Snake in the Grass

Well another week is over already. It seemed to drag on and on forever but in reality it went by pretty quick. It's amazing how quick the night seems to come on every day. And it has cooled down so that has been a blessing.

Monday we didn't do much. We went to the mall. I tried to barter some sweet cologne from one of those stands. She started at 84 and we worked it down to 39. It smelled so sweet. I woulda bought it if I had been home or anywhere else. I think it was the tie that was doing all the work. Really was a pretty boring P day. We don't really have anywhere fun to go and do stuff. And it's with the sisters, so it's like I don't want to go out and look like a date... Yeah. It's sorta weird. It's almost similar to a date, but it's more like a business meeting... I don't know how to have normal conversations anymore so that helps keep it real!

Tuesday it was the start of the rain! It dumped on our little neck of the woods all week. Now.. I have learned that just because it is raining doesn't mean that it is necessarily cold. Doesn't make sense at all but yeah. So if I am wearing my jacket, which was meant for Utah I get kept dry from the rain but my body is drenched in sweat. Haha a no win. But it was cool so whatever! (No mom I don't need a new jacket:) ) We had a sweet lesson with Gloria, a member's cousin. She is going to get baptized eventually and we had a good lesson about the Levitcal Priesthood and how that interconnects with the greater priesthood. And the restoration was in there too. It was a great lesson. Well we found out later that it was anyway, the member told us that we answered all of her questions and that she was super excited about it all. That is perfect because I have no idea what I was talking about sometimes. OH! we also had District meeting. It was ok. Just basically a meeting but after we went to this burger joint named Chesters and a member bought all of our food for us! Super awesome! So we sat there 6 of us and there wasn't a whole lot of conversation then slowly one by one we all started the ohs and the ahs that come with Sportscenter highlights. Yep. We all watched about a half hour of sportscenter.. It was glorious. I wish the Yanks were doing better, and my Eagles could win a couple more games!

Wednesday was back to the grind. We had to go and email this survey because Elder Golden Jr. is coming in November, he gave that talk about the Father and The Son last general conference which was awesome. I really enjoyed it. So we had to bike like an hour to get up here. It was a long day. But toward the end we got to teach a lesson to this family. The Magana's. She is a widow and has 4 kids. We taught the plan and by the end they were all in tears because the pirit was so strong. They didn't come to church.. So I guess we will have to see what happened, but it was a great lesson. I really like them alot. We stepped outside and the minute we did the heavens unleashed. The thing about San Antonio is that the ground is so hard that the water all stays around and floods all the streets so we were biking in like mid calf water. It was terrible. I have never been so wet in my entire life. Worse than the last time that we got soaked. Not fun. But whatever it was worth it. We just undressed outside and went about our buisness. People think that we are nuts. Well in reality we might be. So... yeah.

Thursday was weekly planning. I woke up in a kinda fog and just felt down all day, so weekly planning was less than successful. Whatever. We will see how that goes. If anybody wants to know, weekly planning is basically the longest three hours of your life. It is like watching a golf tournament, knowing who is going to win, how they are going to win, and that the whole thing is going to be nullified by a steroid scandal. But you still have to watch it. That is sorta how I feel about weekly planning. Whatever though. So then we were going to bless a LA house and then he canceled on us, luckily we went to the Sherrils my favorite members and they fed us some Pizza and wings. Yep it was good. Made the night worth it. We biked back up to Schertz and ended up knocking into one of our potentials who let us in! Turns out she is a closet member and has been in hiding for years. We taught the whole family the Plan, it was super fun, and after I asked her daughter how she felt about it and she said, "It gives me hope. I always thought it was one and done!" Yeah. The plan is the best part of the gospel. If I had to pick a favorite that would be it. It was a great lesson, we have another appointment with them tomorrow.

Friday was eventful again. We woke up and guess what? Our fridge stopped working. All of our food was warm and yep. That sucks! So we called the office and we had to through tons of stuff away. It was no bueno. We got it fixed and they reimbursed us, which is great... Except that we don't have a car and stuff, so we had to eat out all of our meals. Gross. I just feel like Super Sized missionary style. Not fun. So after dealing with that for a while we went out and had a great conversation with one of our investigator families who is going on CNN. Found out that they weren't married and that they can't really do anything about it because the wife isn't divorced. That would have been great info the first time. So we talked about crazy food that we all wanted to try and left. Cool family though. Hopefully they will get baptized because he is a DJ and I could probably use his services and sometime in the next 5 years... District meetings don't quite count. Whatever. We taught another guy that day. I am so sick of fact seekers. I hate it. I didn't even want to be there and made that clear, but he wanted to tell us all about the bible being translated and that we could trust it. Yes sir... I do trust it. As a matter of fact, I actually follow what it says. BUT that would have been rude to say so instead, I played with some toys while Elder Dayton listened to this guy for the last half of the lesson. Really nice guy and we will be great friends. Just has to learn that Faith is a principle that cannot be overcome with any amount of factual evidence.

Saturday was bizarre. We went and helped a family move and so usually we have pizza, but they decided to spice it all up and get some good ole tacos. Texas style. So we went with an RM his non member friend (Who I am real good friends with) and us. The Rm taught the entire Resto lesson in the drive through at Taco Cabana. It was awesome! The spirit was really strong the entire time. He even let us give the Moroni Challenge. And we got 24 tacos and a large lemonade. It was fun. We went back and did some more studies after having some "Bonifide Fried Chicken" from our friendly neighbors Popeye's and yeah. Then like 2 hours later the Gorton's took us to go get some Red Robins. I had a sweet whiskey BBQ burger and a Brownie in a martini glass. They also sat us right next to the bar... Not sure why.. Mormons and a bar. Whatever it was cool. So I tell you what we ate that day for this next part to make sense. We were running late to an appointment and we had to have the Gortons drop us off at our appointment. It is like 6 or 7 miles away from home. But we figured it would be worth it if our investigator was there. He wasn't. We called and everything. But nothing he just vanished and so had our members at this point to. Now apparently the combination of nothing but fried Chicken and burgers for two days but Elder Dayton's stomach into a sense of Apostasy. It decided that it was going to reject the food. The only problem was that he had no where to go! So we had to book it like a mile and he was just like hyperventilating the whole time trying to hold himself together for both of our sakes and we had to go use and investigators house. He was there a while. I had enough time to get there whole day and everything small talkish and then they wanted me to watch a good section of "Undercover Boss" with them.. It was a long bathroom break. I was laughing hysterically the entire time though. When we walked out the door we were walking back down the street and a truck stopped at a stop sign and he asked if we wanted waters. We said sure why not! and then went over there. The only thing he had was like beer and Mike's Hard lemonade. So we had to turn him down, so he told us to wait he drove home got us tamales, capri suns and water. He pulled up with a cigarette in is hand and said,"I'm a christian and so are you, thank you for what you do! Sit right there and take a dinner break." He drove away. Pedro is an awesome guy. Hopefully we see him again. Then we finished that and still had like 5 miles to go in about an hour. So we figured we had to book it. Yeah. On the way there was an old guy that was flirting with some old lady in her car and he was on his bike blasting some lovey country song. Heck it was weird. But the epitome of Texas. We kept walking on and walked down this deserted street. I mentioned to Elder Dayton how bad it would be if we just saw a rattle snake when we started because it was so dark. Yep bet you can already tell where this is all going.... So we started walking through some weeds and cars are zipping past us left and right, super sketchy so we are off on the side. No cars came for a while so we were just talking back and forth and then way off in the distance a car started to come, and as soon as the headlights started to illuminate our path, Boom. Rattlesnake like a foot in front of us. Elder Dayton screamed "Oh. My. Hell!!!!" (In reference to the biblical symbolism of the snake... Whatever. He swore.) Then ran off to the left of it. I however had no where to go so I like jumped over it as far as I could to the right and took off running like a convict. We were screaming and yelling, he yelled at me to get out of the bushes and I finally jumped out of them. (I shoud interject here, Elder Funk HATES snakes..no REALLY hates snakes)It was terrible we just ran and ran until finally the car whose lights had shone on us caught up to us. It was this African American lady who we had talked to the day before! She was super sweet and with her husband so they picked us up and drove us home. I was terrified. I would much rather get hit by a car then see another snake.

Sunday was boring old sunday. The Taco Cabana kid came and said "Ya know out of all the churches I have gone to yours is the only one that feels good." we laughed and just told him because it is true!! So hopefully he can come around soon. Neat kid. Nathan.. haha love him to death. That was basically it. We had a dinner and the kids ended up fighting like the entire time to teenagers. They kept trying to tell us inappropriate stuff about Chimney rock I guess, and when we went to grab our scriptures for the thought you could tell the mother threatened them within an inch of their lives. Yeah they are probably still hurting from the whooping they got, but I thought that it was just like home! haha

That was basically my week. Just plugging right along.We are doing well. Elder Dayton and I are like BFF's. He has extreme OCD but pretty cool other than that. We complain about alot so yeah.. nice to have a complainer with me! Fun stuff. I don't know. Basically just the same old stuff. Different day. The trick is to endure to the end!
Remember who you are and what He stands for!
Elder Paul Funk