Sunday, March 26, 2023

Hail to the King 12/30/2022

 This past week has been great, Christmas was of course fantastic and a very special time. It was, however, some of the coldest few days I've experienced out here.

 

On Tuesday, DeGraw had to return something he bought at Kroger, and walking out a guy named Landon stopped us asking for a prayer. It turned into a really awesome lesson and we even set up return appointments and invited him to church. We also got our young friend Brayden closer to being ready for his baptism. 

 

Wednesday after district council, I got to go on exchanges with Elder Farris to my old area in Oyster Creek. We taught one of their progressing investigators and then did some finding. I took him to meet and teach the Schaerrers, who are an awesome member family. I then showed him Chuy's, which is a really good chain tex mex place. A nonmember saw us eating there, and she introduced herself and told us she paid for our food, which was super awesome and we both really enjoyed it. It's been forever since me and Farris got to talk to each other, so without realizing it, we were up super late talking. It was a pretty fun exchange. 

 

The next day we exchanged back, and it was freezing. I think the temperature was 30 something, but the wind chill and humidity made it feel 15. The cold is awful in Texas. No matter how many layers you have on, the moisture in the air still sticks to ya and chills you to the bone. The rest of the day we convinced the other English Elders to help blitz our area by driving us around to make contacts. 

 

I felt like I almost died of frostbite the next day. We were outside doing service at the church food truck again sorting and moving boxes and crates of refrigerated food, and it was horrible. The service is usually super fun, but the weather made it practically unbearable. It seemed like every 5 minutes we were rushing inside to quickly warm up, then headed back out for another quick helping hand. We did finish it out though and successfully got people the food they needed. That afternoon we stayed in to call people and to have a couple zoom lessons.

 

Christmas Eve, we met as a district at the church to do a quick secret Santa gift exchange. We then put together plates of cookies to take with us as we went caroling to a bunch of members in our areas. In the evening, we went over to the Hawkins family. Bro. Hawkins is our ward mission leader, but he didn't get to join us since he was feeling sick, but we did get to hang out with their whole extended family and have a good dinner. 

 

Christmas we had a special combined sacrament meeting and program with the Pecan Grove Ward. In the afternoon we hung out with the English Elders and opened gifts. We went to the Murphys for a fantastic dinner. They're an older couple and Sister Murphy is a ward missionary that we get to work with. That night, we went with the English Elders to the Spanish Elders' apartment to play games.

 

We played basketball and card games as a district for pday, and then did a bunch of shopping. I then went to the H4 Spanish area with Elder Barnes on exchanges. The highlight of the evening was him buying me a fantastic torta from a taco truck.

 

Christmas week was really good. I'm so grateful for the Savior and the gift he is for every single one of us. I'm grateful for everything He has and continues to do for the whole world. I know He lives and we will get to see Him as we abide by His gospel and the way He has set for us.

 

-Elder Thompson






No comments:

Post a Comment