Monday, September 28, 2009 - Baird & Clyde, TX

Hey!

What's up?

Over here, it seems to be the temperature. It's slowly climbing, but fall is coming on, so it's struggling. It's still nice out, except for the bright sun. Dang sun.

Anyways, we had a pretty good week. We finally got to go to Baird, TX, and Clyde, TX and worked. Brother Swartz runs a carpet cleaning business and had offered to drive us there and back. So we loaded up our bikes into his company van, he took us there and dropped us off in Baird.

We got to visit many people and taught them. The Beckam family drove us from one town to the other and brought us turkey sandwiches for lunch. Between two appointments, Elder Tuttle and I were biking on this open road with a field on one side, and a field and horses on the other side. I thought it must have been funny for cars driving by to see - two guys in white shirts and ties, riding bicycles on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. They probably wondered how we got there. At times, I wondered the same thing.

We also got to go to a hot air balloon carnival. I was surprised that Abilene actually had an event with things to do for the residents here. It was going on for a few days - we saw some balloons go by and we wondered where they were coming from. The carnival had stands, a concert, the police and everything. There was even this one place where you could pay $10 to ride in a balloon but it was tethered to one place and you only went a few feet off the ground (lame).

We went to Zone Conference on Tuesday. There I said goodbye to Elder Sosi, since he's leaving at the end of this transfer. He gave everyone in the mission a lava lava (wraparound) and a little post card with pictures of him on it and his contact info. He knows how to go out in style. We also got from Sister Robison a copy of the picture that we took in front of the temple. I think my eyes were closed because of the sun.

As for your question about dinner appointments, with the exception of one family, we have been getting almost none. It seems most people mistakenly believe that they have to have a non-member there to have us over. It's sad, because unless we go to their house (for a meal or not), it is very difficult to get to know the local members, let alone work with them. One day, things will change. In the meantime, I'm getting better at making homemade chicken quesadillas, and we'll just keep knocking on doors and encouraging members from a distance.

Which reminds me - for the past couple weeks, we've been doing a "missionary moment" every sacrament meeting. It's a minute or less right after the announcements and before the opening hymn for a missionary (or someone else) to get up and say something encouraging member missionary work. It's Brother Bryan's idea. It's very interesting and I'm anxious to see how it'll work in the long run.

Anyways, that's pretty much it for this week.

The Church is true.

I love you!
Have a good week.

-Elder Brandon Wong