A family is baptized

Dear fellow Americans (and others),

   

Houston Temple

I am finally in Texas, and it's been an interesting few days. The first day was just orientation, which was super slow, because we basically just went over everything we talked about in the MTC, so it was nothing really new. Then the next day I met my trainer/companion, Elder Lindsay. He's super cool and it's his first time training, so we're learning together basically. We're in the Northpointe area, which actually covers the Northpointe and Telge wards, so we go to both on Sundays. We have one of the biggest areas in the zone, but somehow we're the ones on bikes. When it's not 90% humidity and 97 degrees out, biking is actually kind of nice, but alas, we're in Houston, so we barely get that relaxed weather. On the first day we were planning on biking to the other side of the area and committing a whole family to Baptism, which was super intimidating for a first day, but the plans fell through so we just knocked on some doors and ran into a guy that was was super nice and we had a conversation on the Plan of Salvation and set up a time to meet with him on Saturday, but he didn't answer when we showed up.

   The next day I met the zone and district, and they're all fun people, I'm excited to get to know them better. We biked a lot that day and talked to pretty much no one, until we ran into someone who has been an investigator for ten years. He believes, but he doesn't want to get Baptized without his family. We had a good talk with him and he gave us water, but he lives in a different city, so we probably won't see him again. Then at the end of that day we knocked on a door and the lady who answered immediately said "hey, Elders!" Turns out a member family had just bought that apartment a few days ago and had only been in it for two hours before we knocked. We ended up sharing a video with them, then we found out the mom- who has been a member her whole life- is struggling with her testimony and is now leaning more Prodestant. We talked with her for awhile and challenged her to read the Book of Mormon again, which made her laugh because she felt like a new investigator.

  Then on Saturday we helped a couple from Brazil move into their new house. The husband is friends with someone from his work who is in the Ward, so they started coming to Church on their own, which is pretty cool. They haven't had any lessons, but they are willing to learn. After that we had dinner with the Olivares, a couple from Mexico. They were nice and took us to Mel's diner, a place that serves everything Texas size, like a 9 pound burger. It was really good, but I was not going to ruin my day with that burger. After that we talked to a couple getting married on Friday who are looking into the Church.

Then on Sunday we went to both Wards, which took up most of the day. We had dinner with the Smith family, and Brother Smith told us about what it's like working for the FBI, which was cool. After that we knocked at an apartment complex with no success, until at the last door we met a guy who is a super religious hunter who knows a bit about the Church already. We talked with him about his hunting trips and the importance of faith. After a long conversation, he asked us where our Church was and said that he plans on stopping by sometime. He was super southern and super nice, I hope we get to see him again.

Goodbye to the MTC

   So overall it's been pretty good. The middle of the day when we're just biking everywhere can be pretty rough, but there's usually enough good sprinkled throughout the day to make up for it. I'm looking forward to learning more.

the sunset last night

Love,

Elder Garner