Hello Everyone!
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| Elders Bullough and Sanchez |
First of all, my address autocorrected and was wrong... I still got a letter from Grandma, but here is the real address:
6381 Bois D'Arc Rd. Gilmer, TX 75644
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| Elder Bullough and Jose de Leon |
Well, it is official, I am in an English ward now! It is kind of fun! I've only dealt with Spanish branches up to this point in my mission, so getting an English ward is exciting! I am covering the Gilmer 1st Ward. We have to leave our area for Everything haha. We only cover country. Gas stations, grocery stores, laundry mats, the church, etc are all outside of our area. We cover the country land just west of Gilmer. We live with some members who actually live in Kelsey, TX. Kelsey, TX is a Mormon settlement. It was one of the first settlements after the Saints traveled westward towards Salt Lake. Supposedly, a lot of southern members made the trek to Utah and then didn't like it. They didn't like the climate or the geography of Utah. So they traveled back to Kelsey and stayed there. For a long time it was the biggest city in East Texas, but when they built the railroad, it went through Gilmer instead. Kelsey died after that. Everyone left and went back to Utah. Now there are just rich nonmembers living there on these HUGE dairy Farms. Gilmer, however, is very highly populated with Mormons. There are 4 wards here in Gilmer. It isn't that big of a city! We are excited to be here. We were doubled in and replaced Sisters.... So basically everyone hates us haha. They have had Sisters for 5 years. Bishop is excited for us to be here, but we are working on the other members 😂
Here is my week:
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| Elder Bullough and the Rojas Family |
Monday: PDay was kind of depressing... Being in a zone where we could meet every Monday with all 20 of us was lots of fun. Now that I am out east, we are lucky to have 6 missionaries together at the same time. But I am still excited! Here in Gilmer, there are: Elder Bullough, Elder Horn, Sister Lowry, Sister Doutre, Sister Brown, and Sister Stephens. Then there are two other companionships in our district, but they are forever away haha. One set is in Quitman: Elder Christiansen and Elder Rowell. Then the other set is in Sulphur Springs: Sister Bryant and Sister Elder (yes her name is Sister Elder). Anyways, last Monday was my last day in McKinney. We had a lesson with the inactive Rojas Family and we had a powerful lesson on baptism with Lissa. It was hard to say goodbye to that family. We then went and said goodbye to the Patton family. They are just really good friends of ours now. I also got to say goodbye to Jose de Leon! It was great.
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| Elder Bullough and the Patton Family |
Tuesday: I woke up pretty early and finished packing a few small things. Brother Dunn picked us up and drove us down to Allen. Elder Horn, my new companion, was serving there. They had a member from the YSA that was willing to drive Elder Horn and I down to Dallas. So he drove us down to the Mission Office. We sat there basically all morning. We ended up not leaving until 3. We had to wait around for another set of missionaries to drive to the mission office and give us their car... Sorry, not sorry haha. We then made the 2 and a half hour drive out to Gilmer, Texas. We drove to the Members' home that we will be staying with. They live in a house that has 8 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms... It is pretty nuts 😂 They basically sealed off the front part of the house, so we have a bathroom, a bedroom, a room with a couch and a desk in it, and then another room that they converted into a kitchen. So we have a fridge and microwave. It is kinda cool. We ate dinner with them. They are the Shirley family. We had burgers that came from their own cow that they raised. It was SO good. Then we went shopping, and that was basically our day haha we also called members of the ward council to schedule times we could meet them.
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| Signing the McKinney 6th branch flag |
Wednesday: We had district meeting. We all went to the Quitman chapel. I thought it was really great. I really love this new district. There are a lot of really bold and really funny missionaries. We then met up with Sister Lowry and Sister Doutre after lunch. Sister Lowry used to cover the 1st and 3rd ward, but now that we are here, she is only covering the 3rd ward and now is training a new missionary! So we wanted to meet with her to get some background information on the ward members and investigators. It went well. They are really funny haha. Later we met with the 1st counselor in the Bishopric. I feel bad for him. His son was refused missionary service years ago for being too overweight. So his wife got offended and hasn't been to church since... Such a sad circumstance. After that, we met with Bishop Miller. He is AWESOME. He is so excited to have Elders in his ward. He said he had a spiritual confirmation when he heard we were coming that there is a reason we are supposed to be here at this time. It was such a great experience. He gave us lots of referrals and people to go stop by.
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| Elder Horn |
Thursday: Lots of trying to meet people. We ate dinner with the Wadsworth family and had a great lesson afterward about member missionary work. Brother Wadsworth is the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric. Our only scheduled lesson canceled sadly.
Friday: Lots of calling people again. Because we cover all country, lots of people have gates to their property. So we were trying to call and set up appointments so that we could get in. We were supposed to give a member a blessing and have this handoff lesson with the Sisters, but the member had to cancel. It was sad.
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| The weird kitchen in the Gilmer Stake center |
Saturday: I got sick 😢 luckily not the crazy flu that has been going around, just felt crummy all day long. I felt bad for Elder Horn. He is from Idaho by the way. He just finished his training.
Sunday: We had ward council at 7am. It was so much fun. Hopefully, you could hear the sarcasm in my voice haha. Church was great. We have a part member family named the Walkers. Benny Walker is investigating the church. He is a 6'3" black man and weighs probably between 330 and 360 lbs. He is really goofy though. I love him already haha. He was at church. After church ended, President Perry of the Elders quorum took us on visits with him. We were able to meet some more members and learn more from him about the area and some inactive members. We ended up eating dinner with the Perry family later too. They invited the sisters too because they love them so much haha. It turned out really well though. It was a great dinner and the dinner message was spot on for the kids in the family.
Anyways, I am so excited to be here in Gilmer and to start working hard. Most of the members are really old and retired. It makes things interesting.
I love you all so much. I know that I am about the Lord's work. I love it so much. I know He loves all of His children upon the face of the earth.
Take care,
Elder Bullough
