of these people were asked to bear testimony at the end and gladly accepted. We let the sister missionaries bring their best investigators too. We held the actually meeting in the chapel; towards the end of the
lesson all were invited to be baptized again weather they had been asked or not, all accepted. To finish off we all had ice cream of various flavors along with assorted toppings for a delightful meet and greet. It was actually really fun and totally worth the work of setting everything up.

On Sunday morning right before we were about to bike to church we got caught in a huge microburst right as we were headed out the door. Me, knowing that there had to be a good reason for me to bring my swimsuit on my mission, decided that it would be best to not get our suit pants soaking wet but instead to bike there in less formal attire and then change at the church. It was a good idea too. By the time we got to the church we were soaked, but we just changed and everything was cool. My companion didn't bring extra shoes and socks so he was at church for the next six hours in soaking wet shoes lol.

The last picture is of Peter, Prince, and Olu. They have all accepted baptism and will all be baptized here in the near future. They all share an apartment...but this week Peter and Prince got in a fight over a girl (Prince is 70) so Prince kicked Peter out of the house and Peter doesn't have a job so he was homeless (he asked us if he could sleep at the church). Anyways at church yesterday I think we helped put the pieces of their friendship back together. I guess I just wanted to give a special thanks to the EHS girls class of 2015 for helping me understand how to deal with all this drama; I couldn't have done it without you! Honorable mentions: Liv Demordant, Emily Clegg, Oakley Tanner, Molly Sawyer, Annie Johnson, Jamie Solomonson, Ali Snooks, Halsey Anderson.

I hope y'all enjoy this letter and have a great week.
Love,
Elder Pattee

Trev & Elder White

Peter, Prince, Elder White, Trev and Olu

What's in your wallet?

Hey I am taking a break from basketball to just shoot you guys a quick email about one of the cool things that happened this week. I think the coolest one is about this man that just moved here from Africa. The story is... The sister missionaries found his wallet that had dropped off his car. When they returned it to him, he was 'Eternally" grateful. He said he would do anything they wanted (literally all the money he had, passport, green card, and social security card were in there). So they asked him to come to conference and he did. He actually lives in our area so we taught him this week and he wants to be baptized so bad.  At his first Sunday in sacrament he asked me if could bare his testimony. He went up with his wallet that he found and stated very strongly that "this is the true church". It was awesome! Unfortunately he is going back to Africa for two months so I probably won't be here when he get back and actually gets baptized. But his two roommates gladly accepted our invitation to be baptized during our lesson last night. His testimony was way cooler than all the other testimonies this week,,,😬

My new companion is cool. We saw some really cool stuff this week. It's great to see how the Lord works. It's really different being in charge of the area now. It is stressful. Pero echamos nuestros ganas. I am learning a lot. I really didn't take very many pictures this week. So this will probably be a short email. But I look forward to keep y'all in the loop for this transfer.

Love,
Elder Trev

New Comp Elder White

Saying goodbye to Elder Gay

Elder Langi

Cut the BOWL!

So I am staying in Grand Prairie but Elder Gay is leaving and I am getting a new companion. His name is Elder White. This is going to be a good transfer. The work will go on, no matter what and I am going to make the best of it.

Elder Gay and I had a great last week though. I also figured out that if I don't take pictures of something y'all probably aren't going to hear about it in this email so I tired to take a few more pictures this week. I included the picture of my bowl cut that the Senior Sister missionaries gave me. 

We had a Luau this week for Elder Langi, who has been feeling kinda down. It was so fun! We did the coaches gift thing, everyone signed a rugby ball for him. We got the whole district involved and everyone brought exactly what we asked them to bring. 

On Wednesday night this week we made Tamales with Esmerelda, she is an angel. She wants to get baptized so bad, but she can't because she has to resolve some legal issues first. She already pays her tithing and wants to go to the temple to be sealed with her husband that passed away not too long ago. I have heard her pray twice now, they were the two most beautiful prayers I have ever heard.

Yesterday we gave a blessing to an NBA basketball player. He wasn't anyone I have ever heard of. He was just at the church, watching conference and asked us for a blessing. He was cool. He was a talker though, he could put Curtis or Bishop Hill to shame with how much he talked.

We have many an amazing investigator right now. The field is very white here in the Dallas area.

Love Y'all
Elder Trev

Last week with Elder Gay

Luau For Our New District Leader Elder Langi

Esmeralda 

Hermanas Apartments

Bowl Cut:(..