Going Teancum

These past two weeks we have had the opportunity to go to the temple in the morning and help remodel. It has been so fun, we get to wear these white scrubs. It was like being a doctor. But it was cool because even though it was literally a full blown construction zone there was still that special temple spirit.

Our new investigator Jose was acting like a child this week. He stood us up all night on Saturday for a single adult convention/dance he wanted us to go to and translate for him. After telling us he was "25 minutes away" and that he was "on his way"; about an hour and a half later I finally just left to go do missionary work. Turns out he actually showed up at about 9 O'clock. I was about to go straight Teancum on the guy.

We are trying to start a Spanish class here on Saturday mornings. Our first week we had 0 people, last week we had 1 person (non-member). So hopefully we can keep growing it, it would probably be a really good way to find investigators.

We are having some good success with less actives but we are struggling to baptize at this point. Hopefully as we strengthen the branch the baptisms will come as well.

A big shout out  to everyone that sent packages this week and videos! And to Elder Dertina for taking me out to lunch today. We got some Cajun food, it was awesome.

Love y'all,
Elder Trev

Elder Durtian bought Trev Cajun food  for his birthday.

Friendly Faces

We had a good week here in Plano. We recently met this less active named Paulita she is awesome. She is really going through some trials right now but her attitude is just so positive. It really brightens my day to be around her.

So exciting thing of the week, Kayla (Langford) and Trevor Jensen showed up during my sacrament meeting. It was really great to see a familiar face. I felt kinda stupid because we had literally no
investigators in sacrament meeting. But 5 minutes after they left we had an investigator fall from the sky. It was awesome! His name is Jose Luis; he was being taught by some sister missionaries about 4 months ago and now he is ready to come back. He was participating in third hour more than a lot of the members. He really has some good desires.

Our branch counsel meeting yesterday was top notch. We are adding some really cool new things to the branch to try and boost attendance and strengthen partially active members. The members do a really good job here at coming out with us to appointments. It's excellent.

I speak so much more Spanish here! I feel a little overshadowed by my companion when it comes to the language but I am catching up to him quickly.

Love Y'all
Elder Trev

Trevor & Kayla Jensen

Elder Gomez Alonso

Still lingering in my nostrils

We fasted with our investigator Jessica Aryollo this week. So hopefully that helps her find her answer.

This week was over all really great. We found this new investigator named Dan. We were on our way from trying to visit a less active and we saw this guy standing next to his truck on the phone, smoking a cigarette. We decided to talk to him anyway and he hung up the phone to listen to us. He basically just said we could come back later and that was about it. So a few days later we come back. We had a lesson with him on his front porch on baptism. He accepted our invitation to be baptized. His only question was "what's the address to the church?" So hopefully Daniel is able to be taught and progress.

We watched conference Saturday with some of our stud members "the Adam's family". Hermana Adams invited all of the youth to come over and there was a great turn out. We invited a recent convert and she actually came. In between sessions we had some of the best tacos I have ever seen a white person make. 

After the second session of conference we had a dinner appointment with some members. We had just eaten a huge lunch a couple hours earlier. We walked in and sat down... For each of us there was a nice plate of flautas, (just like fried chicken tacos) so I thought at was going to be the whole dinner. Then she put down two huge bowls of menudo. (which is cow stomach soup). There were some huge chunks of stomach in there. The taste of the intestine really isn't bad but the texture is just soo chewy. The worst part was the smell, it's still lingering in my nostrils.


Sunday conference was awesome, I really loved the second session. Some of the apostles were dropping fire. One of our Spanish members brought a co-worker with her to conference at the church. He was a businessman from Bolivia. We had lunch with them in between sessions and it went really well. I feel like one of the main messages of conference was member missionary work. They brought out the MTC choir and everything. I understand not everyone is going to be on the same level as Chuck Cooley but we could all probably step our game up.

Love y'all,
Elder Trev Pattee

Elder Gomez Alonso

Service with a smile

So I am now in the Plano 2 branch. Things look really awesome. It's a pretty small branch but the members help with the missionary work and we have a few solid looking investigators.

We did some awesome service projects this week that I really enjoyed. We helped the Castro family cut down this giant tree in their backyard. We were like 25' up in this tree with chain saws, it was a great time. Service with a smile on my end for sure. Then we helped this super solid part member family install some new laminate flooring. Their son is 14 years old and looks like David
Archuleta, but he is a chill kid. He and his dad have lost interest in the gospel.

I really like my new companion though. His name is Elder Gomez Alonso, he is from Mexico. He could be on track to be my favorite companion yet. He reminds me so much of Justin, he talks just like him and he has the same mannerisms. It cracks me up sometimes how similar they are.

I haven't been in a Spanish only area pretty much my whole mission so between that and having a native companion my Spanish is really on the up and up. Sometimes I get kinda intimidated because his grammar is more advanced. But it's a good chance to step my game up.

Love y'all mucho

Elder Trev🌮

Party Time

Okay, so I am getting transferred. We had an awesome last week here in Greenville. I really thought my companion was going to get transferred so he could be closer to Dallas for the refugees but I guess not. It's a bummer because I was supposed to baptize Robin next Sunday but
now I'll just have to have my companion do it.

Our party this week was awesome! We had a whole bunch of non-members and less actives. It was killer. There was a ward party on Saturday and we had more people at our Spanish activity. Our fridge is full of left of Mexican food.

I love y'all
Elder Trev

Politics in Greenville

Howdy y'all, 

The weather is finally cooling down here in Texas which is amazing. It's a little hard because my body is hard wired for college football and some fall wakeboarding. But hey the lake will still be around in a couple years and with any luck, global warming will actually become areal thing giving us even longer summers. 

It's funny how crazy people go with the politics down here. I try my best to keep my mouth shut as a missionary. Basically all the white people are super conservative and all the hispanics just hate conservatives because they want to build a wall. I do a good job of keeping my mouth shut but often times after lessons with people I'll get into the car and just lose it. Some people have no brain when it comes to politics, it hurts my soul. 

The work is finally picking up in Greenville, a family we have been working with is going to the temple and two different less active families are having their children baptized. And Robin is getting baptized on the 25th and she asked me to baptize her.  I'll only get to do it if I don't get transferred. Because she isn't technically a convert baptism, idk if president will let me come back. It feels so good to be busy again. We worked for it though.

 I think y'all will really enjoy the video this week️ 

Les Quiero,

Elder Trev™

A Catholic a Mormon and an Arab walk into a meeting...

So we had a good week actually. We have been all over Dallas, we drive so much and it's undesirable being in the car with just another man all day long week after week. But we actually got to do some cool things this week. 

So Ahmad and I have been representing the church in our efforts with the Middle Eastern Refugees. It's like all these religious leaders from the Catholic Church and then Ahmad and I so it's kinda funny. But in what was probably the biggest meeting I was literally the only white guy in
the room. They all don't speak English well so a good part of the meeting they just did in Arabic.
Their biggest need right now is furniture so we have already started collecting couches for the refugees apartments. Ahmad will probably end up being a translator with them for the rest of his mission because he is the only member in the area that speaks Arabic. It's difficult because our mission president's father died and we haven't been able to communicate with him on these issues like we would like to.

Robin is getting baptized on the 25th of September so that will be awesome, as well as the daughter of the recently reactivated Ochoa family on the same day. We knocked a lot of doors trying to find new investigators, and we have found some success. It is really great to meet genuinely interested people.

Jewel actually came to church this week, which surprised me. Her grandson moved in with her and he is kinda giving her some new life. We played 18 holes this morning with a few of members from the ward. I have found the most humble sides of me really stand out when I am on a
golf course. But it was a good time.

Love,

Elder Trev Pattee