Les Quiero

The church is still true and the book is still blue

This week was pretty good. Juan hasn't died yet so that's a bonus in my book. We went on Wednesday and gave him the Gift of the Holy Ghost in the Hospital. The AC I'm our apartment is broken... Our investigator Robin should be getting baptized real soon here. We are just waiting on a few things that are of our control. We are working hard to better the area here in Greenville. We did find 5 new investigators recently and 4 of them are pretty golden. 

Every other Friday we got a tortilla factory to do service for a part member family. It's hard work we have to carry huge balls of dough that weigh like 200 pounds and the Mexicans there are always yelling at us. Which is hard because my companion can't understand them. But they are coming to church now and hopefully we can teach their kids more. They said they don't believe in God so that makes it hard. But the oldest son actually asked us for 2 books of Mormon, one for him and another for his friends so I would say that's progress.

The church is still true; and the book is still blue

Happy 9 months to me.

Elder Trev🏽🏽

Quick Visit

We had a pretty good week here in Greenville. We are running low on investigators so we did a lot of tracting. But we found some cool new people. If you are going to go tracting, go to Hispanic neighborhood, they are way more willing to talk to you then white people.

Juan was not able to be confirmed yesterday because he is in the hospital for a blood clot. He might have to he transferred to Dallas because he is in rough shape. So we might have to confirm him in the hospital.

I got to go back to Grand Prairie and visit one of my favorite families. I only had like 15 minutes, I wish I could have seen everyone else but we had to get to an appointment.

Love,
Elder Pattee

Shaun and Allie

FB Was So 5 Years Ago

We had a good week here in Greenville, It looks like I'll be staying here too for another six weeks. I thought I was leaving but I am totally happy to stay. I know all the members and they treat us really well. My companion and I get along pretty good. But... getting along with anybody 24/7 for 12 weeks is a challenge so keep those prayers coming.

We had a baptism yesterday for Juan Lopez. It was honestly the easiest baptism of my whole mission. He literally just showed up at church one day. He listens and remembers everything I tell him. My companion doesn't speak Spanish so I literally had to teach him all by myself. We got everything set up for the member to perform the baptism yesterday and it went perfectly. So consider him officially reactivated as well.

I have some really good member friends here in Greenville. We really don't have very many investigators here but we have been doing a lot of work with less actives. Probably 20 that haven't been to church in years came to church these last couple weeks! And now we are baptizing all their kids.

Any ideas on how to use Facebook as a missionary? Honestly I just feel like it's super outdated. Members of this church are literally "the select few"so I kind of get the feeling they would be socially aware enough to know that Facebook was so five years ago.

The bottom picture is me with the Familia Acosta; he won the garbageman of the year award.

Love,

Elder Trev

Audius Nunes and Juan Lopez

Familia Acosta

FaithBook

Ahmad and I had a great week! We really hit a good groove and got into some less actives houses, we were just having a good time with them. Both of these families have unbaptized children. In both cases the main reason they aren't baptized is because the fathers are anti-church. There is nothing stopping us but Satin and he doesn't even have a body.

Juan Lopez came to church, I pray all goes well and he doesn't die before his baptismal date next Sunday. He is really sick. I don't think he will die but he has been spending a lot of time in the
hospital. He came to all three hours this week and seemed healthy. 

We got FaceBook this week. Pres Taylor and his wife call it FaithBook. We are part of 15 missions in the whole world that have it out of 400ish. If used properly it could be a great way to find, teach & baptize. The other missions that have had it before have had exponential increases in success. If you want to be my friend my page is Elder Trevor Pattee. Basically what I'll do is unfollow you so I don't see all your politically/socially irrelevant posts but y'all can still be my friend to see my missionary stuff. It's pretty cool we are even allowed to teach lessons with friends and family at home if needed via Facebook and FaceTime.

We were on bikes for a good part of this week and my bike peddle broke in the first five minutes. So I had to re-tighten it on about every two minutes with a mini pocket knife. It was a less than desire experience biking 6 miles in 107 degree heat with a broken peddle but we got where we needed to go. Several times my peddle came completely off in the middle of busy intersections and I had to walk back to retrieve it. However the car is fixed now; I wish they would just give
us 4Runners so we wouldn't have this problem.

My companion an I put our heads together for this project today🏻🤔🏙 The time lapse videos are definitely worth watching!

Love,
Elder Trevor Pattee

Rollercoaster

We had a roller coaster week. We had some excellent lessons and some lessons that would have been excellent if people didn't cancel. We did a lot of service this week. 

One of the Elders in the ward we are trying to help progress to the temple right now came with us to help build a widow a chicken coup. He really knew his stuff. I learned some good stuff about construction. We also did a service project for Jewel this week helping her clean out her yard. 

I would say the most important thing we did this week was going on splits with Jose Cuba. He just graduated this year. Knowing his was coming out with us I packed the evening with appointments with our coolest investigators and also made sure a cool member fed us dinner. I even cleaned the car for him. We had a really good time with him. At the start of the night he really wasn't sure but by the end he was asking us how he puts in his papers. The next day he came out with us again and we had dinner set up with the bishop and they now are starting the process. It's kinda like pyramid scheme but with missionary work.

The alternator in our car broke yesterday and won't be fixed until tomorrow at the earliest. So we have and will be walking. We are trying to get members to take us. But it's really difficult to not
have a car here. Our area is probably the size of the Treasure Valley.

The best part of the week is how many people came to church. So many less actives and families that we are focusing on came to church. It was awesome. One family came that hasn't been to church for 4 years, they have a child that's 11 that needs to be baptized so hopefully we can keep helping them.

Love,

Elder Trev

It is better to dwell in the wilderness then with a contentious and an angry woman
-Proverbs 21:19

Missing My Summers

Honestly this week was rough, I just wanted to do fun stuff all week. Adding to that we had appointments with investigators fall through and other lessons where our members canceled on us. But that's all part of the mission.

A veces Satanás le gusta molestarnos con tentaciones. On the contrary we did have some good experiences this week. Two weeks ago a man named Juan Lopez showed up at church with a semi active member. So we went and taught him with that member last week. Then this week, the member called us telling us that he was with Juan and that he wanted to talk. Juan told us that he wanted to be baptized right away. It was a well timed blessing for me from the Lord because I was just having a rough day. Reminds me of a scripture. Alma 26:27. It's hard teaching Juan because the member doesn't really know the gospel and my companion doesn't speak Spanish. However Kudos to this member for bringing his friend to the church. Turns out Juan's son had visited with missionaries before and is excited to be taught as well.

We had some other crazy experiences this week. We knocked into a woman's house who had a full beard and taught her a lesson. It was strange because I had seen the woman earlier that day and briefly talked to her at a place where we do service.


Sad story of the week: one of our investigators that we had previously felt suspicious about turns out to be in a homo sexual relationship, so that makes things extra difficult.

We went to the temple with one of my favorite members Brother Liggett this week, it was awesome. Brother Liggett's wife works at the temple and she showed us all the VIP stuff.

Love y'all
Elder Trev™