Nov. 11th, 2013

Man so this week there isn't a ton with our investigators so I would instead like to spend some time just sharing some experiences I have had this week. So first of all we had 3 day leadership training and I had to go live in McAllen for 3 days and sleep there and work there and stuff with a super young missionary named Elder Knighton. Most of the day however we spent in a chapel receiving training after training and doing role play after role play so that we can learn stuff about being missionaries and stuff. It was nuts and although being in a chapel pew from 9 am to 5 pm isn't the most fun thing in the world we learned just a ridiculous amount of things from our leaders. Each set of ZL's and the AP's and the Mission President spent time teaching us about something and I think the one that hit me the hardest was the AP's. They did this thing where they took a big thing of yarn and stretched it from the pulpit all the way to the back of the gym so it was long. Then they took an expo marker and marked a tiny dot on the yarn to represent our lives in eternity. They then spoke of the pre-existence and how God presented his plan to us and how we were called to find certain people and help them in this life etc. They told this fictitious story of this guy named Tommy who was going to come to the world and not receive the Gospel until he was 24. God told Tommy who was going to come and find him and help him and then 24 years later the missionaries plan they pray they go to the place where Tommy is going to be. Tommy walks out of his house to his car....and the missionaries walk right past him and he never gets the Gospel and that decision affects him for all eternity. Like a sledgehammer to my soul man, I thought of all the people that I walked by without teaching something because I was scared or they looked "too busy" or whatever and I felt bad. So I promised myself that I would do better. Well, that night I was with Elder Knighton and we tried talking to everyone and then it came to be like 8:45ish and we were walking back to the car and then this young man comes out of his house and to his car and I told Elder Knighton that we had to go talk to him. Elder K had no idea why he wasn't at the training but I insisted and we spoke to him. His name isn't Tommy, it's Guillermo remember we are in South Texas. However Guillermo has been looking for Gospel answers and there we were. How sweet was that!?

Second cool experience happened Saturday. The area had been dead because I was out of the area for most of the week and we hadn't found a new soul to teach and we caught wind from a member that there was someone in Lyford who was talking about wanting the missionaries to come and teach her. So we took the last name we had, because we didn't have a first name, and we had a little town and nothing else but it was the lead that we had to we planned to be there and we told God we were going to be there and that we needed his help and that we weren't leaving until we found the Family we were supposed to find. So we start walking and it is already dark here at 6 and everyone shuts down at dark here and we start knocking doors and talking to people and asking about the Martinez family. Now no one seems to know the freaking Martinez family but we kept going until we came to a fork in the road. I had been left once so we decided to go right and we stopped in front of this dark house and decided the worst thing that could happen was a big pitbull attack so we knocked. And, well pitbulls attacked us....just kidding what happened was this young girl like 19 I think opens the door. Snake bite piercing but earrings, tattoos, a bob marley shirt and a baby in the oven with a big knife in hand. I was scared and at first I thought to myself, Here we go again. Her name is Karen and her and her mother Abigail and her sister Rosa and her brother Luis want to be baptized on the 8th of December....It was incredible. We were able to tell them that we had asked God to take us to the family that needed us and that they were to first to let us in. The spirit bore witness to me that they were who we were there to find. They didn't know the Martinez family either. So when we left the house the family thanked us genuinely for having come by and asked that we come by Tuesday. Then we left the home and a police officer stopped us while we were walking and asked us to leave. So we did, but not a moment too soon for we had found the prepared family. It was nuts.

This week I learned about a few things. About obedience and how obedience is what brings blessings but more that anything I learned about how when we make plans to do something or we make a decision we must take it to the Lord and ask for his help. As we do this the Lord can show us his will and bless us with the things that we need. Had we told God we were going to be in Lyford at 6 and that we needed his help there but then went to San Perlita we wouldn't have been blessed the way he blessed us. The Lord is awesome and wants to help us so we should be sure we keep him "Up to date" on our plans. I love this mission a lot. I love you all and Miss you.

Elder Justin Bassett