CELEBRATING my ONE YEAR MARK!!

This week has been GREAT! Tuesday we drove to transfer meeting and i was able to visit with lots of missionaries that I just miss so much! I was also able to get my new companion... Elder Ricks! He is from Lindon Utah right next to Provo. Throughout my whole mission i haven't really had missionaries that i haven't really gotten along with but i love my companion and he is so much fun to work with and we can get along just great! So after leaving transfer meeting we headed down to Duncanville my new area! On the way we were super hungry so we ate at this place called Burguesa burger which is in oak cliff which is a very sketchy part of town. but this place was a Mexican burger joint and they made very good burgers! We got to our apartment and i got settled in and unpacked some of my stuff and guess what i sleep on.... a water bed! hahaha! oh man that was funny! its pretty comfortable too! The rest of the day we went out and worked and talked to lots of people!

Wednesday we had district meeting at the church and Elder Ricks is the new district leader so he gave his first official training and it went great! There is also a senior couple that is in our District and they are from Nampa, Idaho! So i was able to talk with them for a while and found out that they graduated from Meridian High long ago! They said about a 100 years ago.. that was funny. Our ward mission leader is out of town with his wife Right now so we are house sitting for him and we have to water all of his plants and also pick the tomatoes out of his garden.. that reminds me of working in our garden back home. We had weekly planning Thursday and that was a good way for me to learn more about the area and the people we are teaching. Later that night we went to teach on of our investigators. Her name is Sandra Rogers and she lives off a street called Gannon Ln. which is a very rough part of our area.. She is a black lady who had no toes on her left foot and she has 4 teeth and is super humble! A couple of weeks ago the missionaries shared the stop smoking program with her and she has been smoke free for over 2 weeks now.

Friday we mowed our ward mission leaders lawn and then we went out for the day trying to visit some less active people and we also dropped by some referrals that we had.. on of the referrals was growing a marijuana plant outside on his front doorstep! That just tells you the kind of area i am serving in now! We also had a lesson with another one of our investigators named Robert Good and we don't really know what we want to do with him because he says he knows the church is true and that the book of Mormon is true but he doesn't really put forth the effort in wanting to be baptized anytime soon! So that's the deal with him. Sunday was a great day at church.. I always love the first Sundays of being new in an area cause i get to meet new people.. The Mountain Creek Ward starts at 11 in the morning and we also cover a Young Single Adults Branch that meets at 1. So we are at church from 10 to 4 every Sunday. Well earlier this week my companion said.. "oh by the way.. we have to give talks in the singles ward this Sunday"! I have given so many talks on my mission its unreal! That is also the second time that has happened to me.. i get transferred to a new area and have to speak the following Sunday. It was a good talk though and i felt it went pretty good! It was about 98 degrees when we got out of church so we went home to change out of our suits and guess what!!! Our Air Conditioning broke!!!! it was 90 degrees in our apartment and there was no way i was going to be staying there that night! Good thing we are house sitting and so we just stayed at our ward mission leaders home last night.. Sweating in your own home unless you are working out is not fun!!! anyways that's how my week went! I reach my year mark this Friday! so exciting! time is flying by!

Here's my Address:

700 W. Center St. #264
Duncanville, TX 75116

Transfer to Duncanville

Last Monday we did the Juggernaut challenge like i told you we were going to do.. oh man it was ridiculous! 12 Scoops of Blue Bell Ice Cream and 6 toppings later i had the biggest stomach ache ever! The ones that tried eating one by themselves was Elder Howell, Bro. White, Scott Meager and me.. and the only ones that could finish it was Elder Howell and I.. Scott Meager was so close to finishing and then he just got up and ran to the restroom to throw up! It was pretty funny! Tuesday night we went into Scurry which is a really far part of our area that we don't go to very often! But we went down there and we went on member exchanges and i went to give a few blessings and teach the new member discussions to my convert Emma Drummond and Elder Howell went to teach another part member family in the ward.

Wednesday was a pretty fun day. We had a Specialized Training and so we drove into Dallas and got to see President Durrant and a ton of other missionaries! That was super fun! During the training everyone was asked to come prepared to give a 5 minute talk on (Revelation through prayer) so i got up cause they asked for volunteers and gave my talk.. i thought it was pretty good and i also used some notes from my talk last Sunday which was on having gratitude through prayer.. I really think that in order to receive revelation from our prayers.. we need to be grateful for the things we do have! During our lunch at our training we had a bracket set up for everyone that was there for a Free Throw contest.. That was really fun to see missionaries compete.. of course i didn't win but it was still fun:)

Thursday was quite an experience for me! We had a lesson that night back in Scurry with another part member family.. the Mcginnis'.. and we were also supposed to have dinner with them too... well when we get there she wasn't even there and only her friend Willy was there.. well since she forgot about us we started to leave and she showed up.. so we stayed and she made us dinner and we ended up teaching Willy.. We were supposed to teach her daughter too but she wasn't there.. well anyways.. we taught the restoration to willy and he had a lot of deep doctrine questions! But the weirdest thing he said was that he had the Gold Plates and he has had them for about 8 years now and he has been deciphering them since then. He said they are probably worth more than any of the gold in the world and that he wanted to meet President Monson to talk to him about them! It was quite a strange experience!

The rest of the week wasn't too awesome but we did get a phone call Saturday morning from the mission housing coordinator and he said.. "so you know how they are closing down your area" we had no idea that was happening.. but he also said.. "I'm coming to get some of your furniture" so he came and took our desks, dressers, and couch! So anyways.. we went about our day knowing we were going to be transferred.. but no one called us all day until Sunday morning! So they are closing down the Forney & Kaufman area and wont have missionaries in these wards for at least the summer is my guess.. because there is about 20 missionaries leaving this transfer and only about 10 coming in. so there is not enough missionaries going to be in the mission to fill the spots so they have to close down some areas for a while.. ever since i came to this area.. the Kaufman ward hadn't baptized in 2 years and Elder Howell and I baptized for them:)! So now my new area is going to be Duncanville which is south Dallas. Aka. The Ghetto! So No letters from anyone this week until i send my new address next week in my email. Thanks!

June 4, 2012

So my week was pretty full of fun and exciting stuff! My companion woke up Tuesday morning and could not speak at all.. He lost his voice and it was gone for 3 days! So during those 3 days i was doing all the Teaching, Talking at dinner appointments and sharing messages with everyone we see and talk to! Tuesday night we had our last lesson with Emma Drummond! I taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to her and i say i taught because my companion was speechless haha! After that lesson we stopped by a part-member family that i haven't met yet and instead of getting to know the non-member husband... His daughter kept talking to me and distracting me like saying.. look at my bruise and look at my toes and look at how much money my dad has in his wallet.. it was super annoying and i was a little irritated! ha!Wednesday Elder Howell wasn't feeling too well so we stayed in the apartment till about 2.. and then we went to visit Sister Melissa Turnbow who was recently inactive and has started coming back to church and now working her way back to the temple!

Thursday was weekly planning and after that we went down to a part of our area called Kaufman. We stopped by a family called the JJackson's and i guess she is a babysitter and when we walked up to the door a lady that was dropping her son off to be babysat came to the door and told sister Jackson's daughter that she would handle this.. and told us.. "i am spirit filled and i am a Pentecostal and you guys can go somewhere else" so i told her "That's great! and we are here to see the Jackson's not you!" So Leona the daughter said that her mom would be home in 5 minutes and we could try back then! So we came back 5 minutes later and had a good chat with Sis. Jackson while that lady gave us the stare down on the couch! it was pretty funny! After like 10 minutes the lady left to work.. i guess she didn't know that the Jackson's were LDS! I ended up giving the daughter Leona  a blessing of comfort cause she is going to Brazil with the foreign exchange student that lives with them.. The hardest part of the blessing was the daughters name. (Leona Jean Shanda Masheek Jackson) Crazy! As we got to know Sis. Jackson we found out that she is a convert and she loves the missionaries and the funny part of all of that is.. Her name is Beverly and her daughters nick-name is Pookie!!

Kaufman is the only part of our area that has a Wells Fargo so we stopped in so i could cash a check and there systems were down they couldn't look up my account number since i have no idea what it was.. so she asked me if she could call anyone that would know and i told her my Brother Shea since he is a Wells Fargo Personal Banker! so she calls up Shea and he got my number and of course he wanted to talk to me so i got to talk to him for a couple seconds! that was way cool! Friday we had a lesson with a guy named Jess Moore and he has gone through all the lessons before and knows the Book of Mormon is true but cant get past the fact that we only have one True Prophet and not many! so i don't know what to do with him.. Hes way cool though and does a lot of studying with different religions!

Saturday we had our Baptism for little Emma Drummond and that was way awesome! A big turn out too! She was confirmed the following morning in Sacrament meeting and that was so awesome to see and be apart of.. During Gospel Principles class we ended up having to leave church early cause i guess something was wrong with the sewage in the church and it backs up a couple times a year! So that was pretty lame to leave church early! I know y'all are thinking that.. the Dilan i know would have been super happy to leave church early back home.. but i can tell you that the new Dilan wasn't haha! Sunday night we had dinner with the Moreirras and they have 10 children! not all living at home but still a lot and their house was destroyed.. it was super nasty! i don't ever want to live like that! And last but not least we went to Anna Voss's house this morning and she is a CPR Instructor and i am now CPR Certified:)! Oh one more thing.. Our walls of our apartment are super thin and i woke up the other morning to our downstairs neighbor snoring like a freight train! haha!