You know you might be in Texas.....

Well hey Everybody!

So I guess I should start out with You know you might be in Texas when the Gospel Doctrine lesson is about how much meat we can eat in the Word of Wisdom. Let me tell ya. People love their beef down here! Sunday is a little different being on a mission but you always still have the interesting people! I love it! We didn't have any investigators come to church even though the one lady we are teaching right now we stopped by like an hour before and she told us that she was going to come and then didn't even show up! It was depressing. Then we got asked to pass the sacrament and we passed it about as well as the Cowboys play. We totally messed everything up. It was rough. So that was a good start we just kinda laughed it off and then went on with the day. The talks were good, except one lady I think took debate in high school and it showed. It was a good talk, but I was waiting for the pulpit pound. We went on to Gospel Doctrine because we didn't have many people at church and we, as previously stated, talked about beef. What made it better was that the teacher provided a 25 slide presentation for the lesson. Talk about preparation! He is a great teacher! However 5 of the slides were dedicated to how the word of wisdom tells us to not be vegetarians.. Which one guy in the audience took notice of and started arguing. It was funny. Elder Hughes just slept through the whole thing, but I enjoyed it, I just kept laughing with the Ward Mission Leader. He is like on of my best friends. Anyway we went on to combined and talked about missionary work which rebuked alot of the ward, but I think most of them were pretty checked out anyway. Haha it was all good though! We left church and hurried back to the apartment, to grab our bikes, Elder Hughes has had two flats most of the week and so we pump them up before we leave and then by the time we get to where we need we just pump them up again. However as he was pumping it up this time it decided to explode. It was SO LOUD. Both of our ears were ringing for like 30 minutes. It was crazy. Needless to say.. We had to walk the rest of the day. We went to dinner and at dinner the member invited his non member neighbor and the entire time called her tinkerbell because she fell of the roof. It was hilarious! Her name is Miss Jenny. She is a bit older but hilarious. He just kept telling her that one of these days he was going to get her to convert. It was a fun dinner. We had to walk back home which was like 5 miles away, we got a ride to dinner though so that wasn't to bad, but we went to finish and taught a less active which was way cool. He loves the church and we are going to baptize his neice on the 20th i think.

So back to Monday! We had our fun we went and played basketball and I owned this one Elder when he was going up for a shot. Just totally stuffed him. He is pretty tall and strong so everyone was like OH! So long story short, he didn't like that and he has kinda anger issues, so I think I have one less friend in the mission. But I'll change that. We also had a sweet lesson with a Recent Convert and his Non member wife. I taught basically all of it, Her name is Lita and she really likes me. We talked about Joesph Smith and I basically told her his life story, I was telling her about the times when angel Moroni appeared and a cord like struck within her and she thought that it was so cool. She couldn't get over that no one had told her that before. I love her. Haha, One of these days we will get her into the font.

Tuesday was a long day, it felt like we got nothing done. we went and got a patch repair kit (which didn't help as you can see from above) and then we went and saw an older member who has a handicapped daughter who loves music. I used my poor piano skills to play a couple of hymns and they loved it. He had an accordion and pulled it out and before I knew it he strapped it on me and I played We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet. They both loved it so much. Haha it was neat because I had never played the accordion before. But it was fun. We had dinner with a member and knocked around. Elder Hughes has been sorta down this week, he got really homesick and just is missing his family because they always go to lake powell on the 4th of July. So that has been kinda tough.

Wednesday we found a super neat family named the Garcia's, I walked up the street to go knock on some doors and Elder Hughes said that he didn't want to knock the street but he just got mad and followed, so we went and knocked on like three doors and then a man opened the door and I introduced myself and He asked what I wanted and I said "Well to come in and share a message about Christ with ya sir." He was super cool and we taught the whole First lesson to him and his wife. They had never met mormons before, which was really bizarre but cool. We got a return appointment for next week and it should be so great to go back. I'm glad I listened to a prompting and had the desire for the work so that we could find some new investigators. I know they are out there, it is just a matter of where! The Holy Ghost will direct you on which way you need to go to find people and he will in every aspect of your life if you let him. I know that's true. We also had District meeting. We have a bunch of people in our district and so that is nice! we have 6 Elders and 3 sisters. It's better then the 4 elders we had, because I had to train like every week, but now I can learn from different view points.

Thursday was weekly planning. It was long. But we got to some service after for a widow and I know that she really appreciated it so it made everything worth it. I liked it. We clipped some trees and hedges and stuff. I am becoming quite the gardener out here!! We also had dinner with a lady from England so that was fun. She is hilarious. She told us about a missionary that died It was like her husbands nephews friend or something. Anyway sad. We will be praying for his family. After we went and got a blessing from Brother Viens for Elder Hughes. It helped him quite a bit, It was neat to see the priesthood in action like that because before hand he had no idea what the blessing was for but he nailed it right on the head.  Priesthood is real.

Friday was another long day. Elder Hughes got mad because I told him that I thought we were going to do service in our pros clothes because we had to bike like 6 miles to get there. So he was mad, but we helped someone move out for like 4 hours. It was fun, but boy was he mad about being in his expensive clothes. hahahaha.

Saturday was so. hot. It was 108 with 100% humidity I think I have said that like 100 times but it was awful. We just kinda sucked it up and went for it. I have never drank so much water in my life. We were chugging water bottles but I think it was just passing right through into sweat. Staying hydrated is so hard. We did get to see alot of people. I talk to everyone I see, no matter how awkward, because well, I am just awkward sometimes but this old lady I walked up to talk to here as she was opening her garage I said "Hi Ma'am! How are you?" She turned saw who I was and quickly tried to get away. So much so that she didn't wait for the garage door to open all the way, and smacked her head right on it. It was sad, but at least she probably learned to say Hi next time. That experience summed up the day. I think we had a span of 17 or so people in a row that wouldn't give us the time of day. It is all good though! haha It is days like that where you lean to appreciate the good ones!

Well President Jones is gone. I love that man so much. It was so neat to have been able to have him as my mission president. I love him. He was a perfect example of giving a 100% and not expecting anything in return for it. I love his wife and all of his family. I pray for them everyday that they can be blessed for what they did here in the greatest mission on earth.

President Slaughter is here now and I get to meet him tomorrow! We also have Zone Conference on Wednesday and so that should be great! I can't wait.

Well the church really is so true. I found a neat scripture this week that has been my theme it says : "'For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Romans 5:19 How true that rings to me and for all in the world. Be the light on the shore.

Remember who you are and what He stands for!

Elder Paul Robert Funk