This is an incredible time to be in the Dallas Texas Mission! The work is accelerating like none other. President and Sister Taylor our sprinting to the finish line when they get released in a few months. On tuesday night, we had a mission wide conference call. President Taylor is doing insane things. The goal is for our mission to have 200 baptisms and 25,000 non members in church in the month of April! We have a challenge in every single ward in this mission for members to invite 1 friend to church on April 30th. There is a Mission Wide fast the week before for EVERYONE in the mission including members. The fast is to help members know who to invite. Crazy, crazy, crazy goals, but it is most definitely possible in this mission. I am so thrilled to be a part of the Lord's work in this area of His vineyard.
Monday: for Pday, another set of elders helped clean out this lady's shed and they found this mini tabletop pool table. The lady gave it to them! So we had a little tournament in pool. It was pretty fun! Once Pday ended, we went to la casa de la familia Rivas. They are an inactive family. We went over to try and see what we could do to get them back to church. We tried just baring our testimonies, but he stopped us and told us that he knew the church was true. He said he has always known it(he was born a member). He just said that he is the only one standing in his way. So we do not really know what is going on there... we do not know if there is more going on behind the scenes that we are unaware of.
Tuesday: I have had probably the most successful first couple of weeks in the field as it gets. We got the Lucero Baptismal date last week, and on Tuesday we got Giovanna a Baptismal date! It is so cool! She is 18 and has a little 1 year old baby girl, so i was entertaining the baby while Elder Judd taught so that Giovanna could better feel the Spirit. I guess it worked, because now she is getting baptized! It is such an awesome experience to see people's faces when they hear that they can have a fresh start. Her Baptism will be the day before Easter.
Wednesday: in the morning on our way out the door, a man stopped in his car and rolled down his window and asked where we were heading that day. We told him to Kilgore. He then expressed that he admires what we do everyday and told us to keep "preaching that word". Everyone says that out here. "I gotta get me some word!" It is so funny. "And then I found the Hooooly Ghost!" Its pretty humorous. We went to go to a potential investigators house to talk about the BoM, but as we were driving there, we saw her walking on the road! So we parked our car and literally ran her down! She wasnt interested, but it was pretty hilarious sprinting up to her haha.
Thursday: we had one of the worst lessons i have ever had. It was one of those lessons where someone trusts more what they think than what they feel. The whole lesson got nowhere and her mind was denying her of feeling the spirit. The lesson wore us out and all we wanted to do was sleep. It is a sad story. Thursday night however, we had two skype lessons with Lucero and Giovanna! Lucero is just a golden investigator. She is growing so fast and really wants to join the church. We taught her about faith. She told me my spanish is getting so much better, so that made me feel good. Giovanna however is a little more shy, so it is hard to truly know what she is thinking or feeling. We taught her about the law of chastity. Afterwards we asked her to say the closing prayer, and that was the MOST heartfelt and sweet prayer i have ever heard. She thanked God for her missionaries and for the law of chastity! She asked for help in keeping the law of chastity, AND she asked to help her prepare for her baptism! It was such an awesome prayer.
Friday: longest day of my mission to this point haha. The morning was just really slow. I finally finished setting up my facebook! So I made my first post and went on my way. All of our appointments fell through, so we went and knocked doors. Knocking doors is SO ineffective. We got no where. Just two and a half hours of straight door knocking with mosquitos biting us. Everyone that would talk with us just wanted to bible bash. Which by the way, if anyone is interested, go look for the talk "why 1820" by Hyrum W Smith. He goes through each religion and talks about why it is false and where it originated. Then he talks about why the gospel had to be restored in 1820. Not earlier or later. It is a cool talk. He really throws down.
Saturday: we placed 5 copies of the Book of Mormon! It was a very successful day. We had lessons with Giovanna and Lucero, both of which are just accelerating towards the baptismal font. We also contacted this guy named Sean in english. He was a little drunk, but alcohol brings out the deepest parts of people. He talked to us about how his sister was hit by a truck and died. We taught him more about the Book of Mormon and how we can see are families again in the afterlife and he accepted to see the missionaries again. So we referred him over to the English missionaries. Guess what happened on Saturday night? Rodrigo got a baptismal date. Rodrigo is a 9 year old boy in a semi-active family. His parents have been super flakey about baptism for Rodrigo and would not set a date, but we finally got one out of them. That means that in my first two weeks as a missionary, i have 3 baptismal dates! That is unheard of. LUCERO, GIOVANNA, AND RODRIGO. Uno, dos, tres.
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| Elder Bullough on Elder Street |
Sunday: Sunday was cool. Lucero came to church and brought her younger sister Yeanette! Lucero is going to be such a strong member. After church we went down south to Henderson to give a blessing to a boy in the branch who got in a bike accident and broke his arm and dislocated his shoulder. Pretty sad story. After the blessing we went and taught a lesson to a potential investigator named Hector. He said his family is having some health issues right now, but that he would come to church in a couple of weeks! It is super exciting.
Well, that was my week. I love it out here in East Texas. It is beautiful. Food is pretty good. I eat lots of rice and tortillas. I love agua de Melón so much. It is cantaloupe water. My companion and I get along great. We are working hard. Our zone has 27 baptismal dates. That is crazy. We are really loving just Preaching that Word.
Here are some pictures! We have this member who has neighbors with a Virgin Mary shrine outside their house. Weirdest thing to me haha. They also have a black Santa Claus that I found funny. I also took a picture with the street sign for Elder St. And then I posted the "I believe" picture on facebook, but here are mine and my companion's.I love you all,
Elder Bullough
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